Young Cats Bringing Urgency, Excitement to Big Dance
BOISE, Idaho – It’s stating the obvious to say Kentucky is inexperienced, but March Madness offers an opportunity to reinforce exactly how young the Wildcats are.
Among the players on UK’s roster, only one – Wenyen Gabriel – has even seen the floor in an NCAA Tournament game. Another six were around for last year as the Cats advance to the Elite Eight, but never left the bench.
One of them – Hamidou Diallo – was redshirting. It might be underselling it a little bit to say he’s thankful to be less than 24 hours from his Big Dance debut.
“It’s the most exciting thing,” Diallo said.
The only thing that would be more exciting is if fifth-seeded Kentucky can make a deep run like last year’s, starting with a first-round matchup at Taco Bell Arena on Thursday at 7:10 p.m. ET against Davidson.
“I got to watch it last year and I got to be a part of a big run,” Diallo said. “Just trying to hopefully bring that same energy to this team. It’s going to be tougher and it’s going to be a long stretch. We gotta be able to come together as a team and really buy in.”
Coming together and buying in is exactly what the Cats have done over the last month.
On Feb. 14, UK was in the midst of a four-game losing streak and doubt was beginning to creep in about whether Kentucky would even hear its name called on Selection Sunday. Seven wins in eight games over the last month and an impressive run to win the Southeastern Conference Tournament emphatically put that to an end and turned Kentucky into a dangerous tournament team.
“We’ve matured a lot,” Gabriel said. “The way we approach shoot-arounds, the way we approach practice, walkthroughs. Our approach to everything is a little different now, especially having gone through a losing a streak going through this up-and-down season. It makes us a little more mature.”
Even so, UK remains a collection of players who have never performed on this stage. John Calipari is keenly aware of that fact.
“I’m a little worried them walking on to this court,” Calipari said. “I’ve tried to build the whole season towards this, talk about the NCAA Tournament all season, but I really don’t know. I have no idea what will happen.”
Davidson, meanwhile, hasn’t even reached the NCAA Tournament in 2015, yet Bob McKillop’s team still boasts more March Madness experience than Coach Cal’s. In one round-of-64 game in 2015, Peyton Aldridge, Oskar Michelsen and Jordan Watkins – now seniors – combined to play 49 minutes and score 14 points. Gabriel scored just one point in 26 minutes over four games last year, but he’s still passing along the knowledge he gained in doing so.
“I just tell them we gotta continue to be locked in, make sure that you come in with that same approach that we’ve had lately with being locked in coming into every game understanding that you could lose a game if you don’t go in playing as hard and connected as we do in the tournament,” Gabriel said. “We gotta remember that we need each other every game and if we come in locked in and play as hard as we can, harder than the other team, we can win any game.”
Urgency, in other words, is the key. That much has sunk in.
“We all know that this could be our last go-round,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “This is win or go home, and I think we play better with that on our shoulders.”
