High expectations at Kentucky are no longer limited to John Calipari and his talented bunch of youngsters.
The women's basketball team, fresh off the best season in school history, consider themselves a legitimate threat to make it to the Final Four. Kentucky went 28-8 last year, advancing to the NCAA regional finals for the first time.
With four starters returning, that won't be nearly good enough this season. They open the season Friday against Morehead State.
''We use last season as motivation,'' said senior forward Victoria Dunlap. ''We know how we can be if we play together.''
Dunlap and versatile sophomore guard A'dia Mathies will form the core of a group Matthew Mitchell says could be one of the deepest teams in the Southeastern Conference.
Like Calipari, Mitchell has a knack for attracting some of the nation's top high school players. The Wildcats bring in six freshmen, some of whom will have to play prominent roles.
Kentucky, ranked ninth in the preseason, lost senior point guard Amber Smith to a knee injury in July. There's no timetable for her return, which forces Mitchell to experiment in search of a replacement.
While he believes Mathies could capably lead the offense, he'd prefer to have his most dynamic player do what she does best, work off screens and slash to the basket.
That leaves junior Crystal Riley and freshmen Jennifer O'Neill and Maegan Conwright as the best options to fill in for Smith, who averaged 9.2 points and 4.4 assists last year as the team's unquestioned emotional leader.
''Amber was always a hard worker, her defensive intensity on the ball, but we've got more than enough people that can come together and not replace her but give us something,'' Mathies said.
Mitchell admits the position is very much a work in progress, with no player taking control of the situation. Whoever is at the point will have a pretty simple task - get the ball to Mathies and Dunlap and let them do their thing.
Dunlap has gained so much respect from coaches around the league she was named the SEC's Preseason Player of the Year, an honor normally reserved for the top player from Tennessee.
The 6-foot-1 Dunlap averaged 18.4 points and 8.4 rebounds last season and has spent the summer working a bit on her perimeter game in hopes of being more than a traditional back-to-the-basket threat.
The program has come a long way in Dunlap's career, from SEC also-ran to conference title threat. She knows the Wildcats raised some eyebrows with their NCAA tournament run. They're eager to show it was just the beginning.
''People didn't recognize our talent,'' Dunlap said. ''We want to prove that it wasn't just a fluke last year.''
To do it, the Wildcats will need Mathies to take the next step in her development. She came to the Wildcats last season as a raw, unfinished, talent. Mitchell helped smooth out some of the rough edges, and her athleticism and fearlessness on defense makes her a difficult matchup on both ends of the floor.
Mathies averaged 13.6 points a year ago and got better as the season wore on, scoring 17.5 points in Kentucky's four NCAA games.
With Smith spending the first part of the season standing on the bench waving towels in support of her teammates, the soft-spoken Mathies will be among the players Mitchell expects to take a leadership role.
''I'm now a veteran, I can't get away with the little stuff like I did last year,'' Mathies said.
Not if she wants to see the floor. While she is arguably the team's most valuable player, Mitchell says the Wildcats are so deep no one's job is safe.
It's a significant sea change from the program Mitchell inherited three seasons ago. He's recruited aggressively, believing Kentucky's reach was strong enough to compete with traditional conference powers like Tennessee.
Last year showed the Wildcats are closer. The goal now is to do it again.
