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Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Cal working to restore UK swagger

At one stop on John Calipari's travels throughout Kentucky this year, a fan asked the new University of Kentucky basketball coach a question: Did he remember the Wildcats' comeback victory against LSU?

"The one down at LSU?" Calipari said in reference to UK's 1994 rally from a 31-point deficit at LSU, thereafter dubbed the Mardi Gras Miracle. "Everybody knows that one. You'd have to be on the moon not to know that one."

That wasn't the one. The fan was talking about some home-game comeback against LSU lost in the mists of time.

"You think I was watching Kentucky games?" asked Calipari, no doubt with a smile.

Yes, the fan could have said. Doesn't everyone? Shouldn't everyone?

Kentucky games are not just games. "Not for 'fun-zees,'" as Calipari likes to say.

Every game is memorable, historic, meaningful and carved into the soul of any right-thinking basketball fan. Ditto for any coach, like Calipari until now, practicing his trade at some other (read: lesser) program.

If Calipari hadn't already gotten the message (and he had), this fan's question let him know the standard for UK basketball. All college basketball crossroads are supposed to run through Lexington. But Kentucky's program had gotten stranded at the corner of Irrelevant and Ordinary.

In the past five seasons, UK had a win-loss record of 112-58. Many programs would envy a winning percentage of .659. For Kentucky, it represented a slide toward humdrum. Tennessee became the first Southeastern Conference team to finish ahead of Kentucky in the standings four straight years. Florida became the first SEC team to beat the Cats seven straight times.

Parity could be grudgingly accepted. But this was parody.

Last season punctuated the unhappy state of affairs. The Cats dropped out of The Associated Press' pre-season Top 25 for the first time since 1990. Then Kentucky failed to receive a bid to the 2009 NCAA Tournament, snapping a streak of appearances dating to 1992.

"I really want to erase that," sophomore Darius Miller said of last season. "I didn't have fun being on the Kentucky team that went to the NIT. I want to start over and win games."

Enter Calipari.

In less than eight months, he secured the nation's No. 1 recruiting class and used his irresistible can-do spirit to restore the belief that Kentucky will be Kentucky again.

"Back to the rightful place atop the mountain," Calipari said in his inspiring Big Blue Madness address.

Making it fun again

In that same 15-minute oration, the new coach pledged himself to getting "the greatest fans in all sports once again pumping your chests."

That part of the restoration came before the first layup at the first practice. Such is the power of Calipari's personality and startling recruiting sweep.

"We're going to have a hoppin' team the next few years," fan Charles Wofford, 66, said while waiting in line for Big Blue Madness tickets. "It's going to be like Christmas."

Another fan in the Madness line, Jerry Roberts, likened the state of UK basketball to the glory years of the mid-1990s.

"I don't think there's anybody else they could have hired to get us back immediately," he said of Calipari. "That's the consensus (of UK fans)."

For Kentucky to be Kentucky is to set a high standard that touches college basketball's ozone.

"Those type of teams that made it to the Elite Eights, Final Fours and national championships," Patrick Patterson said after the Blue-White Game. "We want to be the type of team that people remember."

Though a native of Alabama, freshman DeMarcus Cousins is wise in the ways of Kentucky.

"I've learned quick," he said. "They're serious about this basketball. They want it as bad as we do. They're throwing wood on the fire. It's going to be roaring."

Calipari, who coincidentally wrote a self-help book aptly titled Bounce Back, knows the task he bears. During an appearance at the Kiwanis Club of the Bluegrass, he playfully asked his audience what they thought of a scenario that included a 15-point loss to Louisville en route to a national championship. Grumbles ensued.