LEXINGTON, Ky. (WDRB) – You don’t want to be an “it doesn’t matter” guy – especially in this business. Of course it matters. If tonight’s game between No. 1 Tennessee and No. 5 Kentucky didn’t much matter, why would 24,000-plus pack themselves into Rupp Arena? Why would ESPN bring its GameDay program to Lexington for the second time in less than three weeks?
Heck, if it doesn’t matter, why even click on this story? It matters. Just perhaps not as much as everybody makes it out to matter in the grander scheme of the two basketball teams who will tip off at 8 p.m.
For Kentucky, we’ve seen it enough now that we ought to know. John Calipari has won a ton of games as Kentucky coach. His teams are uber-talented. But what you see in February – even mid-February – isn’t exactly the finished product. By its nature, it can’t be. (See: Players – youth.)
For the Wildcats, games like this one help fuel the process as much as reveal it. For as good as this Kentucky team has been over the past month – and it has been as good as anyone – it’s not head-and-shoulders above anyone, though it can be on a given day.
Kentucky coach John Calipari said he could see Tuesday's loss to LSU coming. (Eric Crawford photo)
But as much as Calipari would like for the Wildcats to be consistently good, the big key is to be consistently good in the right six games in March and early April.
When Lexington Herald-Leader reporter Jerry Tipton asked Calipari what this game means for the Southeastern Conference race and the bigger picture of the season, his answer was just six words: “To me, nothing. You guys know.”
Nothing? Really?
“Jerry, have you been cutting grass all this time? Have you not watched?” Callipari chided. “The bigger picture is always for us later. Whether it’s the league tournament or the league, yeah, we want to improve our seed and all that stuff and we want to be the best that we can be, but that’s not the emphasis here.”
The point being – when you have the talent level Calipari has, if the team is right, the rest of the stuff doesn’t matter.
Bracket of death: Wichita State, Louisville, Michigan, Wisconsin. Win, win, win, win. Final Four, championship game. What? West Virginia, Ohio State, then North Carolina? A seven-loss Kentucky team? No way. Final Four.
It should be remembered, if Kentucky is right, the seed and region don’t matter. Yes, this UK team can earn a No. 1 seed. Yes, a win tonight against Tennessee will go a long way. But there’s not been a lot of grass-cutting in February in recent years. What concerns Calipari is how his team has been playing.
The problem is that he hasn’t been all that happy with it the past week or two.
This Kentucky team, when everybody was wondering if it had been overrated, went to work in the shadows and quietly played better than anyone. Once people started noticing, the challenge got tougher. It’s tough for guys once the praise starts falling.
Calipari said he saw it coming in the second half of his team’s win over Mississippi State. Kentucky may not have deserved to lose Tuesday's LSU game – upon further review – but Calipari said his team had it coming nonetheless.
“We went from the defensive team in the country to giving up layups,” he said. “How does this happen? To giving up baskets or not rebounding or playing a half and then the second half not playing. So how does that happen? Most of it is mental and most of it becomes what I had talked about nine days ago, eight days ago. There becomes an arrogance when you’re winning and we kind of got away from what makes us good, including individual players. Hopefully that’s a great lesson going into this game. I hate losing, but if you need to get rocked, then so be it.”
In Tennessee, Kentucky hits an opponent it knows well. It’s a game the Wildcats will have to win, Calipari said, because it won’t be handed to them.
“They’re good. They’re not going to beat themselves,” he said. “They’re physical. They fight for second and third opportunities to rebound. We’re struggling with rebound attempts right now. They are going three and four jumps at a ball. If you don’t block out they’re jumping over your back. I mean, they’re going to tip and grab. They’re good. They deserve to be the No. 1 team, and they deserve to have the winning streak they have.”
Down in Knoxville, Rick Barnes is sounding some of the same themes. If Tennessee goes into Rupp Arena and wins, it’s clearly the real deal. But being the real deal in February is a guarantee of nothing.
Tennessee has been a machine – experienced, well-coached, execution-oriented. A Clockwork Orange. The Vols have been No. 1 for four weeks. They’re 11-0 in the SEC for the first time in school history. They swept Kentucky last season. But they’ve never won back-to-back games in Rupp Arena.
They came to Rupp as the No. 3 team in the nation in 2008 and lost to an unranked Kentucky team 72-66. They brought a No. 6 ranking in 2000 and lost 81-68 to a UK team ranked No. 14. Tennessee has come to Rupp only once as a top 10 team and won – in 1976, when the tenth-ranked Vols needed overtime and 43 points from Ernie Grunfeld and 24 from Bernard King to beat unranked Kentucky 90-88.
“We’re really concentrating on what we have to do to go up there and play good basketball,” Barnes said, bypassing the history and “bigger picture” talk. “They’re a different team in some ways than a year ago. They shoot the ball. They start a group of guys that, in the past maybe we could pack it back in there some (defensively), with this group it’s hard to do that because of their perimeter game. Regardless of all the outside things that people want to talk about, it’s still us keeping our eyes focused on what we have to do with our execution.”
Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes shouts from the sideline during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Vanderbilt at Thompson-Boling Arena on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016 in Knoxville, Tenn. (Adam Lau/Knoxville News Sentinel via AP)
Other than observing that it’s good for the SEC, Barnes wasn’t buying any of the No. 1 vs. No. 5 hype.
The game is, it should be noted, just the fifth time that an AP No. 1 opponent will come to Rupp Arena (Indiana 1979, Florida ’03 and ’07, North Carolina in ’07). Kentucky has played 58 games as the AP No. 1 team in Rupp Arena.
The Wildcats are 6-15 all-time against AP No. 1 teams, and 2-2 in Rupp Arena.
Tennessee has faced UK 25 times when the Vols were ranked. It is 11-14 in those games.
Barnes isn’t interested in any of that. He’s more interested in how Admiral Schofield and Grant Williams play. Calipari needs big games from P.J. Washington and Tyler Herro. He needs Ashton Hagans to return to form defensively. He needs Reid Travis to be Reid Travis.
“I know they see the hype, you can’t help but see it around this game but hopefully there’s going to be more and bigger ones,” Barnes said, speaking for his team, but also Kentucky. “I don’t think this game is going to define our season or Kentucky’s. There’s still too much basketball to play to do that. It’s a big game because it’s the next one on our schedule. It’s a big one for them because it’s the next one on their schedule.”
The next one on their schedule, with another matchup on the schedule for March 2 in Knoxville.
It’s big, yes. But both teams are aiming for bigger.
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