Kentucky assistant coach calls out fans for chanting 'overrated' during win over Tennessee
If you’ll permit me to rant for a second, my college roommate Robert and I were always confused when fans would chant “overrated” at a team they were about to beat.
If you’re ranked lower than a team you’re playing, you should want that other team to be ranked as high as possible. Then, when you beat them, you should want to jump them in the rankings, sure, but you don’t want them to drop too much. That way, your win looks even better and stronger in the eyes of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee.
It seems Kentucky assistant coach Kenny Payne agrees with Robert and me, as he said fans shouldn’t have been chanting “overrated” as the Wildcats beat No. 1 Tennessee on Saturday night:
Kenny Payne on students chanting “overrated” at Tennessee on Saturday: “We’re Kentucky. We don’t have to do that. We don’t have to talk about a team being overrated. They do it to us but we’re not going to do it to them.”
— Tyler Thompson (@MrsTylerKSR) February 18, 2019
Head coach John Calipari agrees with Payne’s stance, too, and he even tried to silence fans during the game.
Kentucky moved up to No. 5 in Monday’s AP Poll after the win. Tennessee, meanwhile, fell to No. 5. A rematch is scheduled to take place in Knoxville on March 2.