Not having a home crowd hurts us more than most other teams.
In a normal year, a team steps into Rupp and feels the crowd against them and it adds pressure. On the other hand, our kids feel a boost. These young kids have no one to lift them up when the game gets hard, like they would in a normal year.
Now take away the crowd and the advantage goes to the other team that is energized to play against Kentucky and prove themselves and there is no pressure put on them from the crowd.
It remains to be seen whether not having crowds against us on the road matters or not. The other teams still looks at the Kentucky on the jersey and is still motivated to prove themselves against the best, so they still have that advantage regardless of where it is played.
It is true that this pandemic has impacted every team, but it hasn’t impacted every team equally. I think UK is at a disadvantage because of several circumstances that the pandemic has just made worse.