UK’s Seen It All, Energy Key

INDIANAPOLIS – Everything that has happened during Kentucky’s 2016-17 season, both bad and good, has in the end helped the Wildcats prepare for this moment.

The second-seeded Wildcats (29-5) take on 15th-seeded Northern Kentucky (24-10) on Friday at approximately 9:40 p.m. ET in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, and will do so having seen just about everything under the sun in a single season.

UK has played fast and grinded it out. It’s played without its starting point guard, and it’s played with its leading scorer putting up both 47 points and two points. It’s played with four guards at times and with two players in the paint. It’s had big leads and hung on at the end. It’s dug itself into double-digit holes only to come back and win. It’s lost three out of four and won 11 in a row.

But what should help this Kentucky team the most when it takes the court against the Norse late Friday evening is that the big stage of the Big Dance is no big deal.

“Every team we play is their Super Bowl against us,” sophomore guard Isaiah Briscoe said. “We’ve always had a target on our backs. This is nothing new for us.”

Northern Kentucky enters the tournament as the seventh team to ever qualify for the NCAA Tournament in their first year eligible after reclassifying to become a Division I program. The Norse earned their ticket by winning the Horizon League Tournament.

UK, which has faced NKU just one time previously in November of 2013, will come in as the overwhelming favorite. The Wildcats are 6-0 all-time in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as a No. 2 seed and 2 seeds have lost just eight times in tournament history, but half of those eight losses have come in the last five years.

“If you expect in this tournament, to try to bury somebody, it’s hard. It’s hard,” Coach Cal said. “You’re just trying to say let’s play as well as we can play.

“Teams this year, many teams had house money against us, not supposed to win. They’re not expected to win. We were expected to win. They’re throwing balls, shooting bank shots, hook shots, runners, ball’s going in. Who is that guy? He just made three 3s. Those are his first three 3s of the season. That’s his first, that kind of stuff.

“So, you’ve got to come in this, let’s worry about us. Let’s play with energy, knowing this team is good enough, Northern, to beat us. Let’s be at our best and see what happens.”

One of the most popular words during Thursday’s media opportunity with the Cats was “energy.”

At last week’s Southeastern Conference Tournament in Nashville, UK played with great energy for much of the tournament. The result was three consecutive wins, including a 17-point thumping of Arkansas in the championship. With such a late tip for Friday’s game, UK knows coming out with great energy, and avoiding the lethargy that could come from waiting around all day, will play a key role.

“Basketball is basketball,” freshman guard Malik Monk said. “We get up, eat breakfast, go to shootaround. Same thing we do before an early game or anything like that. We just gotta be focused.”

What worries Coach Cal, he said, is that Kentucky is the youngest team in the NCAA Tournament. During the Calipari era that note hasn’t been all too uncommon. 

The Wildcats have become older of late with the strong play of their three seniors. Derek Willis has started each of the past five games, Mychal Mulder is third on the team in 3-pointers made, and Dominique Hawkins was named to the SEC All-Tournament team after recording career highs in points (14) and steals (4) in the championship game Sunday.

Still, UK’s top three scorers, Monk, De’Aaron Fox and Bam Adebayo, are freshmen. Its four leaders in minutes are the aforementioned trio and Briscoe. UK’s leading rebounder and assist man are both freshmen as well.

“They’ve never been in this tournament setting,” Calipari said. “You’re trying to talk them through, but you can’t. They have to feel it.

“We have veterans that I can go to, but we’ll see. You don’t know. I mean, that’s what makes this tournament what it is. You don’t know. You may think you know, but you do not know.”

And so perhaps this UK team hasn’t seen it all. It’s gone through a number of trials and tribulations in what has been a successful season thus far, but the NCAA Tournament will be a new challenge for many of UK’s brightest stars.

What Kentucky does know is that it can expect to see a Northern Kentucky team playing with a sense of nothing to lose, which is fine with the Cats.

“I think every team brings that extra energy when they play against Kentucky,” Briscoe said. “They’re going to come out hitting shots. They’re going to be excited. But like I said, we’re used to that. We’re used to being the other team’s Super Bowl. So, we’re just going to come out and play how we play.”