Silver Lining: Sweeps are Rare in Kentucky-Louisville Rivalry

Losing to Louisville sucks. There’s no way to spin it. However, I’m an optimist who refuses to avoid silver linings at any opportunity. That is why I’m here to tell you that the loss to the Cards could spell good fortune for Kentucky in the near future.

Kentucky and Louisville played on the hardwood before their annual meeting on the gridiron. That felt weird and wrong for so many reasons. However, the good news is that Louisville fans may only have two weeks to celebrate their basketball victory.

There are reasons to believe Mark Stoops‘ team can pull off the upset at Don’t-Call-Me-Papa-John’s Stadium. The Wildcats are heating up late in the season, just as the Cards stubbed their toe against Cal. Their star player, Isaac Brown, missed that game and may be too injured to return. The Cards host Clemson and travel to SMU before the Governor’s Cup is back on the line.

Set all of the actual analysis aside for a moment. History tells us that there is a very slim chance Louisville will be able to secure wins over Kentucky in basketball and football.

Since the Governor’s Cup was created in 1994, Louisville has defeated Kentucky in basketball and football only twice in 30 tries (6.7% of the time). I planned on creating a table to illustrate this, but it’s pointless with such a small sample size. The two times the Cards swept the Cats in both sports:

2003: Bobby Petrino was victorious in his debut over a 4-win Kentucky team. Pitino scored a big upset at Rupp Arena, handing UK one of only four regular season losses for the SEC Champs, who earned the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

2012: Louisville beat Kentucky in Joker Phillips’ final season, the same one that ended for John Calipari with an NIT loss at Robert Morris. Congrats.

Even though it cannot happen this year, Kentucky has three times as many sweeps in this series. Over the last three decades, the Wildcats have swept the Cards 20% of the time.

Year	Basketball Result	Football Result
2023	No. 9 UK 95, UofL 76	UK 38, No. 9 UofL 31
2022	No. 19 UK 86, UofL 63	UK 26, UofL 13
2019	No. 19 UK 78, No. 3 UofL 70 (OT)	UK 45, UofL 13
2018	No. 16 UK 71, UofL 58	No. 17 UK 56, UofL 10
2010	No. 11 UK 78, No. 22 UofL 63	UK 23, UofL 16
2009	No. 3 UK 71, UofL 63	UK 31, UofL 27

Mark Stoops has won six of the last eight Governor’s Cups. If history has a say, Kentucky is going to shake off basketball rivalry woes with a win on Floyd Street that will send the football team back to the postseason.

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