KENTUCKY WILDCATS
* Record: 26-5 (16-2 Southeastern Conference) * AP ranking: 8 * NCAA RPI: 7 * Coach: John Calipari, eighth season at UK, 243-52 (.824) * Best win: 103-100 over North Carolina on a neutral floor * Worst loss: 88-66 at Florida * Best stat: While UK's scoring average of 86.8 is the highest by 7.3 ppg of the Calipari era, the Cats' 72.1 points per game allowed is also the highest - by three points a game. And the average victory margin of 14.7 points is only the fourth best of Cal's eight seasons. All three teams above that mark reached at least the Elite Eight, and two went to the Final Four. * Best player: Freshman guard Malik Monk. All you need to know about Monk and his 21.2 scoring average is that he's totaled at least 20 points in the second half alone in wins over North Carolina, Florida and Vanderbilt. Microwaves are warming drawers next to how hot this guy can get. * Can be dancin' in the desert if: Sophomore guard Isaiah Briscoe rediscovers his shooting touch, especially at the free-throw line, everyone stays healthy and senior forward Derek Willis can hit at least 40 percent of his 3-pointers come tourney time. * Prediction: Elite Eight * Coachspeak: "Kentucky is probably the best transition team in the country. (They are) going to make runs. Kentucky is long and athletic. They did a good job of keeping pressure on us." - Vanderbilt's Bryce Drew after UK came from 19 down to beat the Commodores 73-67 in Rupp Arena last week.
Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari used the same four words Saturday afternoon to both uplift and upset his rarely satisfied Big Blue Nation.
"We have not peaked," he said a few minutes after the Wildcats won at Texas A&M to wrap up the Southeastern Conference regular-season championship and improve to 26-5 for the season (16-2 in SEC play). "That's the good news."
Not a second later Cal dropped the other Nike.
"The bad news is... (drum roll, please)... we have not peaked."
Therein lies the concern regarding just how far Calipari's eighth UK squad can advance in an NCAA tournament it was once projected as no worse than No. 1-A to Duke's No. 1 to win.
The nation's No. 2 squad in the Associated Press poll when this season began and its No. 1 team for the third and fourth weeks of the weekly poll, the Cats have been as low as No. 15 and as high as No. 4 before losing to Tennessee and Kansas in the same week at the close of January.
Now ranked No. 8 and owning an eight-game winning streak heading into Friday afternoon's SEC tourney opener against the Georgia-Tennessee winner, Calipari nevertheless seems as uncertain as he has all season about this team's ceiling.
"We weren't desperate enough to start the game," he said after last week's victory over Vanderbilt that included a 19-point comeback, the largest such rally of the Cal era at UK.
But a few minutes later he added, "That's how you've got to play basketball in March. You've got to fight and stick together."
How much have Cal's Cats changed since the start of the season? Consider this: In the season's first 10 games they led after 10 minutes by an average of 9.7 points. In the last three games, all victories, they trailed at some point in the first 12 minutes by 12, 19 and 14 points.
Another change? UK's first 10 victories came by an average score of 95.5 to 69.1 and prompted this quote from Cleveland State University coach Gary Waters concerning freshman guards DeAaron Fox and Malik Monk following a 101-70 thumping on Thanksgiving week: "If the NBA had different rules, they would probably be there right now."
Kentucky's last seven wins, all coming in league play, have come by an average of 75 to 64.4.
Even then, at 64.4 points allowed per game, these Cats would be on pace to be the fifth best defense of Calipari's eight seasons in the Bluegrass. This team's overall defense of 72.1 points allowedo is the worst of the Cal era by three points a game.
Then again, the Cats' scoring average of 86.8 points is 7.3 above any other UK team he's coached, and of the three Big Blue teams he's coached that had an average victory margin greater than this squad's 14.7, all three went to the Elite Eight, with two advancing to the Final Four, including his 2012 national champs.
What this team seems to have that none of his other UK crews have possessed is an offensive assassin on the order of Monk, who leads the Cats with 21.2 points a game while hitting 41 percent of his 3-pointers and 84 percent of his free throws.
"(Monk) was amazing," Florida coach Mike White said after watching the 6-foot-3 guard torch his Gators for 30 second-half points in a 76-66 UK comeback victory two weeks ago. "It was probably the best performance against us all year. We were hanging all over him two or three times. Then he has blow-by speed. He has an incredibly long first step and explosiveness. His 33 (points), if you add the amount of fouls that he drew, he was better even than 33."
Yet even as good as Monk has been, fellow freshmen Fox and post player Bam Adebayo have progressed to the point that Monk's worst game of the season at A&M - six points - still produced a 71-63 win after an early 15-point deficit.
So will Kentucky peak in time to reach a fifth Final Four under Calipari? Or will it run out of time to fulfill its preseason expectations?
The 2013-14 team that this squad is often compared to struggled all season to come together, then reached the NCAA title game after Cal announced he had "tweaked" a couple of things. After this year's team was crushed 88-66 at Florida, Cal said there would be a "reboot." UK hasn't lost since.
"We know what it takes to get there," senior forward Derek Willis said following the win over A&M. "We know what we need to do, and part of it's bringing energy and outfighting people. It really doesn't have anything to do with talent in some of these games. Just outworking people."
And as Calipari has proven four times previously at UK, when his Cats' considerable talent also outworks its foes, they usually stick around until the final weekend of the season.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.