This is the way the University of Kentucky basketball team is supposed to travel: Faster than John Wall dances downcourt.
Less than two hours after the Wildcats left Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., with the Southeastern Conference championship trophy Sunday, they were outfitted in blue "Refuse to Lose," T-shirts, sitting in John Calipari's new Kentucky home, celebrating their East Regional top seed in the NCAA basketball tournament.
This is the way the UK basketball team made its final trip of the 2009 season: As slowly as the National Invitation Tournament mandates.
That's awfully slow. The Wildcats were knocked from the NIT by Notre Dame. Then, because of NIT mileage travel regulations, they began a cold, six-hour, through-the-night bus ride from South Bend, Indiana to Lexington, Ky.
Amazing the difference that one coach, one high school player of the year and two high school all-Americans can make. Last season Kentucky was a four-seed in the NIT. This season only Kansas is considered a stronger pick than Calipari's team to win the national championship.
"I feel like the way it is now is the way it is supposed to be at Kentucky," said Patrick Patterson, UK's junior forward.
The fan base that several rival SEC coaches have labeled the Big Blue Mist undoubtedly agrees. Calipari's team has rocketed through this season, winning 32 of 34 games, the only burps coming at South Carolina and Tennessee.
Considering Kentucky's talent, it's not surprising. But it's certainly been a swift reversal from Billy Gillispie's stormy, two-season stay (13 losses in 2008, followed by 14 more last season) as well as the final two seasons from Tubby Smith (13 and 12 losses).
Some have questioned the Wildcats' schedule. They've beaten one team (Vanderbilt) seeded higher than sixth in this NCAA Tournament. But nobody can question the enthusiasm Calipari has stirred or the talent that he has assembled.
It begins, of course, with Wall, the dazzling 6-foot-4 freshman guard who has been locked in a tug-of-war with Ohio State's Evan Turner for the national Player of the Year award. Wall has been to Calipari's Kentucky team what Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans were to Calipari's last two Memphis teams – a drive-by guard who figures to exit after one season as the first pick in the NBA Draft.
Unless the team that earns the first pick decides it would prefer to employ mammoth center DeMarcus Cousins, who looks nearly as nimble as Wall but is actually the same size as Dwight Howard (6 feet 11 and 265 pounds). With hands. And footwork. And the remarkable ability to pluck difficult rebounds and convert them into layups at the buzzer. Ask Mississippi State for details.
Check the war room boards of several NBA teams and you'll find two other Kentucky players – Patterson, the rugged junior forward who has improved his perimeter game, and Eric Bledsoe, another swift freshman guard.
Try finding another team that starts four first-round draft picks. Never mind. You can't do it.
"That's a great team out there," Tennessee forward Wayne Chism said. "They're going to do great things in the tournament."
"If they knock down threes, they might be the best team in the tournament," said Brian Williams, Tennessee's center.
Key word: If.
Kentucky made 1 of 13 three-pointers in its first SEC Tournament game, but then converted 8 of 22 in a 74-45 semifinal rout of Tennessee.
Kentucky's full-season three-point percentage is 34.1. Only three of the last 21 NCAA champs have shot less than 37 percent from the three-point line for the season.
And whether the shots fall or not, the Wildcats will not be the most beloved team in the field. When Kentucky visited Indiana in December they were greeted with chants of "Cal's-A-Cheat-Er."
That's likely in reference to his vacated NCAA Final Four appearances at Massachusetts (1996) and Memphis (2008) although Calipari was not named by the NCAA for any rules infractions.
He worked to upgrade his image this winter by organizing a "Hoops for Haiti" telethon that raised more than $1 million for the earthquake victims and resulted in a congratulatory phone call from President Obama.
A majority of SEC coaches are not feeling the love. They appeared to deliver their message about Kentucky basketball when they voted for the league's coach of the year. They snubbed Cal, and his 14-2 SEC record, in favor of Kevin Stallings, whose Vanderbilt team stumbled against the Wildcats twice.
Then there are the folks in Memphis, whose beloved Tigers failed to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2005. In a stinging and slightly tongue-in-cheek column in the Memphis Commercial-Appeal Monday, columnist Geoff Calkins encouraged Memphians to unite in rooting for Kentucky to lose and for Calipari, the former Memphis coach, to choke during the tournament.
Why?
Calkins told everybody why: "Calipari didn't just leave Memphis for a better job. He left for a better job and took the Memphis recruiting class with him. He wrote escape clauses into the players' letters of intent, he advised Memphis athletics director R.C. Johnson to keep quiet about the NCAA investigation and then he used the star-studded recruiting class to land safely at Kentucky.
"And the suck-up television analysts don't say anything about it. It's too messy, too unpleasant."
"Are we ready for the (NCAA) Tournament?" Calipari said. "We're going to find out."
Should be some March.
