Houston embracing underdog role, but Kentucky has a chip on its shoulder too

Kentucky is only a three-point favorite in tomorrow’s game vs. Houston, but judging by the way the Cougars talk, the Cats are favored by a million. Today’s locker room opportunities might as well have been the battle of the underdogs, with Houston’s players claiming nobody is picking them to win and Kentucky’s players claiming that no one (outside of the Commonwealth) wants them to.

“I’m looking forward to this game,” Houston senior forward Breaon Brady said. “Despite what the people outside of this room think, it’s going to be a good game.”

Brady didn’t stop there, giving the Cats the closest thing we got to trash talk all day.

“Out of 352 schools, everybody can be beaten and they are just another team. We’re not playing ‘Kentucky,’ we’re playing (Ashton) Hagans, Reid Travis and (PJ) Washington. At the end of the day, if we stick to our principles, it’s going to be a good game and the world’s going to see what’s going to happen.”

On the flip side, plenty are doubting Kentucky right now given the uncertainty surrounding PJ Washington’s foot, which Ashton Hagans said is the norm going back to the Cats’ season-opening loss to Duke.

“That’s any other game. We always get overlooked, so it’s nothing new. We’ve been going through this all year. At the beginning of the season, that’s probably the biggest time they overlooked us. We’re not worried about none of that. We know what we’re capable of. We’ve just got to go out there and play our game.”

Immanuel Quickley pointed out that the target on Kentucky’s back all season has put a chip on their shoulder as well.

“Everybody pretty much this season we’ve played has considered themselves an underdog or ready to go at Kentucky, but I think we kind of consider ourselves an underdog too. Nobody really wants us to win as well, so we’ve just gotta come out ready to play.”

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