Kentucky Is Tourney's New Top 'Cats

NEW ORLEANS -- For a moment Saturday night, Kentucky coach John Calipari considered the question of his Wildcats now being the team to beat NCAA tournament in the wake of the stunning fall of overall No. 1 Kansas.

Calipari grinned a little behind the microphone and before delivering a carefully thought out response. No one has ever accused Calipari of being the most sincere guy and his "Who, us?" postgame eloquence did little to change that perception after Kentucky's 90-60 rout of Wake Forest.

"I don't know if we are the overwhelming favorite," said Calipari, who is in first year with the Wildcats but he's no stranger to making NCAA tournament runs with loaded teams. "Everyone was picking us to lose today with this being a tough game. They were also saying we'd be the first No. 1 out.

"So how do they change those talking heads overnight. With one game? Come on."

Calipari has always been a master of the calculated response, the guy who will try to convince you that the odds are stacked against him when he's holding the best hand in the house.

Kentucky has always had the best hand with freshman stars John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, and Calipari knew it, even as the rest of us were bluffed by Bill Self and the Jayhawks.

Sure, the Wildcats are young but their youth is better than veteran talent in college basketball right now. Wall, a lightning quick point guard will be the No. 1 pick in June's NBA draft. Cousins, an athletic 6-foot-11, post won't be far behind. Then there is sharpshooter Eric Bledsoe, a star in his own right, who gets overlooked because of his two more famous freshmen classmates.

Calipari has known all along that his freshmen were better than Self's mix of veteran and youthful talent. He was just waiting for that moment where it become as clear to those caught up the hype of Kansas coming out of the toughest league in the nation this season and spending all but four weeks this season as the consensus No. 1 team.

Calipari got to say he told us so with saying it in his tongue-and-cheek evaluation of his team.

"We're still a bunch of freshmen and sophomores," Calipari said. "This was our second NCAA tournament game. They've never played in any other games. The guys that we're playing have never played in it."

What Calipari won't admit right now is that his freshmen and sophomores are playing so much better together than anyone else and that is what will make the difference these next couple weeks. That much was obvious Saturday as the Wildcats the game with Wake Forest look similar to the Globetrotters versus the Washington Generals at times in their NCAA tournament East Region second round game.

Kentucky received contributions from everywhere, with a ridiculous 13 players seeing action in a tournament game. But more important the Wildcats are getting key production from more places than Patrick Patterson, Cousins and Wall.

Bledsoe went off during the opening round win over Eastern Tennessee State on Thursday. And Saturday, guard Darius Miller stepped up to score a career-high 20 points on seven of nine shooting night.

Meanwhile, Wall wasn't spectacular but he still gave the Cats 14 points and seven assists while turning it over five times. Cousins looked good inside and even better running the floor and finishing in transition. If you didn't know better, you'd swear super Wildcat fan Ashley Judd contributed two points just for sitting behind the bench and looking so gorgeous as she cheered her approval of the Cats.

"They're having fun out there, which is what we want," Calipari said. "As long as they keep having fun, playing harder than the other team, just enjoying playing basketball then we'll be fine.

"We'll have our chances."

Does that mean their chances will be better than surviving No. 1s Duke and Syracuse? Cousins and Miller wouldn't say.

Heck, if you believe the company line, the Wildcats played Saturday night completely unaware of Kansas' plight despite several announcements in the arena to the effect score and cheering and all.

"We weren't allowed to know what was the results of that game," said Cousins, who blocked it out all out to score 19 points on 9 of 10 shooting Saturday. "We were told to focus on our game."

But it does seem now the pressure is on Kentucky with Kansas out of the way, but the key for the Wildcats is remaining loose and not over thinking it as Kansas likely did.

"I don't think that adds any pressure," Miller said of the bulls-eye being placed on them now that the Jayhawks are out of the tournament. "As long as we come out and play the best we can, that's all we can control."

The competition certainly ratchets up next week as the Wildcats head to the East Region semi-final round in Syracuse where they will meet the winner of N. 4 Wisconsin- No. 12 Cornell in the Sweet 16. No. 11 Washington, No. 10 Missouri and No. 2 West Virginia are all candidates to play UK in the Elite Eight for the right to go the Final Four.

Leave it to Calipari to have us believing he's shaking in his boots. He doesn't know his hand has been exposed.

"The people that are going to be in that region, it's going to be ridiculous," he said. "You're going to have four teams that are good enough, all four, to go win the national title."