Louisville Residents Buy $8,000 Worth Of Oakland Gear After Kentucky Loss In NCAA Tournament, Rivalry Lives On

The hatred between Kentucky and Louisville fans runs deep in the Bluegrass State, and that was evident by the response to Oakland's win over the Wildcats on Thursday night. 

In one of the biggest upsets we've seen outside of a No. 16 seed winning, Oakland knocked off Kentucky last night in Pittsburgh, which sent shockwaves around the NCAA Tournament. It wasn't just the fact that the Wildcats once again faltered in the postseason, it's how they lost to the 14th seeded team from Michigan. 

In the wake of its victory, the mid-major school, then got some unexpected help last night with funding the athletic department, thanks to a bunch of folks located in Louisville, Kentucky. 

PITTSBURGH - Jack Gohlke of the Oakland Golden Grizzlies celebrates after making a three pointer against the Kentucky Wildcats during the second half in the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at PPG PAINTS Arena on March 21, 2024 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)

Yes, you heard that right, there was a massive surge in online orders from the city of Louisville after Oakland put the final touches on the monster upset over the Cats'. While speaking with reporters on Friday, Oakland head coach Greg Kampe said that he received word that the sports website had crashed due to an enormous amount of traffic, with a large chunk of it coming from Kentucky's hated rival. 

"Our university website crashed last night. It crashed. I mean, that's what this does," Kampe jokingly noted. "We also sold $8,000 worth of t-shirts to Louisville last night. Think about that. Honest to God. You know, they buy the t-shirts and they put the credit card in and Louisville, Louisville, Louisville. It wasn't the same person. So I don't know. Next year when Louisville and Kentucky play, I don't know if everybody is going to show up in an Oakland shirt or what. I have no idea. But it's crazy to think about what something like this does."

Think about that for a second. This Oakland team, along with sharp-shooter Jack Gohlke, were the talk of college basketball, and one of their biggest sellers of merchandise came from the State of Kentucky. If that doesn't show you how much Louisville fans dislike Kentucky, i don't know how else to prove it to you. 

Oakland's Greg Kampe Answered 2,600 Text Messages At 2am Following Win

If Greg Kampe thought he was going to get any sleep following the upset win over Kentucky, turning off his cell-phone would've probably helped. If you're in the basketball coaching business long enough, your contact list will most certainly run in the thousands, and if you win a big game those folks will obviously want to congratulate you on the win. 

Well, Kampe found out just how many friends in the business, and outside the business, he really had when his phone would not stop dinging early Friday morning. 

"Between 2 and 4 in the morning I spent those two hours returning text messages because they can't return them at that time," Greg Kampe noted. "You have 1300 text messages and you do it in the middle of the afternoon, then they answer, then you've gotta put a thumbs up or a heart on it. And now it becomes 2600 text messages. So I did that at 3in the morning so that those people wouldn't -- I didn't want to keep answering text messages. 

"And I got it down from 1300, I got it down to about 195. Now it's back up to 495. So I gotta -- tonight I'll be up at 2:00 in the morning doing the rest of them."

If Oakland can win another game in the NCAA Tournament, this time against ACC darling NC State, Greg Kampe might as well get a second cell phone because the one he's carrying right now will likely implode.