The year was 2014. Guardians of the Galaxy was dominating the box office, season three of Scandal was about to drop and Drake was pretending to be a college basketball player.
You know what I’m talking about. The rapper showed up to Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness event to kickoff the upcoming season and really tried to act like just one of the 18-22 year olds on the roster.
It was weird! He stuck out completely. Then he embarrassed himself further with an airball during warmups before the scrimmage. Well, a decade later, Drake was back in Lexington for a show at Rupp Arena on Sunday and he couldn’t help but poke a bit of fun at himself.
It’s worth remembering how absolutely stacked that 2014-15 Kentucky team was. We joked at the time about head coach John Calipari platooning his players, but with names like Devin Booker, Tyler Ulis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Trey Lyles, Alex Poythress and the Harrison twins, Kentucky’s practices may have been more difficult than some of their opponents that year.
But the larger point here is this: the last time Drake took a photo sitting in the Wildcats’ clubhouse like that, Kentucky made a run to the Final Four where a then 38-0 team was upset by Wisconsin.
The 2023-24 Wildcats finished fourth in the SEC with a 23-8 record (13-5 SEC) and can use all the help they can get heading into the NCAA tournament.
Maybe, just this one time, the Drake Curse might actually be a good thing for Kentucky.
