Lexington bar selling 'Fire Cal' shots after Kentucky, John Calipari fall in NCAA Tournament
Most in Lexington are taking Kentucky’s loss to Oakland in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday pretty hard, and coping in mysterious ways.
The oldest bar in Lexington, the Chevy Chase Inn, is using their disappointment as an opportunity to drive business, it seems. As the Wildcats are forced to watch March Madness unravel without them once again, they’re offering a “FireCal” shot, an evident jab at Kentucky leader John Calipari.
Check out the video of the announcement below, shared to X (formerly known as Twitter) by Grant Peters of Mercury.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Chevy Chase Inn, Lexington, Kentucky’s oldest bar, where we’ve been cheering on the Kentucky Wildcats for over 90 years. Usually, this is when we’re celebrating March Madness. Once again this year, celebrating March Sadness,” the promoter in the video said. “And with any good celebration, you’ve got to have a drink. So this year, we’ve got the FireCal shot. You know, it just makes sense.
“So, we invite everybody to come down during March Sadness, and come FireCal with us, and we’ll see what happens. But, I think it’s time, that we all FireCal. And hey Mitch Barnhart, first one is on me. Shots fired. Oh God, it’s almost as bad as Cal’s coaching.”
Alas, you can’t blame the Chevy Chase Inn for their promotion. They’re simply vocalizing the feelings of a ton of Kentucky fans at the moment, who are over the constant disappointment in March over the last couple of seasons.
We’ll see if the groundswell leads to any change for the Wildcats. At the least, it’ll bring in some more business for the Chevy Chase Inn, which is certainly never a bad thing. Bottoms up,
Seth Greenberg calls for John Calipari to return to Kentucky, abandon ‘Swaggy Cal’ mantra
Meanwhile, John Calipari doesn’t have many defenders following Kentucky’s loss to Oakland in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, a result that was the latest shortcoming of the program over the past half decade. Seth Greenberg remains in his corner, though, so long as he gets back to a persona that he thinks that he has been missing.
Greenberg joined ‘Get Up’ on the morning after the 80-76 defeat for the Wildcats to end their season at 23-10 and keep them out of the second weekend of March Madness for the fifth straight year. In his opinion, Calipari should remain as the head coach of the programbut only if he shifts from less swaggy to more classic Cal.
“Coach Cal needs to be the coach of Kentucky but he has got to get back to old-school Coach Cal,” Greenberg said. “Right now, he’s ‘Swaggy Cal,’ They had no defensive identity this year. They didn’t compete at the level his UMass teams competed at. His Memphis teams competed at, his Kentucky early teams competed at.
“Old-school Cal? He drew a line in the sand every single game. Old-school Cal? They rebounded. Old-school Cal? They defended. Old-school Cal? They were physical. Old-school Cal? They had a chip on their shoulder. This team doesn’t have that DNA. They didn’t have that toughness that the really good John Calipari teams had.”
Defensive issues have contributed to Kentucky’s falloff in the 2020s, especially this season. After posting several top defenses in his career and over his first decade in Lexington, the past four years aren’t close to that. That was specifically so this year as they gave up an average of 79.7 points per game.
Calipari has his phrases and and approach that can often impress on the recruiting trail but frustrate everyone else, especially after defeats such as this. That’s why Greenberg wants him to get back to his best which, in his mind, a foundation that’s focused more on defense than anything else.
On3’s Sam Gillenwater contributed to this article.