Defining success for this team has always been simple for Matthew Mitchell.”We started the season of the goal of becoming a great team, and that being defined by this team becoming the best that this team can be,” Mitchell said.Wins and losses have never figured into the equation, at least not directly. Nor has Kentucky’s performance in the postseason. That doesn’t mean those things don’t have a role as the Wildcats head to North Little Rock, Ark., for the Southeastern Conference Tournament.”I think it would be significant to get in the mix for a championship,” Mitchell said. “I think it would be very significant to win the SEC Tournament. It would be a great sign that they have given it their best.”Significant, not to mention especially meaningful to this group.UK – which enters as the No. 6 seed – has advanced to the finals of the SEC Tournament in four of the last five seasons but never won. Fifth-year senior Jennifer O’Neill has been a part of three of those trips, and classmates Jennifer O’Neill, Azia Bishop and Jelleah Sidney two each.”I think they’ll be hungry to go down there and win it,” Mitchell said. “Especially the veterans. We have gotten very close. I think the veterans have been to two championship games. It’s a big-time tournament. It’s a big one to win. We would be very proud to win it and we’re going to try to do that.”The Cats (21-8, 10-6 SEC) will open their title bid at approximately 9:30 p.m. ET on Thursday against either No. 11 Vanderbilt or No. 14 Alabama. They will also do so in a much better place than if the tournament had started a week and a half prior.On Feb. 23, UK had just lost its third straight game. Sensing their team was about to “go off the cliff,” those four seniors – led by O’Neill – called a meeting with their head coach to ask him to be more involved in demanding focus and intensity from his team. “We’re not the most talented team around,” Mitchell said. “We’re talented enough that when we play extremely hard and we’re ultra-competitive, we’re talented enough to win. We’re also talented enough that if we don’t compete, if we’re not ultra-competitive and we don’t play extremely hard, we can lose to anybody. So there’s really no in between with the team.”With no in between, Mitchell has changed up practice and even implemented game-speed drills during pregame warmups. He’s also abandoned his customary spot in the locker room before games in favor of running the team through those drills. The Cats have responded by winning two straight, including Sunday’s upset of then-No. 2 South Carolina.”For me, it’s been fun because I’m sort of bored back in the locker room, staring at the board,” Mitchell said. “You’ve written the words and you know what you want to say and you’re just back there by yourself and so it was great.”Mitchell will be on the court again Thursday night helping his team get ready. If anything, he’ll be even more eager to be there.”I think it’s a really exciting tournament, the SEC Tournament,” Mitchell said. “I think it’s very difficult to win and we’ve had a chance several times to win it and we’d love to taste victory in that tournament. It would really be a big accomplishment if we could win it, so we have to take them one game at a time obviously and no matter who it is, Vanderbilt or Alabama, it’ll be a tough test. We will do everything we can to get prepared.”Though UK will be preparing for a game with winning in mind, the ultimate goal remains the same as the one the Cats had to start the season.”I just talk to them about doing the things that we need from them to be successful and that is to have an edge to us, a competitiveness to us, playing defense for each other, getting on the boards, things like that,” Mitchell said. “We’ll go down there with the intention of winning, but I’ll talk with them more about the process than I will about whatever result we get.”