Oakland players threw away the shovel after burying Kentucky with savage jokes

The No. 14 seed Oakland Golden Grizzlies took down the No. 3 Kentucky Wildcats in the first round of March Madness, giving us an upset for the ages and a bracket buster to be sure.

Social media did what it does and took off like wildfire, making the Wildcats and, in particular, John Calipari, the butt of all the jokes. The Wildcats have struggled in recent years. After Calipari led the team to a 2012 title and got back to the Final in 2014, the school has failed to get past the second round since 2019. It's been five years.

Losing to Oakland may have been curtains on Calipari's time in Kentucky, even if a replacement for the recruiting king is no longer very obvious.

As Oakland moves on, they're elated over their success, and joining in on the jokes that poke fun at Kentucky.

Oakland basketball gloating over win with self deprecating jokes

Oakland coach Greg Kampe gave the public some insight into how aware of the jokes Oakland was:

"If you could have been at our team meal after the game against Kentucky... our players were making so much fun of Jack [Gohlke] because somebody had Tweeted out that all these Kentucky players are gonna be in the NBA next year and he's gonna be selling insurance. They were singing the 'like a good neighbor!' song to him. It was crazy"

Gohlke torched Kentucky scoring 32 of his team's 80 points off 10-of-20 shooting, all from beyond the arc and hitting two of his attempted free-throws. He added two rebounds to go with it.

It's always better to be in the joke about yourself rather than on the outside. While at its heart this is a joke about how this will probably be the peak of the senior Gohlke's athletic career before he becomes a "normal" guy working a "normal" job, at the heart it's a dig at Kentucky. Even we know we're unlikely, here, yet we still won!

There's no confidence to be torn down for Oakland moving forward. They've already proved everything they could have in this tournament. That makes them all the more dangerous and scary to go up against as they stay alive in the tournament with nothing to lose. They take on NC State, another upset win next, with a game on Saturday at 7:10 p.m. ET.