Aces high

Well, now. If this isn't your ultimate Purple Nurple.

If this isn't your Evansville Purple Aces getting down there in the blue cavern of Rupp Arena for No. 1 Kentucky's breather game, and stealing the air from the place. If this isn't Evansville 67, Kentucky 64, a Chaminade-over-Ralph-Sampson kind of moment -- the kind of moment that gives college buckets their life and blood and sustenance, because who doesn't love their upsets?

Bucknell-over-Kansas and Mercer-over-Duke and UMBC-over-Virginia are what make March Madness mad, after all, and the very reason so many of us play hooky the first two days of Da Tournament to eat wings, drink beer and watch hoops. And so here came Evansville, a team that won 11 games last year and was picked this year to finish eighth in the Missouri Valley Conference, marching into Rupp and stealing the W from the Purple Aces' head coach's alma mater.

This is Walter McCarty's second season as the Aces' coach, and what a way to introduce it. This after re-introducing himself last year, because before he went off to play for UK he was a high school star at Evansville Memorial High School

Listen. I have covered a few games in Rupp's blue canyon, and it is nowhere you want to be if you're a visiting team. The place is, truly, wall-to-wall blue. Its 20,000 seats, every one of them occupied, stretch up and up toward the heavens. And the sound the occupants send down when the Wildcats are on a run is unearthly, a live thing you feel in your chest.

Now imagine if you're Evansville, which was no doubt paid good money to be the evening's entrée for John Calipari's latest crop of NBA lottery picks. And imagine what all that wall-to-wall blue sounded like as the Purple Aces, a 25-point underdog, kept leading and leading and leading and then -- oh, my God, what's this? -- were still leading with seconds left and the Wildcats hurrying up the court to try to force overtime.

And failing.

I imagine Rupp sounded about then like the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum sounded a few Novembers back, on the night when Indiana, then ranked No. 3, came to town to play IPFW. It was a home game for IPFW, but an Indiana crowd. The place was almost as red as Rupp is blue.

But then ...

But then, IPFW jumped out to an early lead. The IU fans sitting around me practically yawned. Ah, well, no worries. Let 'em have their fun. Hoosiers will wind up winning by 20.

But then ...

But then, IPFW kept leading. And kept leading. And kept leading. And suddenly we were neck-deep in the second half and -- oh, my God -- IPFW was still leading.

The IU fans became first restive, and then quiet. And then really quiet. Eventually, they started to boo.

Shortly thereafter, as it became apparent the Mastodons were going to do the inconceivable, they lapsed into the utterly predictable: They started bitching about the officiating.

I can't say if that was the precise progression in Rupp. But I bet it was close.

I also bet a few adult beverages were imbibed down in the lower left-hand corner of Indiana last night. Think I'd win that one.