Louisville-Kentucky rivalry leads to spitting, TBT conflict

In basketball, if Louisville and Kentucky are on the court, drama is likely to ensue.

It happened Monday night, when a basketball tournament game between La Familia, a team with former Kentucky players, and The Phil, a team with former Louisville players, ended in a near-fight after a spitting incident.

Andrew Harrison, who helped lead Kentucky to the semifinals in 2014 and 2015, scored the game-winning three-pointer in La Familia’s 70-61 win (Elham’s finish) at Freedom Hall in Louisville. The attendance of 13,506 nearly doubled the previous record (7,202) for the $1 million tournament, in which the winner competes.

During the celebration, La Familia’s Nate Sestina, who led the scoring with 22 points, hugged the Phil’s Chinano Onuaku, who asked Sestina to stop using the “L’s down” gesture to mock Louisville.

Onwako, According to the video of the accident“Don’t do that again,” he told Cestina, before spitting in his face.

“Emotions were high,” said Sestina, who confirmed that Onuaku spat on him. “That’s what this game does to people. The conversation was great throughout the game, nothing crazy, nothing personal. Then the conversation got personal, obviously. That’s what this game does.”

The players of the two teams then began to push and shove each other, while security officials and policemen intervened between them to prevent further escalation.

This was just the latest controversy in the competition.

Former Kentucky coach Eddie Sutton once called Louisville “little brother” during an interview. In 1989, Louisville’s Beau Brewer grabbed Kentucky’s Shawn Woods under the basket and threw him over his shoulder. And during the 2015-16 season, Rick Pitino, who won national titles with both schools, was coaching the Cardinals at Rupp Arena when he was accused of using an obscene gesture as he left the court (Pitino denied it).

On Monday, former NBA stars were on both sides. Montrezl Harrell, who played for the Philadelphia 76ers in 2022-23, led a Louisville team that also included Peyton Siva and Russ Smith, stars of the 2013 national title team. La Familia included former NBA players Willie Cauley-Stein and Eric Bledsoe, who was on the NBA All-Defensive First Team in 2018-19.

Cauley Stein, who last played in the NBA during the 2021-22 season, said he agreed to play in TBT because of Monday’s game with the Louisville alumni team.

“That game we just played was the reason I wanted to play this game,” Cauley-Stein said. “This is different. I knew it was going to be sold out… There’s no other feeling like this. It took me 10 years to get that feeling back. I’m definitely going to play the next couple of days.”

La Familia qualified for the quarter-finals of the TBT Championship.

In the aftermath of the post-match push-up, Sestina did not back down from his view of the competition.

“It’s down,” he said. “Always.”