Cats Focused on Task at Hand as Madness Begins
Speculation has run rampant in the Big Blue Nation this week, particularly after Kentucky’s run in the SEC Tournament ended.
Would the Wildcats get a one seed or a two? Who would be in their bracket? Where would they be sent for their first- and second-round games? What about a potential regional?
It seems the Cats themselves were the only one not engaging.
“Even today, looking at brackets, no one was really talking about it until our names got announced and we saw where we were going,” Reid Travis said.
That announcement came Sunday evening, as UK gathered as a team at John Calipari’s house to watch the Selection Show. Kentucky (27-6) was tabbed the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Regional, where they will open their 58th NCAA Tournament appearance against Abilene Christian (27-6) in Jacksonville, Florida. The game will tip off at 7:10 p.m. ET on CBS.
As soon as the bracket was unveiled, speculation immediately shifted to Kentucky’s path to a potential Final Four. The second round would bring a matchup with No. 7 seed Wofford or a rematch with No. 10 Seton Hall, which defeated UK in a December overtime thriller. The three seed in the Midwest is Houston, while No. 1 North Carolina and No. 4 Kansas round out the region’s top seeds.
Just as before the tournament, the Cats aren’t going to engage. They’ll be too busy focusing on Abilene Christian.
“We didn’t really look too far,” Travis said. “I think that’s one thing Coach told us right after the brackets came out, that we’re only focused on the first game and go from there kind of just have tunnel vision. Kind of just go in a hole and just really worry about the next game up so for us looking at potential matchups and things like that, we’re not really looking too far ahead. But obviously we’re excited for this matchup Thursday, excited to get out there and kind of just go from there.”
Abilene Christian – also nicknamed the Wildcats – earned the Southland Conference’s automatic bid by defeating New Orleans in Saturday’s tournament final. Head coach Joe Golding’s team is rife with experience and has won six straight games to reach the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament.
“The teams in our little corner of the bracket, one beat us, the other team is the team you knew,” Calipari said. “Then, Abilene Christian I don’t know much about, but if they are in my guess is that they shoot 3s. Which means if they make 20 we lose in the first round. I mean at this time of the year it’s one and done.”
Calipari isn’t quite right about the volume of 3s Abilene Christian attempts (the Wildcats are 291st in 3-point attempt rate), but this team does shoot 38.8 percent from deep, 16th best in the country. The Wildcats also rank 12th nationally in turnovers forced at 16.5 per game.
“We have to get through Abilene Christian,” Calipari said. “That’s all I’m worried about right now.”
To get through Abilene Christian, Calipari knows the path to take. It’s the same one the Cats have taken all season.
“Everybody’s going to have an edge,” Calipari said. “Everybody’s playing for their life and survival. Can a team go back to their training? You can’t play up to the tournament. You know why? Because you can do that in 15 minutes. You can’t play up to the opponent because you can do that for 15 minutes. You have to play to your training, you play to your conditioning. And that you can do for 40 minutes and if you can play for 40 minutes, you’ll have a chance to win every game you play.”
Last time out, that’s exactly the position the Cats were in. Kentucky led Tennessee by eight with less than three minutes to go before the Volunteers came back to win a thrilling and high-level SEC Tournament semifinal. Unpleasant as that may have been, it was a final lesson before the Big Dance begins.
“It was good for us,” Keldon Johnson said. “For the week before the tournament to be an environment like that, playing another great team like we did, to really battle and compete with them like we did, in the atmosphere that we did, was a good learning experience for us.”
The Cats need all the learning they can get entering this next stage of the season. PJ Washington is the only player on the roster who has played double-digit minutes in an NCAA Tournament game. That’s only adding to the anticipation.
“We’re excited,” Travis said. “I mean sitting there watching teams go up, hearts were pounding, excited to see where we were going to play but now it’s set in stone. Excited to see the scouting report and get ready to prepare for the game.”
