Kentucky, Louisville nearly brawl in heated sideline scuffle after apparent stomp

Even amid the turmoil that embroiled the Kentucky Wildcats at the end of the John Calipari era in Lexington, Big Blue Nation still held the ever-important in-state bragging rights over the rival Louisville Cardinals. On Saturday, however, Pat Kelsey and the Cards were trying to flip that on its head as they visited Rupp Arena to take on Mark Pope's group.

The action was quite entertaining throughout as Louisville seemingly kept finding ways to fight back every time that Kentucky started to pull away. So right before the final five minutes of play in a game that was also quite physical, it's no surprise that things got heated and a bit chippy.

Perhaps a bit too much so and in nearly a catastrophic type of way.

Late in the second half with Louisville only trailing by seven, Reyne Smith came flying onto the ground after a loose ball that Kentucky big man Brandon Garrison was pursuing following a Cardinals miss. Smith came up with the ball with Garrison overtop of him in front of the Louisville bench. As play was whistled dead, though, Garrison appeared to accidentally stomp on Smith. That's when chaos starting breaking loose in a massive shoving match on the sidelines.

Both Kelsey and Pope had to run into the kerfuffle and break things up before things really got out of hand.

Kentucky-Louisville rivalry narrowly avoids brawl in heated dust-up

Kentucky and Louisville contingents alike have to be thankful that didn't get any uglier than it did, a credit to both head coaches and the officials for successfully de-escalating a fraught situation on the sidelines as tempers flared.

This incident, of course, led to an extensive review by the refs and, as such, many expected some sort of technical foul to be called. That, however, turned out not to be true. Following the review, it was simply called as a common foul on Garrison and Louisville was given the ball on a sideline out-of-bounds entry. Simple as that.

There were no more flare-ups over the final five minutes of action in the game. Meanwhile, Kentucky was still unable to fully pull away, as had been the case for the entirety of the rivalry matchup, but the Wildcats secured the 93-85 victory to maintain the dominance of late in this rivalry.

However, with new blood on the sidelines for both programs, suffice it to say that we might see a new era for the Kentucky-Louisville rivalry. And if Saturday was any indication, the heat is all the way back in it.