Record: 17-1 (3-0 Southeastern Conference)Associated Press ranking: No. 2Best win: 73-72 over North CarolinaWorst loss: 73-72 at IndianaBest stat: Kentucky has held 51 straight opponents under 50 percent from the floor and entered the weekend leading the nation in field-goal defense (35.5 percent).Player to fear: Freshman forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. In three of UK’s toughest contests of the year, he had 17 points and 11 rebounds against North Carolina, 24 and 19 against Louisville and 17 and 12 at Tennessee. The kid’s at his best when it matters most.Reason to believe: As talented as any team in the country, UK can beat you inside and outside on both offense and defense. Tall, quick and fast, the Wildcats have a weakness only in depth, since they really only go seven deep. Otherwise, the fact they could easily have five first-round NBA draft picks in Anthony Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist, Terrence Jones, Marquis Teague and Doron Lamb pretty much says it all.Reason to doubt: UK is awfully reliant on its freshmen, who are supremely talented — three of the four average double-figure scoring — but they’re still freshmen and no one knows how they’ll handle extended tournament play.Ballin’ on Bourbon Street at Final Four if: They can hit at least five 3-pointers in every tourney game and avoid foul trouble and injury, because of their depth issue.Prediction: Final Four.Coachspeak: “They remind me of the Syracuse team that won the national championship in 2003. The tough part is when they just throw it to the rim. Once they get up in the air, they are pretty much on their own.”– Radford coach Mike Jones after his team lost 88-40 to UK
The game clock approaching nine minutes to play inside Tennessee’s sold-out Thompson-Boling Arena early Saturday afternoon, a loud and proud chant of “Go, Big Blue! Go, Big Blue!” cascaded down from the upper level.
Not since Kentucky’s last national championship in 1998 had so many Wildcat fans flooded the Boling Alley to make their presence felt in Big Orange Country.
Whether that proves to be a coincidence or not won’t be known until UK’s season is done. But the Big Blue Nation isn’t the only one who thinks that John Calipari’s current Cats might be the best of his three seasons in Lexington.
And his first team finished 35-3 and reached the East Regional final; then last year’s edition lost by one point in the Final Four to eventual national champ UConn.