Remember the last time La Familia beat Louisville's TBT team?

It was a warm summer night in late July of 2024, and nothing was out of the ordinary for what was an unusual setting for the Battle of the Bluegrass. The Wildcats, of course, came out on top. A record-breaking crowd nearly filled every single Freedom Hall. A former Louisville player spat on a former Kentucky player. Drew Franklin had his sternum punched by a Cardinal fan.

You know, the normal rivalry tension between the state’s top enemies…

That was the quarterfinals of The Basketball Tournament, which made a brilliant marketing decision by pitting Kentucky’s alumni team, La Familia, and Louisville’s, The Ville, against each other with a spot in the semifinals (and moving one step closer to the winner-takes-all $1 million grand prize) on the line. Nate Sestina knocked down six triples en route to his 22 points. Willie Cauley-Stein chipped in 20 points and nine rebounds for the good guys. Andrew Harrison drilled the Elam Ending three-pointer to secure the win. 13,506 fans nearly doubled TBT’s previous attendance record.

And it was all capped off by a good old-fashioned bench-clearing, sparked by The Ville’s Chinanu Onuaku spitting on Sestina as everyone was walking off the floor following a 70-61 La Familia victory.

How can you not be poetic about basketball?

We nearly had a full-on brawl on the Freedom Hall floor. pic.twitter.com/snMvcVRVqp

— Zack Geoghegan (@ZGeogheganKSR) July 30, 2024

I remember this game well. I remember making the drive from Lexington to Louisville. I remember walking into Freedom Hall and seeing Chris Paul randomly roaming around. Mark Pope‘s first Kentucky team was watching from a suite in the lower bowl. The arena was nearly filled to the brim with a 50/50 mix of UK and UL fans. We had double techs on Andrew Harrison and Chris Jones in a near-fight that perfectly foreshadowed what was to come. I even want to say that Cauley-Stein hit three straight three-pointers.

Everything about this game was more proof that no fan bases in college basketball do it like Kentucky and Louisville. It was proof that it needs to happen more often. TBT primed up the rematch last summer. The Ville just failed to get past the second round. La Familia lost in the following round, but what’s the point in advancing if you can’t beat Louisville again in the process? Missing out on the matchup won’t be a problem this summer.

TBT is switching up its formatting for the first time since it began in 2014. The bracket sizes and cash pots have varied over the years, but it’s always been a straightforward, single-elimination setting from start to finish. That’s changing. We now have 16 teams total — eight made up of alumni teams (La Familia, The Ville, etc.) and the other eight made up of non-alumni teams. The first round features a three-game series before shifting to single-elimination the rest of the way. $2 million is on the line this time around.

And wouldn’t you know it, La Familia and The Ville will meet in the first round. TBT knows where its bread is buttered, and it’s in the Bluegrass between two fan bases that want nothing more than to beat each other by as many points as possible. We’ll get at least two games between these two in mid-July — one in Lexington and one in Louisville — and possibly (but not hopefully, if all goes well for La Familia) a third, which would be held in Lexington.

Cauley-Stein is back on the roster as a headliner, ready to lead the charge for the former ‘Cats, hopefully without as much spitting and sternum-punching from the people wearing red.

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