Aaron Harrison and Kentucky will face Wisconsin in the Final Four for the second straight season on Saturday. (Chet White, UK Athletics)
INDIANAPOLIS – Kentucky fans can probably recall every detail of the shot Aaron Harrison hit to send the Wildcats past Wisconsin and into the 2014 national championship game.They remember how Andrew Harrison drove and dumped to Dakari Johnson, who quickly returned the pass. They’ll never forget how Andrew kicked to his twin brother and told him to shoot. The memory of Aaron rising and burying a game winner is burned into their minds.The same can’t be said for the man who hit the shot.”I just remember falling and celebrating,” Aaron Harrison said. “I really don’t remember anything else.”Josh Gasser – the player defending Aaron Harrison – has a memory similar to Kentucky fans’ when it comes to the shot, though the feelings that come with it are quite a bit different.”I think our fingers actually interlocked,” Gasser said. “When it left his hand, I was feeling good.”Instead, Aaron Harrison’s long-distance strike sent Wisconsin home. As the Cats celebrated, the Badgers pondered the end of their season. The shot and loss still fresh in their minds, Wisconsin players say they couldn’t help but watch it again.”I came home two days later and watched it from the perspective of me being sour and angry and sad,” Sam Dekker said. “Then a few weeks later I watched it just getting over it. I watched it in bits and pieces. Then the night before the season started I watched it again just to, this is the stage you want to be at again. It kind of got me pumped up to go.”Motivated and returning the bulk of its roster from the Final Four team, the Badgers (35-3) have had one of the best seasons in program history and set up a reprise of last year’s national semifinal at 8:49 p.m. on Saturday. This time, the Wildcats come in as the first 38-0 team in NCAA history.”It’s a great story,” Frank Kaminsky said. “Talk about starting last year when we played them and the way we lost. To come back this year and beat them on the same stage would be a storybook ending almost.”Aaron Harrison concedes he would have been motivated had Kentucky’s season ended the way Wisconsin’s did in 2014. However, he won’t allow that Wisconsin has a monopoly on motivation. UK, after all, did come up short of its ultimate goal of winning a national championship.”I think everyone’s overlooking that,” he said. “And I don’t really see how it’s a revenge game because we’re a completely different team with different players.”On that count, the Badgers agree. Talk of the rematch might be dominating headlines (and this story), but it will matter little once the two teams step between the lines.”Obviously, I understand where that’s coming from, but when you get to the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament, it shouldn’t matter – or any game for that matter – it shouldn’t matter who you’re playing,” Dekker said. “If you need some type of fuel to fuel the play in a game you want to win, then there’s something a little off.”More than revenge or anything, what UK and Wisconsin will truly be playing for in Lucas Oil Stadium is a spot in the national championship game. Both teams will have to pass their toughest on-paper test to date to earn it.The matchup pits teams ranked first and third in both major polls, as well as kenpom.com. Kentucky, a team renowned for its otherworldly assemblage of talent, has four projected first-round NBA Draft picks. Wisconsin lags barely behind with three.”Just a great team,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “They have a great coach also. A great program. I think all together you just have to respect the whole program as a general to make a team like that come together.”UK fields the nation’s best defense, Wisconsin the nation’s best offense. To put it briefly, this is going to be good.”Well, they’re outstanding,” John Calipari said. “We just played a great offensive team in Notre Dame. This team rivals and maybe surpasses because they can iso you in the post. They shoot the 3 the same as Notre Dame does. They have that one guy that’s a big guy, not a guard, and their guards are good, too, in Frank (Kaminsky) who can go get his own. But Dekker has proved he can do the same.”Slowing down Kaminsky, Dekker and company is a monumental challenge. In fact, handcuffing them as UK has so often done to opponents this season might be impossible. The good news is Wisconsin still has to contend with UK’s balanced attack.Regardless whether the Cats do it with defense as they did against Cincinnati or offense like against Notre Dame, the overall approach is the same as it ever was.”We have one job,” Calipari said. “Individually it’s to be the best version of yourself. Get yourself mentally and physically prepared to be your best. We have to play at our best. That’s the best we can do. I can’t ask them for anything else. I told them, I don’t know the outcome. I can’t promise you the outcome. But I do know our chances are best if you’re the best version of you and we’re our best as a team. Things are going to go crazy. We’ll adjust. We’ve done it all year.”That’s worked well so far.