CLEVELAND — Kentucky vs. West Virginia. Calipari vs. Huggins. Size vs. full-court press.Thursday’s Sweet 16 matchup between the Wildcats and Mountaineers had plenty of storylines to begin with. Then West Virginia’s locker room opened to the media.”I give them their props,” West Virginia’s Daxter Miles told Brett Dawson of CatsIllustrated.com. “Salute them to getting to 36-0. But tomorrow they’re gonna be 36-1.”The chatter would continue, with Miles – a freshman guard – not only saying “nobody is invincible,” but also saying “they don’t play that hard” of the Wildcats ahead of a Sweet 16 matchup. The top-seeded Cats (36-0) weren’t there to hear it, but they surely heard about it soon after when their own locker room opened.Karl-Anthony Towns mostly nodded quietly.”I mean, everyone has an opinion,” Towns said. “Just take it as you get, I guess. We’ve always been criticized for everything. So it’s OK.”Willie Cauley-Stein, meanwhile, had a bit more vocal reaction. The player most agree to be the best defender in the country, known for his tireless energy in guarding post players and wing players alike, wasn’t so sure about the play-hard critique.”You’ve never even watched us play in person or you’ve never even watched us play people that are supposed to beat you and you end up beating them by 30, 40 points,” Cauley-Stein said. “But we don’t play hard? I mean–If you’re playing against teams like UCLA, Kansas, that are good teams and you’re able to do what we did to them without playing hard, imagine what we do playing hard. That’s kind of my mentality.”Cauley-Stein has a point there.UK has steamrolled through 36 games this season without a loss, staying atop the polls throughout and winning games by an NCAA-leading margin of 20.8 points per game. The Cats have won all five of their postseason games by double digits to boot, leading some to wonder why the Mountaineers would poke the bear that is Kentucky with anything other than respectful, boilerplate quotes.Cauley-Stein knows better. He also doesn’t mind.”No, I expect them to say stuff like that,” Cauley-Stein said. “I don’t necessarily know a team that at this point wouldn’t say something like that. That’s good. Adds fuel to the fire. Puts a little personal stuff into it. It’s all good stuff.”With an Elite Eight berth going to the winner, the stakes were already high enough, said Cauley-Stein. Now the Cats have something more to play for than just a win. Pride’s on the line.”Now I’m kind of juiced,” Cauley-Stein said. “This game is going to be really fun. They made it kind of personal now.” The game, based on West Virginia’s physical full-court defense and Kentucky’s proven ability to deal with such a style, was already plenty compelling. With a little friendly back and forth added to the mix, CBS becomes the place to be at 9:45 p.m. on Thursday.”It’s just going to be one of them games, that I’m telling you, if you want to watch a good game, you’re going to want to watch this game because dudes is lit,” Cauley-Stein said. “Dudes is really ready to play.”Excited as the Cats might be to have a little fuel added to the fire, one thing is noticeably absent from any of their responses to questions about West Virginia’s pregame predictions.Trash talk of their own.”We don’t worry about that,” Towns said. “You know what’s the thing? It’s usually always the people that are the best that say the least.”The Cats are happy to let their play speak for itself.