John Calipari has a lot of catchphrases, but none rings as true and timeless as his oft-repeated assessment of Kentucky’s fan base: “You people are crazy.” Case in point: A new billboard went up Wednesday at the intersection of Alonzo Watford Senior Drive and West 16th Street in Indianapolis — a message to college basketball’s governing body spelled out in giant white lettering on a bright blue background. Positioned so that people who work in the NCAA Eligibility Center will see it on their way into or out of the office (or both) every day for the next month, the billboard features a single, simple request.

HEY GUYS,

#FREEBIGZ

SINCERELY, KENTUCKY

Last week, in just a few hours, 242 people donated a total of $4,125 to pay for that billboard, apparently agreeing with ESPN analyst Jay Bilas’ take on 7-foot-2 Croatian freshman center Zvonimir Ivisic: “It’s inexplicable why he has not been cleared yet,” Bilas said during a national television broadcast of the Wildcats’ Jan. 6 win at Florida. Increasingly frustrated, UK fans put their money where their anger is.

“The funny thing is we don’t really think it’s going to change anybody’s mind,” says the fan who launched a Go Fund Me to rent the billboard. He goes by the name “Buddy” online and hosts a podcast called Rupp To No Good with three other friends he met on social media. His handle is Big Blue Bud on X (formerly Twitter). He requested anonymity for this story so that his online activity doesn’t cause him headaches in real life. “There were three reasons we wanted to do it,” he says. “The first is just that we really want to see Zvonimir play, and we want him to know we appreciate that he’s stuck it out with Kentucky. Another reason: It’s just fun to troll the NCAA. And the last one: Kentucky is back. Not just Cal with his No. 1 class and a team that’s got four or five or six first-rounders and is playing great, but Big Blue Nation is back, too.

“Buying a billboard in three hours just to mess with the NCAA? That’s crazy, and it’s been fun to see people saying, ‘Man, there is nobody like BBN.’ We haven’t felt that in a while, it seems like, and that’s been a cool part of this.”

Big Blue Nation, WE ARE A GO on the #FreeBigZ billboard outside of the NCAA Eligibility Center!! #BBN

NCAA employees will see it every day on the way in and out of the office. 😊

We need to raise $3,600 to cover the costs of the rental & material! Link in the first reply below: pic.twitter.com/T6YYYDRv7p

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— Buddy 🏀😼 (@BigBlueBud) January 5, 2024

The question, though, is why Big Z isn’t already free.

He committed to the Wildcats on Aug. 1, and Kentucky’s season began on Nov. 6, but Ivisic hasn’t played in any of the team’s 15 games. He was first delayed by complications in the school’s admissions process, which pushed back his campus arrival to Oct. 12. Since then, the NCAA’s clearinghouse has left him in continued limbo. Because Ivisic played for a professional team in Europe — albeit one with an academic component — he needed to provide sufficient proof that he maintained amateur status by not receiving compensation beyond necessary expenses.

GO DEEPER

What is Kentucky getting in 7-foot-2 Croatian center Zvonimir Ivisic?

By now, though, almost everyone agrees that the NCAA ought to have enough information to make some kind of ruling on his status. “They just need to free my guy,” teammate Tre Mitchell says. “They just need to let him loose.” UCLA’s two European players in similar situations, Aday Mara from Spain and Berke Buyuktuncel from Turkey, were cleared by mid-November. Mara’s Spanish club team sued him for breach of contract, seeking $600,000 in restitution, but he’s played in 15 of 16 games for the Bruins this season.

Calipari told Mike Krzyzewski last week on the former Duke coach’s podcast that Ivisic “made a stipend. You’re saying it was too much of a stipend? Juniors and seniors in high school are making hundreds of thousands (in name, image and likeness deals) and you’re talking about his $200 or $300 too much or whatever it was? We gotta move with the times.” And during his radio call-in show Monday night, Calipari said he told Ivisic earlier that day, “I feel so bad” about the delay. “It’s not fair to him,” the coach added. “Around the country, people are being very aggressive when it comes to different stuff with the NCAA (so) my hope is, if this thing lingers too much longer, that we become aggressive.”

At one point, Calipari said, Ivisic had dropped from 242 pounds to 219 because his immune system struggled to fight American illnesses and his stomach struggled to handle American foods — and because of the stress that comes with all of this uncertainty. “He’s not sleeping, struggling to eat,” Calipari said before Christmas, when he allowed Ivisic to return home to Croatia for an extended visit after all he’s been through here. When he left, some around the program wondered whether Ivisic would return to Kentucky without some confirmation that the NCAA will let him play.

He still doesn’t have that, but he came back anyway because, “he wants to play for this university and these fans in the worst way,” Calipari said. “He went back and told everybody, ‘I’ve never been coached this way. I’ve never been challenged this way. I love the environment, the fans.’ He just wants to play. Hopefully this kid plays sooner than later.”

Enter Buddy and his podcast friends. They decided to make it as uncomfortable as possible for whoever is handling Ivisic’s case at the NCAA Eligibility Center. Buddy found the eligibility center on Google Earth and made the serendipitous discovery of a vacant billboard at the first intersection out of that office building.

“You can’t miss it. They’re going to see it every day,” he said between cackles. “It didn’t look great for a minute, because this company (Reagan Outdoor Advertising) doesn’t usually do billboards in sets of fewer than five at a time, but they made this concession for us so that they could be involved. I have a friend who does marketing, and he called them up and told them what we were doing, that it was just to mess with the NCAA, and they thought it was hilarious. They were in.”

Evan Brown, the friend who runs Evan Brown Branding, is not a Kentucky fan. He went to Western Kentucky and is loyal to the Hilltoppers. He wasn’t even familiar with Ivisic’s case before his big blue buddy called asking for help with this side project. So why help? Because dunking on the NCAA is the tie that binds almost all college sports fans.

“They just don’t ever seem to get it right, even when it’s a layup, so I was all for the political statement,” Brown said. The billboard company sales rep, while amused, did have some reservations. “She hit me up at one point and was like, ‘It’s not too political, is it? Because we do have the right to turn away the art if it’s controversial or offensive.’ I said, ‘I mean, it’s a Kentucky player, so some people in Indiana might find that offensive.’”

There was one other major concern: Because of the lag time between having the idea, raising the $3,600 needed (any surplus in donations will go to UK Children’s Hospital), designing the art (without violating numerous trademarks) and getting the billboard completed, it was entirely possible Ivisic could’ve gotten cleared to play before it even went up.

“We considered that, and that would be all right,” Buddy said. “People have told us there’s no reason to do it, that it’s not going to make any difference or that the NCAA will just get mad or whatever. But some have actually said if they did clear him, it would be before the billboard went up because they’ve seen all this on Twitter and want to ruin our party. That would be fine too. We just want to see him play. Because it’s just unfair. It’s just wrong. It’s just silly that everybody else in that situation has gotten through, but Zvonimir hasn’t.

“This is not meant to be a bitter, angry, antagonizing thing. Well, I guess antagonizing is up for interpretation. But it’s all in fun. It’s just BBN being BBN.”

(Photo of Zvonimir Ivisic and Tre Mitchell: Rich von Biberstein / AP)