INDIANAPOLIS – If Andrew Harrison had to do this season all over again, he wouldn’t change a thing.Instead of fulfilling preseason expectations and flirting with 40-0, he would choose the losses and realization that he and his team failed to reach such dreams. Rather than live up to the experts’ billing that he was the top point guard in the class and the next great John Calipari guard, Andrew Harrison would opt for the criticism was slung his way when UK’s season headed south.He wouldn’t change a thing because it’s defined who he is and how he’s playing in the NCAA Tournament. And how he’s playing right now is, in the words of Charles Barkley, like the best point guard in the country.”Every freshman that’s highly recruited and stuff, they think they’re going to come in here, play out a year and it’s all going to be fun, but it wasn’t like that and I’m kind of happy it wasn’t,” Andrew Harrison said Saturday. “There’s some bumps in the road and we got through it.”Nobody has gotten through as many as Andrew Harrison.The punching bag — alongside his twin brother — for UK’s 10 losses in the regular season, Andrew Harrison has been hit with just about every damning description an 18-year-old should never have to hear. By both fans and the media, he’s been described as selfish, unresponsive to coaching and an incapable leader.Those weren’t the adjectives that accompanied his name when he signed with UK as the No. 5 overall player in the 2013 class. A player whose defining attribute was being a winner, he was suddenly labeled a loser by some.”We have 18-, 19-year-olds that were counted and ridiculed and crushed,” Calipari said. “Can’t play, not any good, bad guys.”The low points for Andrew Harrison, he said, were the loss at home to Arkansas followed by the shocking upset at South Carolina. At that point, when UK was suddenly in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament altogether, Andrew Harrison questioned himself.”Of course (I did),” Andrew Harrison said. “In those situations people are disappointed. You have to go back and realize who you’re playing for: yourself and your parents and stuff like that. You have to get in the gym and regain that confidence.”Two things changed everything for Andrew Harrison.One was a more simplified game plan from his head coach. The other was a timely visit from his father, Aaron Harrison Sr., who told him his family was financially secure and that he didn’t need to worry about leaving college after a year.  “That kind of lifted some weight off my shoulders,” Andrew Harrison said. “He just told me don’t worry about what happens next year. Just worry about the next practice and the next time you get on the floor. So that’s what I did and it was kind of relieving.” Relieved of the expectations and free to just play, Andrew Harrison has been at the center of UK’s unforeseen and damn-near miraculous turnaround.Over six postseason games, Andrew Harrison’s scoring (12.3 points per game), assists (5.7) and shooting percentage (.422) are all up. More importantly, he’s transformed into the leader of the team and the face of UK’s uncanny resiliency. “He’s doing a great job leading us,” Julius Randle said. “When things get tough, he’s picking us up.”Where bad body language once surfaced when adversity would hit, a steely resolve has now replaced it.”He understands the grind better, how you have to work,” Calipari said. “He understands the effect he has on his team more than ever; that he’s got to be more focused on his teammates than himself.”Without the criticism he faced earlier in the season, Andrew Harrison said he would have never developed that ability to bounce back when things go wrong.”I feel like it shows who you are as a man, really,” he said. “You just have to fight through it. It’s just some adversity, some I had never experienced before on the basketball court. I think it just made me tougher.”Because in order to lead a team like the one Andrew Harrison was tasked with guiding, you need to have the training to do it. Before you can navigate a group through a war like the NCAA Tournament, you have to go through the battles. Andrew Harrison had never been through those before, and yet it was up to him to lead the preseason No. 1 team in the country from the start. He didn’t arrive on campus until August, a few months after most of his teammates, but everyone just assumed that Andrew Harrison would take the keys to the car and drive the Maserati right to the promised land. They forgot that other than John Wall, it took Calipari’s other heralded point guards like Brandon Knight and Marquis Teague time to develop.”What people don’t understand, people think, ‘Oh, you’re the point guard, you’re going to become the leader.’ But at the same time, you have to earn it,” Andrew Harrison said. “You have to do something to earn your teammates’ respect whether it’s stand up to somebody or speak up for them.”Andrew Harrison said there hasn’t been a singular moment when he’s done that. Rather, it’s been a series of smaller ones.When the team has been tired, he’s taken it upon himself to show toughness. When his teammates haven’t felt like practicing, he’s been the first one to the gym. When there were no answers for why things weren’t going well as recently as a month ago, Andrew Harrison spoke up. “I think you have to gain their respect, and I think I did that,” Andrew Harrison said.To gain their respect, he’s had to go through a lot, but that’s exactly why he’s transformed into the player he now is and why UK is just a victory away from the Final Four.”This is for him – and really all these guys – where they’ve come from, where they were and where they’ve come, it’s incredible,” Calipari said. “Incredible story.”