Romance or basketball focus? Kentucky fans question NYC trip distractions

The Kentucky Wildcats laid an egg against Ohio State on the national stage in the CBS Sports Classic after losing by 20 points, 85-65. The team didn’t seem in sync, and even head coach Mark Pope talked about how his players were falling into bad habits of selfish basketball instead of sharing basketball. It’s a loss that cost them six spots in the AP Top 25 ranking and a quad-one win over a power-5 Big-10 program.

While in New York City, two different players used the trip as an opportunity to propose to their girlfriends and use the magic of the Big Apple to secure some romance. Both Collin Chandler and Andrew Carr got engaged on the trip, which is a huge congrats to them. Life is bigger than basketball. However, as Kentucky fans do best, they wonder if that left the players less than focused and why the team failed at Madison Square Garden.

Collin Chandler was the first to announce on instagram.

Then Andrew Carr also announced his engagement. Love was clearly in the air in New York City.

A few Kentucky fans made their way onto the comments sections of Chandler’s post and subsequent posts by media members saying the team was distracted. The common rebuttal was that Chandler barely played; the team wasn’t going to be distracted by that. However, now that Carr has announced many are starting to truly wonder. Even if the fan gave a congrats to go along with it.

The comment sections were a mix of “congrats,” “the loss makes sense now,” and “Can you say distracted?!” Some even had a combination of all of those in some way or another. There’s a part of a few of the comments where the fan doesn’t want to come across as a jerk and wish them happiness but is wondering if the issues on the court stemmed from love being in the air. What do you think? Distracted or not?

Either way, congrats to the wonderful young couples!