Kentucky coach John Calipari summed up his team, maybe even his program, in one sentence Wednesday.
''You can't count on freshmen,'' he said.
Princeton can only hope that's the case in the NCAA tournament.
The No. 13-seeded Tigers (25-6) play the fourth-seeded Wildcats (25-8) in the tournament's second round Thursday. It's a matchup that features Princeton's seasoned upperclassmen and Kentucky's talented freshmen - experience against youth, veterans versus rookies.
''It's our moment against Kentucky and we're not going to spoil it,'' Princeton coach Sydney Johnson said. ''I can't tell you if we're going to be perfect out there ... but we're not going to waste this opportunity. I won't allow them to do that.''
Princeton earned the Ivy League's automatic berth by edging Harvard on a buzzer-beater in a playoff game. The Tigers return to the NCAA tournament after a six-year absence and, somewhat fittingly, the NCAA selection committee pitted them against perennial power Kentucky.
Under former coach Pete Carril, Princeton was famous for scaring, and even upsetting, some of college basketball's top programs. The most memorable was a one-point loss to top-seeded Georgetown in 1989. There also were close games against Arkansas (1990) and Villanova (1991).
In Carril's final year, 1996, the Tigers knocked off defending national champion UCLA in the opening round.
''Princeton can beat us. They can beat just about anybody,'' Calipari said.
Princeton's advantage might be the vaunted system incorporated by Carril and tweaked by his successors, an offense that's tough to prepare for on short notice.
But this isn't the typical, slow-everything-down system that Princeton has used to baffle and frustrate opponents over the years. The Tigers are more athletic - led by forwards Kareem Maddox and Ian Hummer, and guards Dan Mavraides and Douglas Davis - and more willing to run up and down and take shots early in the possession.
''It's Princeton on steroids,'' Calipari said.
The Tigers are averaging nearly 70 points a game, about 20 more than the program did when it established its identity two decades ago.
''Coach believed we had the talent to run a little bit and get on the open floor, and that's something that has definitely helped us up to this point this season,'' said Mavraides, one of six upperclassmen who helped Princeton advance to the semifinals of the CBI tournament in 2010.
''It's a little variation from the traditional Princeton,'' he said, ''but you'll see times and possessions throughout the game where we're grinding throughout the shot clock and getting a backdoor layup or an open shot with 4 seconds left on the shot clock.
''We've found a pretty good balance in terms of how much we want to push it when we're getting stops and how much we want to slow the game down and take it possession by possession like the more traditional Princeton teams and really wear the defense down.''
One of Kentucky's biggest weaknesses is depth.
The Wildcats, who had four freshmen turn pro last year after advancing to the final eight as a No. 1 seed, have six players sharing most of the minutes. But those six are really good, especially freshmen Brandon Knight and Terrence Jones.
Knight, a 6-foot-3 point guard from Fort Lauderdale, leads the Wildcats with 17.5 points a game. Jones, a versatile forward, is averaging 16.5 points and 8.9 rebounds. Another freshman, Doron Lamb, is the team's third-leading scorer and one of the most accurate 3-point shooters (47.2 percent) in the tournament.
Together, they helped the Wildcats win eight of their last nine games, including the SEC tournament. But how will they perform on a bigger stage?
''When you're starting three freshmen and three players who were inexperienced prior to this season and you jumble them all together, they can get off kilter at any point,'' Calipari said. ''What I'm comfortable with is we're playing as well as we've played all season. What I'm comfortable with is individual players are playing better than they have in their careers. That I'm comfortable with.
''How they'll respond to this situation, I have no idea.''
