UK headed for NIT and great unknown

By John Clay / Herald-Leader Sports Columnist

Charles Bertram

Patrick Patterson was interviewed in the UK locker room after UK lost to LSU in a quarterfinal round of the SEC Tournament at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fl., Friday, March, 13, 2009. LSU won 67-58. Photo by Charles Bertram | Staff

UK-LSU coverage
� Box score
� Game story: LSU knocks out UK, 67-58
� John Clay: UK fans not used to this brand of basketball
� Notes: Cats not quitting on the season
� Slideshow: Post-game gallery of photos
� Audio: Billy Gillispie's postgame press conference
� Discussion board: Let's talk about it
� Printable UK roster
� The past: See UK game stories dating from '83-'84 season to present
� The present: 2008-09 UK season preview
� The future: Keep track of high school performances of UK commitments
� Keepsakes: Purchase photos taken by Herald-Leader staff photographers
Big Dance denial?

Kentucky has played in 17 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, the third-longest active streak behind Arizona's 24 and Kansas' 19. It looks as if Kentucky's streak will end this season. Here is how Kentucky has fared in those 17 NCAA appearances:

2008: Lost in first round

2007: Lost in second round

2006: Lost in second round

2005: Lost in Elite Eight

2004: Lost in second round

2003: Lost in Elite Eight

2002: Lost in Sweet 16

2001: Lost in Sweet 16

2000: Lost in second round

1999: Lost in Elite Eight

1998: Won NCAA title

1997: Lost in NCAA finals

1996: Won NCAA title

1995: Lost in Elite Eight

1994: Lost in second round

1993: Lost in Final Four

1992: Lost in Elite Eight

TAMPA, Fla. — Thirty-three games down, and there's just one thing we know with any sort of certainty.

Without the sudden appearance of divine intervention, Kentucky's streak of 17 consecutive NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament appearances is kaput.

All other questions remain unanswered.

At this time, anyway.

Among them: After Friday's 67-58 loss to Louisiana State in the second round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament at the St. Pete Times Forum, will the Cats be fired up for the also-ran derby known as the NIT?

And how do they run one of those NIT things anyway?

And after that, will Patrick Patterson return next season? Will Jodie Meeks? How about DeAndre Liggins? Or A.J. Stewart? Or Darius Miller? Or how about any number of players on Billy Gillispie's long roster?

And then, of course, there is the biggest and messiest question of all: What of Gillispie, now 38-26 after two seasons at the helm, he of the unsigned contract and stubborn self-reliance, his employment future presumably to be decided by one of those end-of-season, do-better meetings?

Will Billy G. return to fight another day in blue, or will he be encouraged to saddle up and ride back West from whence he came?

Certainly not the questions we thought we'd be pondering the day before Selection Sunday.

"I would have laughed," said Patrick Patterson, the 6-foot-9 sophomore, sitting inside the losing locker room, when asked how he would have reacted if someone had told him he would not be playing in the NCAA Tournament.

"It's Kentucky, and Kentucky basketball makes the tournament every year."

But this was a year of a different color. The Cats were 5-0 in the SEC and 16-4 overall on Jan. 24. They now sit 20-13 overall, 8-8 in the conference, a second-round knockout victim in the league tournament.

Meeks was a national player of the year candidate after scoring 54 points in a win at Tennessee on Jan. 13. He finished the season on tired wheels and an aching back from a heavy load.

LSU's Marcus Thornton captured SEC Player of the Year. While Thornton was leading the Tigers with 21 points on Friday, Meeks could never shake Garrett Temple's imposing shadow. Meeks' eight points were a season low.

"It was frustrating," the UK junior said.

Patterson's pride wouldn't allow him to call the season a disappointment. Instead, he said, "I know we didn't play up to our capabilities."

Himself included. So often Friday, as it has been so often this past month, Patterson played hard around the basket but couldn't finish around the basket. He got nine shots — "Easy shots," he said — and made four.

Nothing's easy for the head coach, however. LSU was and is the superior team, no doubt. But the mind wonders when the stat sheet shows Meeks with just three more shot attempts (9) than Michael Porter (6), when Perry Stevenson gets two rebounds in 33 minutes, when a team with two first-team All-SEC players won't be dancing with the big boys next week.

If that's all there was to it, then you hope the breaks bounce your way next year. But it's not. There is an obvious gap between Gillispie's narrow perception of the job (wins and players) and what UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart believes it to be (a successful and respected captain of a very famous ship). The off-the-court stuff counts, too, especially when the on-the-floor isn't going so well. And it's not, as evidenced by the fact that we must now all brush up on this thing we haven't experienced in 20 years — this peculiarity called the NIT.

"It's still basketball," said Patterson.

Just not the basketball we've come to expect.

Reach John Clay at 859-231-3226 or 1-800-950-6397, ext. 3226, or jclay@herald-leader.com. Read his blog at Kentucky.com.