Kentucky-Louisville rivalry - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Comparison of the two universities
School	University of Kentucky University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...	University of Louisville University of Louisville The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...
Logo
Ownership	Commonwealth of Kentucky Kentucky The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...	Commonwealth of Kentucky Kentucky The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
Location	Lexington, KY Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...	Louisville, KY Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
Conference	Southeastern Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...	Big East
Students	27,209	21,841
School Colors	Blue Blue Blue is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nm. It is considered one of the additive primary colours. On the HSV Colour Wheel, the complement of blue is yellow; that is, a colour corresponding to an equal... & White White White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...	Red Red Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths of light discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm. Longer wavelengths than this are called infrared , and cannot be seen by the naked eye... & Black Black Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
Nickname	Wildcats Kentucky Wildcats The Kentucky Wildcats are the men's and women's intercollegiate athletic squads of the University of Kentucky , a founding member of the Southeastern Conference...	Cardinals Louisville Cardinals The Louisville Cardinals are the athletic teams representing the University of Louisville. A member of the Big East Conference since 2005, they are known nationally as traditional powers in men's basketball, women's volleyball, and dance team...
Mascot(s)	Blue, The Wildcat, Scratch	Cardinal Bird Cardinal Bird (mascot) The Cardinal Bird is the mascot of the University of Louisville. The Cardinal was chosen as the mascot after 1913. It was selected the cardinal bird because it is the state bird of Kentucky. The school colors of black and red were adopted later....
Football Stadium	Commonwealth Stadium Commonwealth Stadium (Kentucky) Commonwealth Stadium is the name of a stadium in Lexington, Kentucky, USA. This stadium, named for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is located on the campus of the University of Kentucky and is the home field for the school's football team, replacing the smaller Stoll Field/McLean Stadium. The field...	Papa John's Cardinal Stadium Papa John's Cardinal Stadium Papa John's Cardinal Stadium is a football stadium located in Louisville, Kentucky, USA and serves as the home of the University of Louisville football program. It opened in 1998, making it the second-to-last football stadium in NCAA Division I-A to open in the 20th century, with SMU's Gerald J....
Basketball Arena	Rupp Arena Rupp Arena Rupp Arena is an arena located in downtown Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. Since its opening in 1976, it has been the centerpiece of Lexington Center, a convention and shopping facility owned by an arm of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, and serves as home court to the University of... (men) Memorial Coliseum (women)	KFC Yum! Center KFC Yum! Center The KFC Yum! Center is a US $238 million, 22,000-seat basketball and multipurpose arena that opened on October 10, 2010, on the Ohio River waterfront in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, on Main Street between Second and Third Streets. The project is part of a $450 million project that includes...

The Kentucky Wildcats

Kentucky Wildcats

The Kentucky Wildcats are the men's and women's intercollegiate athletic squads of the University of Kentucky , a founding member of the Southeastern Conference...

and Louisville Cardinals

Louisville Cardinals

The Louisville Cardinals are the athletic teams representing the University of Louisville. A member of the Big East Conference since 2005, they are known nationally as traditional powers in men's basketball, women's volleyball, and dance team...

, athletic programs for the most prominent universities in Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

, are intense sport rivals. The teams first played each other in 1912 (football) and 1913 (basketball) but both rivalries were largely dormant for several decades until the teams started playing regularly in the 1980s and 1990s. Historically, basketball has been the more important of the two rivalries but the football rivalry has also become more heated in recent years. The rivalry became even more intense after Rick Pitino

Rick Pitino

Rick Pitino is an American basketball coach. Since 2001, he has been the head coach at the University of Louisville. He has also served as head coach at Boston University, Providence College and the University of Kentucky, leading that program to the NCAA championship in 1996...

, former head basketball coach for Kentucky, became the coach of Louisville. The yearly men's basketball

College basketball

College basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....

game is called the Battle for the Bluegrass and the yearly football

College football

College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...

game is played for the Governor's Cup trophy

Governor's Cup (Kentucky)

The Governor's Cup is a trophy awarded to the victor of the annual college football game between the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville; it is also used as a reference to the rivalry itself. Though the teams first played in 1912 the Governor's Cup has been awarded every year...

. Many of the schools' other sports teams also play annually despite the fact that the teams are not in the same conference

Athletic conference

An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other at the professional, collegiate, or high school level. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller and smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels...

Background

The University of Kentucky

University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...

and the University of Louisville

University of Louisville

The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...

are the two largest universities in the state of Kentucky, the Wildcats being members of the Southeastern Conference

Southeastern Conference

The Southeastern Conference is an American college athletic conference that operates in the southeastern part of the United States. It is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama...

and the Cardinals being members of the Big East conference.

The University of Louisville was founded in 1798 as a municipally supported institution by the combination of two medical schools and a newly established law school

Louis D. Brandeis School of Law

The Louis D. Brandeis School of Law is the law school of the University of Louisville. Established in 1846, it is the oldest law school in Kentucky and the fifth oldest in the country in continuous operation. The law school is named after Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis, who served on the Supreme...

. It didn't join the state university system until 1970.

The University of Kentucky grew out of three prior institutions. Founded in 1780, Transylvania Seminary merged with Bacon College, later known as Kentucky University, in 1865. Due to concerns regarding a religious entity receiving a land grant under the Morrill Act, the university's agricultural and mechanical college was spun off as Kentucky A&M in 1878 as an independent, state-run institution. Kentucky A&M is now known as the University of Kentucky. Lexington Theological Seminary traces its roots to Bacon College, and Kentucky University changed its name to that of its oldest entity, Transylvania University in 1908 to avoid confusion with the University of Kentucky.

Basketball

Battle for the Bluegrass (basketball)
Kentucky Wildcats	Louisville Cardinals
Originated	1913
Continuity	Continuous since 1983
Overall series leader	Kentucky (28-14)
Modern series leader	Kentucky (19-11)
Current champion	Kentucky

Kentucky and Louisville first played against each other in 1913 but stopped playing each other in the 1920s. The rivalry was generally dormant with only occasional matchups until the teams met in the elite eight of the 1983 NCAA Tournament

1983 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament

The 1983 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 52 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 2, 1983, and ended with the championship game on April 4 at The Pit, then officially known...

. Since that year, the rivalry has been renewed and the two teams have met each year, usually in late December or early January. Kentucky leads the all-time basketball series with Louisville, 28 games to 14, and leads the modern series seventeen to eleven. In four tournament meetings, the teams are tied at two games apiece.

Date	Site	Winning team		Losing team		Series	Notes
1913-02-15	Lexington, KY Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...	Kentucky	34	Louisville	10	UK 1-0
1914-02-07	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	22	Louisville	17	UK 2-0
1914-03-03	Louisville, KY Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...	Kentucky	26	Louisville	13	UK 3-0
1915-01-23	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	18	Louisville	14	UK 4-0
1915-02-27	Louisville, KY	Louisville	26	Kentucky	15	UK 4-1
1916-02-12	Lexington, KY	Louisville	28	Kentucky	22	UK 4-2
1916-02-22	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	32	Louisville	24	UK 5-2
1922-01-17	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	38	Louisville	14	UK 6-2
1922-01-21	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	29	Louisville	22	UK 7-2
1948-03-27	New York City, NY New York City New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...	Kentucky	91	Louisville	57	UK 8-2
1951-03-20	Raleigh, NC Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...	Kentucky	79	Louisville	68	UK 9-2
1959-03-13	Evanston, IL Evanston, Illinois Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...	Louisville	76	Kentucky	61	UK 9-3
1983-03-26†	Knoxville, TN Knoxville, Tennessee Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...	Louisville	80	Kentucky	68	UK 9-4
1983-11-26	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	65	Louisville	44	UK 10-4
1984-03-22	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	72	Louisville	67	UK 11-4
1984-12-15	Louisville, KY	Louisville	71	Kentucky	64	UK 11-5
1985-12-28	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	69	Louisville	64	UK 12-5
1986-12-27	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	85	Louisville	51	UK 13-5
1987-12-12	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	76	Louisville	75	UK 14-5
1988-12-31	Louisville, KY	Louisville	97	Kentucky	75	UK 14-6
1989-12-30	Lexington, KY	Louisville	86	Kentucky	79	UK 14-7
1990-12-29	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	93	Louisville	85	UK 15-7
1991-12-28	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	103	Louisville	89	UK 16-7
1992-12-12	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	88	Louisville	68	UK 17-7
1993-11-27	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	78	Louisville	70	UK 18-7
1995-01-01	Louisville, KY	Louisville	88	Kentucky	86	UK 18-8
1995-12-23	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	89	Louisville	66	UK 19-8
1996-12-31	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	74	Louisville	54	UK 20-8
1997-12-27	Lexington, KY	Louisville	79	Kentucky	76	UK 20-9
1998-12-26	Louisville, KY	Louisville	83	Kentucky	74	UK 20-10
1999-12-18	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	76	Louisville	46	UK 21-10
2001-01-02	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	64	Louisville	62	UK 22-10
2001-12-29	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	82	Louisville	62	UK 23-10
2002-12-28	Louisville, KY	Louisville	81	Kentucky	63	UK 23-11
2003-12-27	Lexington, KY	Louisville	65	Kentucky	56	UK 23-12
2004-12-18	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	60	Louisville	58	UK 24-12
2005-12-17	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	73	Louisville	61	UK 25-12
2006-12-16	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	61	Louisville	49	UK 26-12
2008-01-05	Lexington, KY	Louisville	89	Kentucky	75	UK 26-13
2009-01-04	Louisville, KY	Louisville	74	Kentucky	71	UK 26-14
2010-01-03	Lexington, KY	Kentucky	71	Louisville	62	UK 27-14	\|
2010-12-31	Louisville, KY	Kentucky	78	Louisville	63	UK 28-14	\|

Kentucky victories are shaded ██ blue. Louisville victories shaded in ██ red. † indicates overtime. Numbers in parentheses indicate a team's Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

Top 25 rank at the time of the games.

Football

Governor's Cup (football)
Kentucky Wildcats Kentucky Wildcats football The Kentucky Wildcats football team is a college football program that competes in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and the East Division of the Southeastern Conference.-History:Paul "Bear" Bryant Era...	Louisville Cardinals Louisville Cardinals football The Louisville Cardinals football team represents the University of Louisville in college football as a member of the Big East Conference. Howard Schnellenberger started the program's rise to relevancy after winning the Miami Hurricanes' first national championship...
Originated	1912
Next meeting	2012-09-01
Continuity	Continuous since 1994
Overall series leader	Kentucky (14-10)
Modern series leader	Louisville (10-8)
Current champion	Louisville

Kentucky

Kentucky Wildcats football

The Kentucky Wildcats football team is a college football program that competes in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and the East Division of the Southeastern Conference.-History:Paul "Bear" Bryant Era...

and Louisville

Louisville Cardinals football

The Louisville Cardinals football team represents the University of Louisville in college football as a member of the Big East Conference. Howard Schnellenberger started the program's rise to relevancy after winning the Miami Hurricanes' first national championship...

first played each other in football in 1912. Kentucky dominated six meetings between the teams from 1912 until 1924, holding Louisville scoreless in all six games, after which the teams stopped playing. As the basketball rivalry intensified, the two teams began playing annually in 1994 after a 70-year dormancy. Kentucky leads the all-time football series with Louisville, 14 games to ten. In the modern series, Louisville leads Kentucky, ten games to eight.

Date	Site	Winning team		Losing team		Series
1912-10-28	Lexington Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...	Kentucky	41	Louisville	0	UK 1-0
1913-11-22	Louisville Louisville, Kentucky Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...	Kentucky	20	Louisville	0	UK 2-0
1914-11-14	Lexington	Kentucky	42	Louisville	0	UK 3-0
1915-11-06	Louisville	Kentucky	15	Louisville	0	UK 4-0
1922-10-14	Lexington	Kentucky	63	Louisville	0	UK 5-0
1924-10-04	Lexington	Kentucky	29	Louisville	0	UK 6-0
1994-09-03	Lexington	Kentucky	20	Louisville	14	UK 7-0
1995-09-02	Lexington	Louisville	13	Kentucky	10	UK 7-1
1996-08-31	Lexington	Louisville	38	Kentucky	14	UK 7-2
1997-08-30	Lexington	Kentucky	38	Louisville	24	UK 8-2
1998-09-05	Louisville	Kentucky	68	Louisville	34	UK 9-2
1999-09-04	Lexington	Louisville	56	Kentucky	28	UK 9-3
2000-09-02†	Louisville	Louisville	40	Kentucky	34	UK 9-4
2001-09-01	Lexington	Louisville	36	Kentucky	10	UK 9-5
2002-09-01	Louisville	Kentucky	22	Louisville	17	UK 10-5
2003-08-31	Lexington	Louisville	40	Kentucky	24	UK 10-6
2004-09-04	Louisville	Louisville	28	Kentucky	0	UK 10-7
2005-09-04	Lexington	Louisville	31	Kentucky	24	UK 10-8
2006-09-03	Louisville	Louisville	59	Kentucky	28	UK 10-9
2007-09-15	Lexington	Kentucky	40	Louisville	34	UK 11-9
2008-08-31	Louisville	Kentucky	27	Louisville	2	UK 12-9
2009-09-19	Lexington	Kentucky	31	Louisville	27	UK 13-9
2010-09-04	Louisville	Kentucky	23	Louisville	16	UK 14-9
2011-09-17	Lexington	Louisville	24	Kentucky	17	UK 14-10

Kentucky victories are shaded ██ blue. Louisville victories shaded in ██ red. † indicates overtime. Numbers in parentheses indicate a team's Associated Press

Associated Press

The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

Top 25 rank at the time of the games.

Background

Basketball

Football

See also