Ho-hum!It was that kind of game Saturday afternoon at Rupp Arena. Kentucky won – as it should – by a 21-point margin, 91-69, but it was far from the cakewalk some might have expected, especially after a three-game stretch of marquee victories.The Cats led just about the entire way, sleepwalking its way through eight-, 10- and 12-point leads, possession after possession.But every time UK was about to slam the door shut, Austin Peay would open it back up. Maybe a bit more accurately, the Cats would put their own foot in the door.”You get up 18, 16 and we’re just losing our minds,” head coach John Calipari said. “We’re trying to look like we’re the Globetrotters at times.”A week full of finals, inexperience and a little bit of arrogance are likely the culprits in the sluggish win. Even if the kids these days don’t pick up a newspaper and read their press clippings, they still surf the Web and read about their incredible 11-0 start. Even the most down-to-earth players get a big head from time to time.”I said, ‘You guys are getting arrogant,’ ” Calipari said. “There’s a difference between arrogance and a swagger. A swagger comes in and everyone knows we’re working harder than this other team. You may make some baskets and you may get us down, but we have a swagger because we’re always going to defend, we’re never going to give up on a possession, we’re going to block, we’re going to run and we’re all going to do our jobs. (That is) a swagger. …””Arrogance is ‘We’re 11-0 and everybody says I’m the best and watch this,’ and all of a sudden the other team outworks you, they outhustle you, they beat you to balls, they play with more energy and all of a sudden you get beat. We’re trying to guard against that. It’s hard because they’re young and the information out there, they read it and start thinking they poop ice cream.”Fortunately for the Cats, they won’t have to learn a lesson by taking a loss. The only consequence they’ll pay is likely a berating from their first-year coach, who, by the way, is off to the best start for a first-year coach in school annals. But there was a bit of overconfidence by the young gun Cats. Every time they had a chance to close the game out, Austin Peay fought back in it. It wasn’t until a two-minute stretch by Patrick Patterson late in the second half did the Cats finally bury the Governors. After knocking two free throws at the line – UK, a bit uncharacteristically, was a perfect 18-for-18 from the charity stripe – Patterson went for the jugular on a rim-rattling alley-oop.Freshman point guard John Wall received an alley-oop pass in transition, but instead of laying it in himself, he left it off for Patterson, who raced from the free-throw line for a thunderous two-hand slam.
The crowd, Patterson and UK fed off that dunk, ripping off a 12-0 run. Patterson was the key part in that stretch, adding a tip-in and loose ball assist to Darnell Dodson.It was a reminder of how important Patterson is to the Cats’ success. On a team riddled with youth, UK needs a leader to close out games, pick the guys up when they’re slow and fight back when their backs are against the wall. Kentucky’s potential is endless with John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe, but it will only go as far as Patterson can take them. “We tried to get him the ball to start off every play and get it to him because he’s our leader, he’s our catalyst. You ride him until the wheels fall off,” Wall said. “He wasn’t finishing some plays (in the first half) that he usually finishes so coach got on him at halftime like he got on some other guys and he came back out and performed like an All-American like he’s supposed to.”Patterson finished with another near double-double, but his coach said he had never seen a “softer 21 (points), nine (rebounds) than Patrick Patterson had.”The third-year star had no gripes with that evaluation.”I agree with (Calipari),” Patterson said. “It was pretty much horrible on my part. The ways I was scoring was pretty much just passing to my teammates, a couple of post moves, some free throws, but just my performance on the offensive end wasn’t up to par how it should have been.”Was the one guy that should know better a little overconfident, a little arrogant? Or was it the holiday season or post-finals blues? Patterson said none of the above.”I don’t believe this team is letting the record get to its head,” Patterson said. “We all know that we have a long way to go. We still want to be one of the best teams in the nation, we still want to go to the national championship and we want to go undefeated.”Undefeated? The last team to do that during the regular season was UNLV in the 1990-91 season. Just barely more than a third through the regular season, do they really believe that’s possible?”We think it’s pretty realistic,” Patterson said. “We know there are some teams out there who believe they can do it as well, but we believe we can go undefeated if we continue to get better on the offensive end, the defensive end, then an undefeated season can happen.”If and only if Patterson takes his already polished game to the next level; if he can play like that two-minute stretch late in the game and not like the one we saw before that. The coaches and players can talk all they want about defensive stops, better execution and more effort on loose ball, but they need to develop a better killer instinct. That starts and stops with its best all-around player, its most experienced player and its leader.  It takes an extraordinary team to run the table, so it’s going to take an extraordinary leader to accomplish one of the toughest feats in all of sports.Patterson, as he’s been for the last three years, will be the key to completing those dreams.