In Part 1 of ESPN The Magazine's March 5 story on Saul Smith, Gene Wojciechowski takes you inside the complex relationship between Smith, his father, and the Kentucky fans. Come back Thursday for Part 2.

Tip-off is still 2 1/2 hours away, so Jim Harrick sits in the nearly deserted Georgia basketball office returning phone calls, chatting up a pal from L.A., doing anything he can to kill time before his team plays the Evil Blue Empire -- a.k.a. Kentucky. Already the student line outside Stegeman Coliseum is curving around the building like a garter snake. Technicians are busy firing up the satellite trucks. Ticket scalpers work the parking lots. It isn't exactly Krzyzewskiville, but it will do.

This isn't just any game. This is Kentucky. This is another chance to stick it to that traitor Tubby Smith, who ditched Athens for Lexington and has a national championship ring and seven consecutive wins against the Bulldogs since his departure. It's another chance to heckle Smith's point guard son, Saul, who originally committed to Georgia but then followed his old man to Lexington while older brother G.G. stayed behind to finish out his UGa career. You can't miss Saul. He's the one with the crooked nose and the wispy hair that doesn't quite hide the thick scars on the sides of his head. He's the one they call "Daddy's little girl."

Harrick knows all about the downside of father-son combos. Jim Jr. played for him years ago at Pepperdine. One game at Texas Tech, the Lubbock boots-and-overalls crowd got on Jim Jr. so bad that the kid started to make a break for the bleachers -- and Jim Sr. thought about joining him before wiser heads prevailed. "They've been really hard on Saul Smith," Harrick says of the Georgia rowdies. "And they'll be hard on him here tonight, too. Ours is kind of a playful thing. It's not mean and ugly. There's some mean and ugly places."

Like Lexington. Only four days earlier, on Jan. 27, Smith was booed by the home crowd at Rupp Arena while scoring a career-high 18 points in a double-digit win over Vanderbilt. It happened because the Wildcats' only senior had stunk it up with a one-assist, four-turnover performance in a win against Tennessee, a 1-for-7 effort from the field in a loss at Ole Miss, a 1-for-5 miss-a-thon in a loss at Alabama and a two-point first half against the Commodores. Most of all, it happened because Smith is the hoops version of a Molotov cocktail: a coach's son who averages fewer than seven points and five assists as a starter at a program steeped in tradition and wild expectations. Mix, ignite, then run like hell.

When Tubby motioned for Saul to return to the Vandy game in place of freshman Cliff Hawkins, who had played well as a sub, the fans had a hissy fit. What they didn't see was Hawkins signal to the bench that his asthma was acting up. As the boos subsided, Vandy coach Kevin Stallings turned to Saul before an inbounds play and said, "I hope one day you have a chance to tell these people to kiss your butt. You deserve better than this."

Not that Smith would ever utter a peep. That's not how Tubby and Donna raised their three sons. Never lower your standards to those of ignorance, they told him -- never figuring their middle son would become college basketball's favorite punching bag. Sure, it's hard at times, but it's nothing compared to what the neurosurgeons had to do when Saul was just 2 years old. It's nothing compared to the way his parents' hearts skip a beat anytime he takes an elbow near the forehead, near those scars.

So Saul laughs when Stallings says what he says. And his face remains impassive as the Georgia students -- "Harrick's Hounds," it says on their red T-shirts -- stream toward their seats at court's edge and begin a three-hour barrage of taunts.

"Hey, Saul's a woman!"

"Saul, you suck!"

"Your brother was twice the player you are!"

This is just during warmups. This is with his mom sitting a few feet behind the Kentucky bench. This is while Harrick's videotaped message on the arena's big screen asks the fans to practice sportsmanship: "Let's have a great game!"

As the abuse continues, Tubby approaches his son and asks, "Does this bother you?"

"Nah, Dad, this happens all the time," Saul answers. "All the time."

The students smack their noisemakers, shake their pom-poms, cup their hands and scream at Saul during player intros. "Daddy's boy" is the chant of choice. Once the game begins, it's more of the same. "Saul Smith Smells Funny," reads a sign. "Saul Smith Sucks," reads another. One fan stands and shoots Smith a one-finger salute as he returns to the bench. "A Kentucky fan or a Georgia fan?" asks a UK beat writer when told of the incident.

Late in the second half, with the Bulldogs' 10-point lead gone, the crowd begins to pick on the zebras. But then one of the refs motions for a ball boy to clean up a puddle of sweat. Instead, the confused kid starts to bring a ball, prompting Saul to toss a towel from his seat on the bench.

"Tow-el boy ... tow-el boy," the crowd chants.

The Cats win by 15. (They would overtake the Dawgs for first place in the SEC a game later.) In the waning moments, Saul and teammate Tayshaun Prince are standing near one of the baskets as the students continue their verbal assault. Saul gestures toward the scoreboard. You can read his lips: "Eight and oh ... eight and oh." That's his four-year record against Georgia.

"Go to hell, Saul!" a fan yells as Smith ducks into the tunnel. Retiree Bob Wiggins, who sits behind the UK bench and has attended almost 1,200 games, just shakes his head. Has any other Kentucky player endured more? "I've watched this game for 50 years, and I don't think so," he says. "Nobody plays harder than Saul Smith."

Afterward, Tubby meets with reporters and laughs off the usual reception from the Georgia faithful. "They love me here," he says. Then he runs his finger along the final stat sheet, where he has circled assorted numbers in red ink. He settles on Saul's name and the three numbers in red: 32 minutes, 6 assists, 1 turnover. But the next day, Tubby isn't laughing about the insults directed at his son. "They're brutal, aren't they?" he says after practice. "Every game. Everywhere we go. For four years. Whether he was playing or not. That's why he's going to be the best. The best lawyer."

"If they want to degrade you, your mother, your family, that's what they'll do," Saul says with a shrug. "A lot of it is just drunk college guys who don't know any better. I just take it for what it's worth, which isn't much, and keep going."

Come back Thursday for Part 2: "The True Stories in the Life of Daddy's Boy."

This article appears in the March 5 issue of ESPN The Magazine.