NCAA Basketball’s Cool ‘Cat

By Jason King
December 5, 2009


LEXINGTON, Ky. — With three minutes left in the biggest game of the young college basketball season, the 18-year-old freshman with two points and four turnovers shouted at one of the sport’s legendary figures from the end of the bench.

“Coach!” Kentucky freshman Eric Bledsoe yelled near the end of the Wildcats’ game against North Carolina. “Put me back in!”

Standing on the Kentucky sideline, John Calipari couldn’t help but smile. Appalled as he was that one of players had dared to give him orders, there was a side of him that loved it. So Calipari pointed toward the scorer’s table.

Moments later, the No. 5 Wildcats found themselves celebrating a 68-66 victory over the 10th-ranked Tar Heels. Patrick Patterson led all scorers with 19 points and John Wall added 16. Still, as Kentucky paraded around the Rupp Arena court, the identity of the day’s hero was never in question.

Ineffective for most of the afternoon, Bledsoe came off the bench to score seven crucial points in the game’s waning minutes. His aggressiveness – Bledsoe earned three trips to the free-throw line after getting fouled on hard drives to the basket – helped stave off a furious North Carolina rally that saw the Tar Heels come back from a 19-point deficit.

“He basically won the game for us,” Calipari said of Bledsoe. “What Eric did is a lesson for all of us. It doesn’t matter if you’ve played awful. We’re trying to win. Make plays down the stretch and we’ll talk about the [bad stuff] later.”

That, more than anything, was what encouraged Calipari the most about his team’s performance Saturday. The Wildcats, who start three freshmen, can be selfish at times. They have lapses where they don’t defend, and sometimes they run the wrong plays.

But deep down – in those moments when the score is tight and the crowd is roaring and announcers are using cliches like “gut-check time” and “intestinal fortitude” – something happens to the Wildcats. Instead of floundering, they flourish.

“We’re not very good right now,” Calipari said. “But that’s OK. We shouldn’t be. We’re young. We’re only 42 practices in. We don’t know what we’re doing and our execution stinks.

“But I like our will to win. We have a will to win. They believe they’re going to make something happen to win the game, and that’s a good thing.”

It’ll be even better once Kentucky puts everything else together.

The Wildcats’ starting lineup features three players who will likely go in the top 20 of this summer’s NBA draft. No other team in the country can say that. On pure talent alone Saturday, they were able to beat a very good North Carolina squad that stands an excellent chance of returning to the Final Four.

The largest crowd in Rupp Arena history (24,468) saw the Wildcats uncork a 28-2 run against North Carolina that turned a 9-2 deficit in a 30-11 lead. A 28-2 run? Against Carolina? Seriously, who does that?

“The first half, they really kicked our tails,” UNC coach Roy Williams said. “They just ran us out of the gym.”

Most of it was because of Wall. The nation’s best player already seems to be on a different level than Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans, the former Memphis guards who played under Calipari before being selected with the No. 1 and No. 4 overall picks, respectively, in the 2008 and 2009 draft.

Wall scored 13 points and notched five assists in the first half, when he blew past defenders on fast breaks, dunked after beating his man on a crossover dribble and changed hands on a dipsy-do, reverse layup that’s sure to be replayed on highlight reels for years.

“He really attacks you – and he attacks you with 6-foot-4 size and long arms and great quickness,” Williams said.

Wall was especially revved up for Saturday’s game. He grew up in Raleigh – just down the road from the Tar Heels’ campus in Chapel Hill – but was never recruited by Williams.

“He wanted it real bad,” Bledsoe said. “That’s all he was talking about. Every time I went in his room, he said, ‘I can’t wait to play North Carolina. I can’t wait."

Kentucky led 43-28 at intermission. But as good as the Wildcats were in the first half, they showed their warts in the second. Their intensity dropped on defense, and players forgot where they were supposed to be on the court. A few times Calipari called timeout, drew up a play and then looked at the Wildcats’ faces as they got out of their chairs.

“Guys were looking at teammates and saying, ‘What are we running?’” Calipari said.
Still, even with Wall missing a significant portion of the second half because of cramps, Kentucky was able to hold on for the victory.

“People were saying we’re overrated,” Patterson said. “People were doubting us. People were saying we’re a very immature team, a young team. Hopefully we put different thoughts in their minds. Hopefully now they think we’re a tough team, a hard team to play.”

Indeed, despite all of their youth and inexperience, the Wildcats proved Saturday that they’re one of the best teams in college basketball.

By March, there may be no one better.

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