Ole Miss nearly derailed the biggest story in college basketball this week, but Kentucky’s drive to perfection remains a possibility.
Wildcats coach John Calipari has stated on multiple occasions his desire to coach a 40-0 team before he retires. Kentucky is 14-0 after its closest call of the season, surviving the Rebels 89-86 in overtime Tuesday night in Rupp Arena, but would perfection through the Southeastern Conference be good for the rest of the league?
“I think it’s great for the league,” LSU coach Johnny Jones said this week. “I think Cal has done a tremendous job in building his program and developing a great identity not only for Kentucky basketball but our league as a whole. It may not be a great storyline for the other coaches in this league, because we all obviously have a different agenda at the end of the day, but their quest and how they’ve played earlier this season against some of the toughest competition in the country and the success they’ve had has been great for our league.
“When you have a team that talented, you certainly have to put a goal like that out there in front of them, and I’m hopeful that if they have a setback, that shouldn’t be a bad thing for our league but instead say a lot about it.”
Given that the Wildcats have defeated Kansas by 32 on a neutral floor, UCLA by 39 on a neutral floor, North Carolina by 14 at home and Louisville by eight on the road, Tuesday night’s escape already may be a boost for the SEC. The win over Ole Miss was the league debut this season for the No. 1 Wildcats, who visit Texas A&M on Saturday.
ESPN analyst Sean Farnham, who is covering SEC games this winter on Tuesday and Thursday nights, believes the national dialogue will be interesting to follow if Kentucky’s streak continues to grow. The 1976 Indiana Hoosiers are the last team to complete an undefeated season, though there have been impressive runs since.
Indiana State was 33-0 in 1979 when the Sycamores lost to Michigan State in the NCAA championship game. UNLV had an undefeated surge in defense of its 1990 title but was stunned by Duke in the 1991 Final Four, and Wichita State had been perfect last season until falling to Kentucky in the NCAA tournament’s second round.
“I read tweets from people within the college basketball industry who discuss the SEC being down,” Farnham said this week as a guest on “Press Row” on ESPN 105.1 FM. “The SEC is the only power conference that has actually improved its RPI from where it was a year ago. This concept of being down comes from two things — the likelihood that Kentucky will go 18-0 in the league and because Florida hasn’t met its preseason expectations.
“When you look at what South Carolina has done, it’s remarkable. Look at Arkansas, LSU and Georgia, and it’s obvious that the depth of the SEC has improved.”
Florida lost two early games last season before going 18-0 in conference play. The Gators won the league by six games, and only Kentucky and Tennessee joined them as participants in the 68-team NCAA tournament.
The biggest downside to a perfect Kentucky season would be the chance that it would hinder additional bids for the league, though ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had five SEC teams projected for NCAA play at the beginning of the week. An obvious upside would be the excitement — make that the additional excitement — it would create at visiting arenas when the Wildcats arrived.
“Gyms are more electric when they walk in anyway,” Vanderbilt’s Kevin Stallings said. “It wouldn’t take an undefeated season for that to be any different.”
Calipari’s first Kentucky team in 2010, which eventually finished 35-3 after an Elite Eight loss to West Virginia, got to 19-0 overall before losing at South Carolina in late January. His 2012 championship team finished 38-2, losing early at Indiana and to Stallings and the Commodores in the SEC tournament title game.
In 2008, Calipari led the Memphis Tigers to a 26-0 record before losing in late February to visiting Tennessee. That team reached the NCAA championship game at 38-1 before falling to Kansas by a point in overtime, though NCAA sanctions later erased their victories.
“I do feel Kentucky will go 18-0, and the problem with that is that people will continue to say the conference isn’t very good,” Farnham said. “My challenge to anyone who says that is to take the top team out of any conference in the country and switch them with Kentucky. Take Wisconsin out of the Big Ten and put Kentucky in. Would we say that Kentucky would be favored to win every single one of those games?
“The answer is yes, and it’s the same thing if you took Arizona out of the Pac-12. The one exception probably is the ACC.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.