Air of Invincibility Haunts Kentucky

i would expect that the

I would expect the "student athletes" at Kentucky to have an easy run to the title. Long live the educational opportunities at that fine institution.

What about the 1999 tourney? It was popularly referred to as "the Duke Invitational" until their loss to UConn in the championship game.

Kentucky may be the deepest team in NCAA history, When any one of 10 guys can light it up, that's a huge advantage, especially in the second game each weekend.

Career head-to-head match-ups between Coach Calipari vs Coach Huggins: Huggins 8-2.

Kentucky has a 10 deep rotation which inevitably wears teams out...

If Rhoden thinks Kentucky would be a prohibitive favorite against Arizona, he clearly doesn't understand how Vegas and the offshore casinos work.

I think it is going to take a monumental upset to beat Kentucky this year. This team is too talented, too big, and too deep. Of course it can be done. But when we think of the greatest upsets int his tournament -- NC State over Houston, Villanova over Georgetown, Duke over UNLV -- they don't happen very often. Which is why most readers remember these great games. The magic of this tournament is that it can, and will happen again. If this is the year, it will be another historic win for the team that beats Kentucky.

Going undefeated in SEC basketball is hardly an accomplishment. Especially in a year when FLorida is down. Look at the conference and the second best team is Arkansas 29-9 (13-5) and a loss to Clemson is one of the 9. ALso, a nearly 20 point loss to ISU.
Kentucky has about 6 NBA prospects according to mock drafts and the rest of the SEC has only one. That's one NBA prospect in the entire rest of the SEC.
So, who has Kentucky played all season? Nobody. Any team that actually comes to win and shoot will challenge Kentucky with something they never faced since conference play began.
This UK team is good but they are not great.

Why is Kentucky allowed to play in this tournament at all? Calling the players student athletes is laughable at best, and criminal at worst, we all know they are a semi-professional team. All the freshmen will stop attending classes (if they do so now) after the tournament to prepare for the NBA draft. It is more than shameful that the NCAA doesn't penalize Kentucky, and other schools as well, for being the professional sport training program that they are. Perhaps the NCAA can start penalizing schools based on the graduation rates or perhaps at least finishing 2 years of college? This is a huge disservice for the majority of NCAA student athletes for all sports that actually attend college to get, heaven forbid, an education and degree.

Great upsets in history, of course, include 1983 Cardiac Kids of Jim Valvano. NC St was seeded 6th; had finished fourth in the ACC and were given little chance against Phi Slamma Jamma wih Hakeem Alajuwon and Clyde Drexler. Houston had a 26-game winning streak coming into the championship game and had beaten Louisville in the national semis by 13, with an awesome display of dunking. Valvano kept the team loose and they were not awed by Houston. That's the main thing, not to be awed by Kentucky's press clippings.They are the best team on paper. The games aren't played on paper

ain't no such thang as unbeatable, period. if Kentucky wants to be unbeatable, they're going to have to win it, and they are not the only ones after that prize. these are youngsters, there's a lot of room in their heads for all the hot air to settle in and fog their shooting eyes. they can lose. will they? well, they just might. remember, it's sports, anything can happen, anything at all.

The sun shall shine bright on my 40-0ld Kentucky Home!

As a Kentuckian, I would say, yes, of course, they can be beaten.
However, part of the problem, i think, is that instead of playing their game, teams often seem to get too hyped and focused at beating the other team.
I think that can take away from a team's own focus.
Cincinnati, i think, lost its focus. They discovered Kentucky was actually harder than they thought. They weren't as easily rattled, and they lost.
I think it sort of took away from their game.
The whole thing seemed to turn into a wrestling match.
I say, PLAY basketball, and be realistic. If the other team is better, so be it.
The way this tournament is going, it seems like the game is being reduced to literally fighting. Its gotten quite ugly and rough, and the smaller teams have lesser of a chance. And then, the officials are being blamed for calling too many fouls. Sometimes its true, they call little flimsy fouls like the game isn't a contact sport.
But, sometimes, they let the whole thing degenerate into near bar brawls, too!
Wrestling might work for some teams, but it also may not work for others. Kentucky can be beaten, but it may not be the sort of team that can be bullied. You have to play and beat them the right way.
You need to outsmart them, in addition to out-bullying them, too!
The problem is they are also quite smart and talented, too.
But, are they beatable? Yes, they are.
Can they win it all? Yes, they can. Will they win it all? Who knows! They have a shot, like everybody else.

Kentucky can beat the Knicks.

Unlike the dominant player-attitude towards coaches in the NBA, college players depend heavily on the sort of strategizing we saw in the Duke/UNLV game years ago. The relatively even balance of talent and strength among teams in this year's NCAA men's playoffs highlights the nature of sport for sport rather than sport for dollars that we see so often in the NBA and other professional sports.

"The only time I can remember a college team entering the tournament with this aura of invincibility was 1991..."

I assume all the references in this article are to MEN'S teams; there've been SEVERAL women's teams from Storrs, CT that were pretty decent.

Yeah, I too think Kentucky is most likely to win. HOWEVER, keep in mind the level of competition. They have been feasting on nothing but SEC competition since December. They are the only SEC team left in the Sweet 16. The ACC has FIVE teams (read Duke), the Pac 12 has three teams (read Arizona) the Big 10 has two teams (read Wisconsin). Kentucky had only the 45th toughest schedule (SOS) overall (read games against Grand Canyon, Boston U, Montana St, Texas Arlington, Eastern Kentucky, Columbia). We really don't know how good they are. We will find out. Is March Madness a great time of year or what?

With all due respect to the UC players, but were they not coherent when Kentucky absolutely shut them down defensively?

Also, UK was up big in both games but took their foot off the brakes/put in reserves in the final minutes. The failing to cover the spread comment is pretty irrelevant.

West Virginia will put UK on the line, possibly 40 times, and the Wildcats will need to make 28-30 of those free throws. They'll also need to shoot closer to 40% and not 33% from the field for the game. Wichita State would love revenge for last season's crushing defeat and Notre Dame might be the rare team eager to play UK in an 85-80-type game. Then there is Arizona or Wisconsin, both of which would give Kentucky all it wanted in Indianapolis. Finally, there would (likely) be Duke, with a coach who remembers 1991 (or even 1999, when arguably the best team of the last 20 years fell in its title game) and a team with enough top-level players to win enough individual matchups to win the game. There. Is. A. Long. Way. To. Go.

Cincy players sound like Bill Self in 2012 - we didnt lose, we just ran out of time - the game is 40 minutes(sometimes longer) for a reason and that is what make this Kentucky team tough to beat. They are not unbeatable, but if they are playing their best game then no team left in this years tourney can beat them.

Kentucky is not of the caliber of John Wooden's UCLA teams or Indiana's 1975-76 team. Those teams consisted of men who had been trained in a system for a few years. Kentucky is largely a group of teenagers, not a cohort known for consistency. They definitely could be upset, though it would have to come at the hands of another group of teenagers.

I've watched a number of Kentucky games this season and when they are playing at their best, it is beautiful basketball. But I also watched their first two games of the tournament and they looked "off" by their standards. Obviously they still won, but they didn't quite have the hustle and confidence that they showed in other games this season and their shooting has been poor by any standard. Consistency is so important during the NCAA tournament and Kentucky will need to turn back into their best on a consistent basis in order to run the table because there are a number of good teams that will show up to take their crown if they don't.

It is me, or does anyone else smirk during this time of year at the media/money-created fiction of Division I Basketball? Kentucky's graduation rate hovers below 50%. Half these young men, rendered greater-than-God by CBS is personal five minute sketches about what their mother makes them for lunch, will not be at Kentucky within a few months. What makes this assemblage of players "Kentucky"? Their collective use of the same uniforms for half a year? What a joke. Bread and circus, nothing more, designed to get us through our miserable, meaningless lives.

There are, year after year after year, always teams and owners and prognosticators believing that a team, any team, is unbeatable. Then the team gets beaten. Just wait. This is not an exception to that observation........

The final game is just one game, so its not like a best of 7 series. In one 40 minute championship game anything can happen. Go Bruins!

The "entire field is fighting" is not good. It is found in an even bigger mystery: how are they, and their spectators, there? How do they all get their food, shelter, clothing and so forth? Also, their basket ball skills seem difficult to get, similar to figure skating skills and singing and music writing. How do they afford their training? How do they get the time? Competition does not explain how they are still there so many years after being born. Are they there if no one is there to report them? What are they?

Does not seem that any other team has the height/quickness and overall
talent that Kentucky has across the board.

Perhaps if someone plays like Villanova did against Georgetown when they
won the Championship - a near perfect game - Kentucky can be beat -
but as Cincy said you will have to play them hard the whole 40 minutes and
never let up.

The winner of Wisconsin/Arizona...maybe. But probably not. Kentucky is long, talented, deep, and confident. They shot horribly on Saturday against Cincinnati and still won fairly comfortably. Imagine what will happen when they start shooting like they usually do...

On any given day in sport an upset is always possible. And usually my heart is with the underdog. But I also love to see history being made and this is the path that is destining for Kentucky.

I have a sneaky feeling Louisville could take out Kentucky in the final four - but that's just me . . . though great rivalries sometimes spawn great upsets.

Duke did upset UNLV in 1991 - an outcome that must have been edited out of the column. (Oops!) Sports fans know that no team (or individual) is unbeatable. Youth is not a predictor of consistency.

Duke over UNLV, Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson, the Miracle on Ice - the list goes on and on. That is not the same thing as saying Duke would have been expected to beat UNLV if they played again a month later or that Buster Douglas was a superior fighter to "Iron Mike" or that another Miracle was at all likely. I think I like Goliath in a rematch with David.

We will watch to find out if Kentucky can finish the season 40-0 - a daunting goal for even the best of teams. It will be fun to find out. They've won two tournament games and must win four more to cut down the nets in Indianapolis. (In my workplace pool, everyone took the Wildcats to win, but ONE entrant had the Wildcats of Arizona - not Kentucky. He's seen enough upsets to know what is at least possible.)