LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Kentucky hasn’t lost since April 7, 2014, but that date is still very much on the minds of several Wildcat players to this day.More than 11 months after falling to Connecticut by six points in the national championship game, the guy who made three historic shots to get the Cats to that point still thinks about it and admits it drives not only him, but his teammates as well.”I think we have an edge because that is a chip on our shoulder that no one else feels in the tournament,” sophomore guard Aaron Harrison said. “Just to be so close to winning a national championship and coming up short, I think that will drive us a little bit in the tournament as well.”While the Cats (34-0) are the youngest team in the tournament field, they enter Thursday night’s game vs. No. 16 seed Hampton (17-17) with vast tournament experience. Not only have they played in a national championship game before, they have won four tournament games decided in the final minute, and they have players who have hit game-winning baskets and made big-time plays.That experience has been apparent during Kentucky’s regular-season run. The Cats trailed with less than a minute to play against Ole Miss, but promptly stole the ball and sank a free throw to send the game to overtime. They also trailed by two points with six seconds to play in overtime at Texas A&M before Trey Lyles calmly sank both free-throw attempts to push the game to a second overtime.”They play to win,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari said. “They’re not playing not to lose. But I’m going to say this: This tournament — the good news for us, it’s on everybody. Normally, it seems to be just on us. Now everybody’s season is about to end one way or another. So everybody now, you could be up 15, and all of a sudden, you jam up a little bit like, uh-oh, what happens now? It’s not like, hey, our season will keep going. Let’s try to win this game. No, it isn’t that way. This is a different deal for all of us.”And while if Kentucky finds itself in a close game in the Big Dance the pressure that will be placed on it will dwarf what other teams face, the Cats haven’t yet shown any signs of feeling it.After winning the Southeastern Conference Championship on Sunday, Marcus Lee took a camera and began filming one of his teammates. Earlier in the year, both he and freshman forward Karl-Anthony Towns got in a playful wrestling match after barking back and forth during interviews.”It’s not that hard to stay in the moment with this team,” Lee said. “As you see, we enjoy each other very much in everything we do, going through shootarounds or in practice.”The crazy thing is that had the Cats won the national championship last year, the 2014-15 season could very well be much different. Perhaps more players would have chosen to enter their name in the NBA Draft. Perhaps the edge the Cats have currently played with this season, and plan to play with in this tournament, would not quite be as sharp.Willie Cauley-Stein has said he was planning on submitting his name to the NBA Draft last year if he had not gotten injured during the Cats’ run to the finals. But, as he noted, everything happens for a reason.With a number of sophomores and juniors who competed during last year’s roller coaster season, and heart-stopping tournament run, the Cats’ four rookies, who were all named to the SEC All-Freshman team by the league’s 14 head coaches, have thrived.Tyler Ulis and Devin Booker, in particular, have found the road their home away from home, especially in wins at Texas A&M, Alabama and Tennessee. At Mississippi State, Trey Lyles led Kentucky with a team-high 18 points, and at LSU and Georgia, Towns overcame mental mistakes to lead his team to victory down the stretch.”The young guys, they do a good job in coming up in big games anyway,” sophomore forward Dakari Johnson said. “I’m sure they’ll be prepared for (the NCAA Tournament).””Coach Cal stressed it to us, how big these games are,” Ulis said. “We’ll be ready for it. We’ve had a lot of big games over the season. So we just can’t wait.”It’s not as though the Cats have entered this tournament or this season unprepared. From its Big Blue Bahamas Tour in August, to having Drake at Big Blue Madness, having Coach Cal’s press conferences carried live on “SportsCenter” or several thousand show up for an open practice, Kentucky has been the talk of college basketball all year long.But that’s not to say UK’s players mind it. That attention and target they’ve carried all season is part of what drives the Cats. That, and that loss on April 7, 2014.”We love the big stage,” Ulis said. “That’s why we’re here.”