‘Cats fans go wild after win
A group of Kentucky basketball fans continued the sad, trite tradition of celebrating a big win by lighting something on fire Sunday when they torched a couch in the middle of State Street in Lexington, Ky., after the Wildcats beat Baylor in the NCAA South Region final.
As the fire department hosed down the burning couch, one young lady put a fresh spin on the twisted tradition by running through the fire hose's spray in a bikini and flashing the crowd -- which won her Mardi Gras beads afterward in honor of Kentucky's trip to the Final Four in New Orleans on Saturday.
A couple of other Wildcats fans came up with more creative -- though no more tasteful -- ways to commemorate Kentucky's success.
One man turned his nipples into eyes with a marker and shaved his chest to create a unibrow in honor of Wildcats freshman star Anthony Davis.
Another depraved man put an ad on Craig's List offering his wife in exchange for tickets to Saturday's national semifinal against Louisville.
Cardinals fans have been tame by comparison, simply creating T-shirts that rip Kentucky coach John Calipari, whose Final Four teams at Massachusetts and Memphis had to vacate their accomplishments because of NCAA infractions.
The shirt reads "Beat UK!" on the front and "So At Least Calipari Won't Have to Vacate Another Final Four Win" on the back, with the footnote "Ask the folks at UMass & Memphis" along the bottom.
Plenty of Louisville fans surely will be wearing those -- and then taking them off -- this week on Bourbon Street.
■ BARKLEY BACKS 'CATS -- If Charles Barkley's prediction comes true, Kentucky fans will have plenty more to celebrate come Monday night, after the NCAA title game.
"Nobody can beat this team," he said of the Wildcats. "The (NBA's) Toronto Raptors can't; the (Charlotte) Bobcats maybe. But there's nobody in this NCAA Tournament that can beat this team."
■ WILD, WILD WEST -- Dallas Mavericks guard Delonte West has a history of bizarre behavior -- from reportedly sleeping with former teammate LeBron James' mother to getting arrested with a guitar case full of guns strapped to his back on a motorcycle to sleeping in the Mavs' locker room because he couldn't get approved for an apartment in Dallas.
The peculiar pattern continued during a recent visit to the Dallas Zoo with teammate Lamar Odom and a group of Dallas-area students. West claimed he had a special relationship with animals.
"Well, I think they noticed as soon as I came into the zoo my natural animal instinct, you know what I mean?" he said.
Umm, no, but please go on.
"I got a chance to eat with the lions, you know? They had Lamar playing with the penguins, but they needed me for the more animalistic-type of things, carnivore-type of things," West said. "So, I also had a chance to give birth to a baby cheetah today, and I'm just overwhelmed with the experience to be amongst my own and my peers."
West and his baby cheetah reportedly were resting comfortably.
COMPILED BY TODD DEWEY
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
