Sure, it was Miami of Ohio and the talent levels between them and the Kentucky Wildcats is vast but before Big Blue nation starts looking for a horse to tie their ankle to and drag themselves to their demise just remember: these players are young and Kentucky did get the win.
With the whirl win that was the John Calipari coaching signing followed by him signing the top recruiting class in the nation Kentucky was chosen by media to be a team destined for a late run in March. In Kentucky, fans deemed the team the greatest of all time and argued that the number five preseason ranking was too low. But how quickly fans forget, Kentucky was not even in the NCAA tournament last year and they lost their top scorer, Jodie Meeks, to the NBA.
With a brand new team, Kentucky will have a lot of these games early. In fact it was after the 75 to 59 victory that John Calipari said that Miami of Ohio had a chance to beat Kentucky if they didn’t play well.
It certainly got close, but Kentucky did prevail. And that is something fans can hang their hats on for now. The Kentucky Wildcats of last year would have not been able to come back from an 18 point deficit. In fact, early in the year last year it was a game against VMI, that the Cats could not stop the military institute from missing a basket and they eventually lost.
After the game John Calipari said, “I was happy that our team got down by 18.” And continued by saying, “At each time out my players kept saying we are going to win this. We are not going to give this one away.”
And they didn’t give it away. With six tenths of a second left freshman John Wall pulled up at around the free throw line, hit a shot, and won the game.
No, they did not win by 37. No the game did not look pretty. But this could be the game at the end of the season that players and coaches point to as a maturation point for the remainder of the season.
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