The “Improbables”!

If the year ended today for the UK Wildcats I could wake up from my dream, somebody could pinch me and I would think I was still dreaming. What an improbable year it has been for this basketball team, coach and fans alike.

It truly has been an IMPROBABLE year, because only the craziest of fans really thought it would be like this. Reality had to set in for us somewhere down the line and it did after the loss to Arkansas in overtime from a lackluster performance by the Cat’s even though Arkansas played like a team possessed. The end result was that most of us, including me, felt this team was not destined to go far in the tournament if they even were to receive a bid for the NCAA field of 68.

I always felt they would right the ship and get a bid, but it sure looked like a 7 or 8 seed at best before lightning struck and they jelled or you might say they “got it”!

Backing up a little to the start of the year or even before the start of the season everyone was still in shock and mourning over the loss to WVA in the elite 8 of 2010. The subsequent and expected loss of Wall, Cousins and Patterson was going to hurt, but with Bledsoe and Orton deciding to leave as well sent our expectations for a final 4 berth to practically zero. That team was our dream team. They were an improbable cast of a team from nowhere. John Calipari had just been hired as coach at UK after the abysmal two years of failure under Billy Gillispie and the preceding two years under Tubby Smith. Somehow lightning struck for UK or the Genie bottle was opened. Calipari was able to keep Orton as a signee, but inked arguably the greatest incoming class of all time with the #1 and #2 picks along with a top 10 pick Eric Bledsoe. We don’t know how much of a sales pitch Cal had to make to those young men, but they turned around the program in one season. Only an extremely cold shooting night from the team and an improbable hot shooting night from WVA doomed the Cat’s to flame out in the elite 8.

It was still a great, great year and for our beloved Cat’s much appreciation was showered upon that team. However, as reality set in after all of them left for the NBA we knew the handwriting on the wall read “UK to be a good, but not a great team in 2010/11″. We knew that Cal was a great coach, because he had shown it everywhere he has been even with the bad publicity. He has resurrected programs at every stop and now UK, but come on this team would never reach the pinnacle of success as last years team. Everybody knew it except the team. We didn’t have a legitimate center for next season in the scarcely used Harrellson. Miller was a spotty player at best even though he had the tools, but he didn’t seem to have the drive to reach for his huge potential. Liggins was an enigma and a player that everyone had written off as a loser, a quitter, but with a reprieve from Cal showed he had that “something” even if it was spotty as well. Lastly, there was those three new players that had never played a game, but were loaded with talent. Jones was to be the super star of the lot. Knight was going to be really good, but no way was he going to be as good as John Wall (nobody should be compared to that) and Lamb was a year away.

Most fans felt they were a year and one more super recruiting class away from the final 4 expectations. Even with that there was breath holding by most fans because of the number of freshman heading to the NBA in droves. Cal’s system of recruiting those “one and dones” would never pay off, because “nobody has ever been successful with that system” so says the pundits.

Well Cal has debunked all that, the team has debunked all that. Even though Jones hasn’t been the super, super star he has been a really great player double teamed most of the time and has grown tremendously as a team player. He seems to enjoy his time at UK. However, Lamb and Knight have blossomed into special players in this class of “overachievers” to bring this team into the final 4 for the first time in twelve long years. The sight of the much maligned Harrellson getting off of the bus with the final 4 net still around his neck says it all. There stood a man among men. He had held his own and in my estimation outplayed the great center from OH State and played great against the 7 footer Zeller at UNC. He has come a long, long way from a guy that couldn’t run down the floor three times in a row without being gassed to a dominant center on a great UK team. Every team dreaded to be paired up with that team even though the seeding committee tried their best to knock them out early in the tournament. Every team had seen what they did with their defense in the SEC tourney and wanted no part of them. Well now they are in the final 4 and have two more hurdles to climb for #8. There is more work to do, but somehow I think if a team is to beat them they will have to have super, super games and UK will have to have a bad game if they are to be stopped.

In finality, in my view, if they lose it won’t be because they are timid or quit. Josh, ‘Dre, Jonsey, Knight, Lamb, Miller, Vargas and Hoodie will be fighting and scraping until the end. Win or lose you can pinch me now or pinch me then I am a happy fan!