LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- It's no Australia-New Zealand rugby match, Egypt-Algeria in soccer or Norway-Sweden in anything. But for the foreign-born players of Louisville and Kentucky, their college basketball rivalry is viewed through a prism of the multinational, multicultural and multisport background from which they came.

This is interesting and a little humorous to Louisville coach Rick Pitino, whose current squad includes four players born outside the United States: Australians Deng Adel and Mangok Mathiang, Egyptian Anas Mahmoud and Norwegian Matz Stockman.

"If you said to Anas, [about Kentucky] 'Anas, their fans don't get married on a game day, and they don't have funerals on a game day,' he would find that a little different," Pitino said.

Mahmoud, who talks about "political rivalries and soccer but not really basketball [rivalries]" back home, said he realizes that the intensity of the Cardinals-Wildcats series could be viewed by his countrymen as somewhat trivial by comparison.

"That is absolutely true," said the junior forward, referring in part to the Egyptian revolution that forced president Hosni Mubarak from office. "When you talk about Egypt in 2011, 2012, there were a lot of problems going on, and sports wasn't really the big thing."

But for Mahmoud and the five other international players who are expected to be in uniform Wednesday (7 p.m. ET, ESPN/WatchESPN) when sixth-ranked Kentucky (10-1) travels to 10th-ranked Louisville (10-1) -- the 37th meeting, including three in the NCAA tournament, between the two schools since the start of the annual series in 1983 -- reminders of the rivalry's magnitude have been a constant since they stepped on their respective campuses.

"I didn't know how big [the rivalry] was. I didn't know what Kentucky was or who Rick Pitino was until he started recruiting me," said Mahmoud, who attended high school in Orlando for one year after moving from Cairo.

"Then when I [first] came [to Louisville], I kept hearing, 'Make sure you beat Kentucky.' And I was like, 'We don't play for two months. Why is everybody so worried?' I watched the [Louisville-Kentucky] football game my freshman year, and it was so huge, I said, 'Guys, this is ridiculous.' And they told me, 'Wait, it's even bigger and louder for basketball games.'"

Australian Mangok Mathiang, left, has started every game for Louisville this season, and Egyptian Anas Mahmoud is shooting better than 70 percent from the floor. Dylan Buell/Getty Images

Apparently, it is not necessary to officially indoctrinate new players to the importance of the intrastate rivalry to fans at both schools.

"If we beat Indiana first, people would still be like, 'OK, good game, now beat Kentucky,'" said Louisville sophomore guard Donovan Mitchell, a New Yorker who attended prep school in New Hampshire. "You get it once you hear it over and over again. It didn't take me long to figure it out."

While acknowledging that the national rivalries of their homelands might be more significant to his foreign-born teammates, Mitchell said, "I don't think they'll go through anything bigger playing than this rivalry game, though."

Even though the teams' international contingents speak of the geographic separation that defines their national sports rivalries, Kentucky sophomore forward Isaac Humphries, who is from Sydney, said he was initially struck by the width of the competitive chasm between schools separated by just 75 or so miles along Interstate 64.

"It just blew my mind because they're so close to each other and yet so divided," said Humphries, one of two international players on Kentucky's roster. New Zealander Tai Wynyard, a redshirt freshman, is the other.

Stockman said his mind was blown simply by the importance placed on a college basketball game.

"I sometimes think it's funny how serious certain fans from both parts take it," he said. "Grown-up fans talking trash about 18-year-old basketball players? Sometimes I think they should realize [what they're doing].

"I know people develop a hate for the other team. It's cool to have so much passion. That's great. But we just don't have anything like that in Norway. Maybe some people, but I've never experienced it, personally."

Australian Isaac Humphries is averaging 11.8 minutes off the bench for Kentucky and has appeared in every game this season. Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire

The rivalry extends to the coaches, who happily join in the trash-talking, as Kentucky coach John Calipari did during the week of the Kentucky-Louisville football game (won by the Wildcats 41-38 on Nov. 26).

After discussing his new book, Calipari was told that his assistant coach, Kenny Payne, had not read it yet.

"He went to Louisville," Calipari quipped. "He doesn't read."

Calipari was relatively quick to add that he was kidding, but with his Wildcats rolling up an 8-1 record over Louisville since he arrived in Lexington in 2009, the Cardinals faithful can be excused for not laughing.

In a basketball-mad state, former longtime Kentucky coaches Adolph Rupp and then Joe B. Hall lorded over Louisville for decades, refusing to schedule games against the Cardinals. That changed after the teams squared off in a regional final of the 1983 NCAA tournament.

It became known as the "Dream Game." It was the teams' first meeting since the 1959 tournament, and Louisville won 80-68 in overtime. In the wake of the Cardinals' victory and with the governor and state legislature applying pressure on the schools to play regularly, an agreement was reached for an annual matchup. When Kentucky beat Louisville 65-44 the ensuing fall, it was the first time since 1922 that the teams had met in the regular season.

Since the rivalry became official, Kentucky has a 25-11 series advantage. As with most rivalries, the jokes fly as each game approaches. This one circulated last fall:

For Halloween, members of the Louisville basketball team are getting dressed up as NBA players. It will be their only chance.

Not bad but not as funny as the one about the Swede who ordered two sandwiches in Norway.

"Are you Swedish?" the store clerk replied.

"Is it because I said 'smørgåssar' (the Swedish word for sandwiches) that you thought I was Swedish?" the customer asked.

"No," the clerk said. "It's because you're in a hardware store."

Norway's Matz Stockman is one of two 7-footers from overseas on Louisville coach Rick Pitino's roster this year. Matt Cashore/USA TODAY Sports

"We have a lot of jokes about Swedish people, and the Swedes have a lot of jokes about us," said Stockman, Louisville's mild-mannered, 7-foot junior center, of the kind of rivalry he was used to back home in Oslo. "Norwegians will say all Swedish girls are gullible blondes, stuff like that. I don't take much offense at the jokes. It's more for older people in their 40s and 50s."

Pitino said he has been patient with his players' varied personalities.

"With Matz, it's all so different for him because in Norway, what's the big deal about missing one pick-and-roll on defense?" he said. "Here, it's a big deal. So it's getting him used to this basketball culture, and it takes time."

Still, Pitino, who has two 7-footers (Stockman and Mahmoud) and two regular starters (Mathiang and Adel) from abroad, said he likes foreign players -- "every one I've had."

"I tell [players], the greatest killer of potential is ego -- in business, in life and sports," Pitino said. "I always call it edging greatness out. The foreign players, they come in so humble, and their education means so much to them."

Mitchell said he has taken note of his teammates' work ethic.

"I thought I was a hard worker until I met Deng," Mitchell said of Adel. "He's one of the hardest workers I've ever met, if not the hardest worker. It kind of rubs off on everyone."

Adel, a sophomore, said it's simply how he and his foreign-born teammates were raised.

"We've always been taught to work hard, to appreciate what we have because there are people who don't have this opportunity, so we don't take it for granted," Adel said.

Donavan Mitchell, left, Louisville's leading scorer, said the work ethic of Australian Deng Adel "rubs off on everyone." Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports

For most international players, the only overseas comparison to NCAA college basketball is club level, and their first exposure to college basketball has been recent and strikingly similar in some cases.

The first college basketball game Stockman watched was, coincidentally, Louisville-Syracuse in 2013 on his home computer. The first college game Mahmoud ever saw was the Louisville-Duke 2013 Elite Eight game, in which Kevin Ware suffered his gruesome leg injury.

"It was a bad memory, I know, but it was literally the only college game I ever watched," Mahmoud said. "Back then, I never thought I'd be good enough to play at Louisville. I thought it was out of my league."

Humphries said he had no access to the NCAA tournament -- or any U.S. college basketball -- in Sydney until he began getting recruited.

"Kentucky-Louisville is definitely one of the first rivalries I ever knew about," Humphries said.

NBA highlights were always plentiful overseas, and loyalties were formed: Stockman to Michael Jordan, Mahmoud to Dirk Nowitzki and Humphries to Andrew Bogut. But the players laugh at the stereotypes that exist both ways.

"When I go home, they say, 'You guys play the game too fast or too flashy,'" Mathiang, a senior, said. "And when you come here, they say, 'They play the game in Australia too proper.' Every place has their own stereotypes, and now Deng, Anas, Matz and I live in those two worlds, and you get used to it."

Well, to a point ...

"The first thing they say when they hear you're from Australia is, 'Do you guys have kangaroos just walking down the street?'" Mathiang said. "And I just look at them like, 'Are you serious?'"