Of course these are the officials for the UK-UL game...

Go ahead and take your ibuprofen now, you’re gonna need it after the 10th team foul in the first four minutes…

When the Kentucky Wildcats Men’s Basketball Team makes the short drive up I-64 to take on the Louisville Cardinals this Saturday, some familiar names will be roaming the sidelines with whistles in hand.

According to Louisville Sports Live, the officials for the in-state rivalry will be Ted “TV Teddy” Valentine, Doug Shows, and Ron Groover.

Officials for UofL-UK:
Ron Groover
TV Teddy
Doug Shows

— Louisville Sports Live (@LvilleSprtsLive) December 23, 2020

TV Teddy and Doug Shows. Ugh.

I’m sure Ron Groover is a nice guy (Kentucky is actually 37-10 in games he has officiated, per bigbluehistory.net), but he’s grouped together with two of college basketball’s most infamous referees for a high-intensity rivalry. In that case, Groover might actually be the voice of reason amongst the group.

If you aren’t too familiar with Valentine or Shows, just know they don’t exactly have sparkling reputations among the Big Blue Nation (or college basketball, in general) fanbase.

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John Calipari has been hit with more than a few technical foul calls from Shows (at least five from Shows directly, per bigbluehistory.net) during the head coach’s tenure in Lexington, while Valentine does things such as this on a seemingly regular basis.

TV Teddy is a savage for this 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/j4ci5RR67z

— Bradley McKee (@Bradley_B_Roll) December 23, 2020

Ted Valentine is not interested in what Joel Berry has to say pic.twitter.com/j1XlpIEhLC

— InsideCarolina (@InsideCarolina) January 4, 2018

TV Teddy is one of those referees who has a “controversies” tab under his Wikipedia page.

Kentucky needs a win over Lousiville in the worst way possible following a historically bad 1-5 start and the resulting situation with Cam’Ron Fletcher leaving the program. Beating a 5-1 Cardinals team would be the perfect way to right the ship heading into SEC play. They just need to do it without ticking off the people in stripes too much.

Is it possible for both teams to lose? If so, it might happen on Saturday.