John Calipari said earlier this week that he uses the media like a “wet rag” to motivate his players. He soaks the media with certain message and tactics knowing reporters will ring out the inspiration of what he wants his players to hear on the blogosphere and the pages of daily newspapers.OK, maybe he went a little overboard in thinking newspapers — Terrence Jones said he doesn’t read what Cal says about him in the papers and Calipari admitted young kids don’t pick it up — but somewhere along the way, whether it was on the Internet, on TV or just in practice, Calipari has gotten through to his players.Once damaged egos are gone. Spirits have returned. Guys are smiling again. The Kentucky men’s basketball’s winning streak is only at two games, but confidence is brewing for the first time in a while as UK (21-8, 9-7 Southeastern Conference) prepares for its regular-season finale at Tennessee (18-12, 8-7 SEC).”We’re comfortable with how far we’ve come,” junior guard/forward Darius Miller said. “We think we’re a better team than we have been. We’re playing pretty good right now, especially together.”The confidence most likely stems from Kentucky’s first close victory of the year, a narrow 68-66 escape against Vanderbilt on Tuesday on Senior Night. The win was UK’s first victory in seven tries in games decided by five points or less.To finally get a season-long hurdle out of the way before the postseason was a pretty significant milestone for a freshman-laden team that’s struggled to find self-belief at times. To finally snatch a victory away from the jaws of defeat was, well, relieving.”It really showed that our team is getting better,” freshman guard Brandon Knight said. “It provided us with a lot of confidence. I think it will help our team.”Kentucky’s struggles in close games were more than just a monkey on the players’ backs; they were a two-ton gorilla.Every media session, the players were pelted with questions for which they didn’t have answers. Talk radio wondered if there was a will to win. Message boards damned the season away. After the loss at Arkansas, the man who has an answer for everything, head coach John Calipari, was nearly left speechless. “I don’t know if it’s we’re afraid that we’re not winning (or) we’re playing not to lose,” Calipari said at the time. “I don’t know. I’ve tried everything.”That tone has since changed, and Calipari even sounded bullish on UK’s chances to advance deep in NCAA Tournament play based on some of the team’s best practices and shootarounds of the year.”We’ve got a hell of a shooting team now,” Calipari said. “There are a lot of people that are saying, ‘We hope we don’t have to see them,’ and I would agree with them.”The change in confidence began when Calipari changed his approach with the players. Instead of trying to squeeze answers out of clueless freshmen, he eased off a little bit at practices and took a more relaxed approach. Assuming that was the sole reason UK finally pulled out a close game would be jumping to conclusions, but read between the lines and you can tell this team is suddenly having more fun. Getting the proverbial monkey off their back has made them looser and more at ease.”It’s important to have fun,” Knight said. “If you’re not having fun, things start to break down and people start to have attitudes.”Of course, not all pressure has ceased with one win. While the Cats have eradicated their late-game woes, they’d like to erase the road nightmares as well. UK heads to Tennessee’s Thompson-Boling Arena on Sunday with a 1-6 mark in SEC road games. This game, however, will be different from the previous seven. The trip to Knoxville, Tenn., will be the first road game Kentucky has played against a team it has already faced and beaten at home. UK has five home-and-home games with other SEC teams, but Tennessee is the only one of the five in which the first game was played in Rupp Arena.Not that it matters to Knight and Co. Just getting a win on the road, at this point, is crucial to maintaining their confidence heading into the postseason.”(We want) to prove to ourselves that we can do it and just because you want to win,” Knight said. “We want to win all of our games, so of course I want to get the win.”Sunday will be Senior Day, plus the Volunteers are retiring Allan Houston’s jersey. Throw in the fact that Tennessee is still playing for its NCAA Tournament life and SEC Tournament seeding is on the line, and it should make for one of the most hostile environments Kentucky has played in all year.”I think they’re going to be excited,” Calipari said. “It’s Senior Night and it’s going to be a packed building. I don’t think anybody’s thinking about anything other than beating Kentucky.”The game will have a major impact on the final SEC Tournament standings. Entering the final weekend of conference play, only the first seed (Florida) and sixth seed (South Carolina) are locked in. Kentucky (9-6), Vanderbilt (9-6), Georgia (9-6) and Tennessee (8-7) all have a shot at the second seed. UK can do no worse than the fourth seed, but there are still a ton of scenarios for the East’s logjam, all of which you can view here.One thing the Cats cannot do in their hopes for the second seed is lose. A loss officially eliminates Kentucky from the race for a first-round bye.The top two seeds in each SEC division receive a first-round bye. Since the league went to a 12-team tournament format in 1993, only three teams have won four games in four days.Freshman forward Terrence Jones seemed to suggest earlier in the week that four straight wins in a long weekend would be a feat too tall for this inexperienced Kentucky team to tackle, but Knight wasn’t so ready to dismiss the Cats’ chances should it come down to that scenario.”It might be (too difficult), but if you’re put in that situation, there’s nothing you can really do,” Knight said. “You can’t make excuses about it. You’ve got to go out and play through it. If that’s the situation you’re put in, you’ve got to live with it.”Kentucky, more confident that it has been in months, will do its best Sunday to stay out of that scenario.