I’ll spare you the cheesy local news greeting of, “Top of the mornin’ to ya,” and just say, “Happy St. Patrick’s Day.” More importantly, happy Kentucky NCAA Tournament game day!
Kentucky has played 16 times on this festive holiday since 1950 and holds a 12-4 record during that stretch. It makes sense they’ve excelled at this time in March because, well, Kentucky is historically awesome, and St. Patrick’s Day often falls during the first or second round of the NCAA tournament, a weekend when Kentucky typically faces inferior competition.
The exception to that was in 2009 when Kentucky played UNLV in the NIT thanks to a head coach who was no stranger to celebrating the Irish drinking holiday.