LEXINGTON, Ky. — Two and a half hours had passed since Kentucky beat Florida 67-50 to make history, the first power conference team since 1976 to finish a regular season undefeated, 31-0.
A stadium custodian asked me a simple question as I sat near the baseline typing: “Who won?”
I imagined he was the only man, woman or child in the state without the knowledge readily available.
And even if he didn’t know, with the way this season has gone, it wouldn’t make an ass out of you or me to assume the Cats did what they’ve done so many times over.
Saturday was, in every way, a Kentucky coronation.
Legendary coach Adolph Rupp’s son was in attendance.
UK superfan Ashley Judd stayed 90 minutes after, sat in John Calapari’s press conference and took pictures with her husband at midcourt after they turned off the floodlights high above the Rupp Arena floor.
This floor, combined with the old Memorial Coliseum and Alumni Gymnasium, have seen some of college basketball’s greatest teams run up and down it.
But never has it completed a 31-0 regular season.
The jerseys hang high above with names like Pat Riley, Jamal Mashburn and Tony Delk, but never has a big blue squad done with the platoons featuring, among others, the Harrisons and Karl-Anthony Towns and Willie Cauley-Stein.
Kentucky’s bad for the future of the game, you might say.
But I hesitate to say Kentucky’s the future of the game, either, because I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to sustain the level of talent John Calapari has been able to.
Not many recruit with his style. He calls UK a player’s program.
It’s why he took the time after the game to say his season isn’t over until June 28, when he may see as many as nine of his players leave school and walk across the stage at the NBA draft.
Nobody’s assembling that much talent. Nobody’s coming to the table with a deck of cards that stacked so many years in a row. Kentucky is in a class of its own, and at the head is a man that Kentucky fans embrace as uniquely their own.
His flamboyancy, his constant salesmanship of how hard it is to do what his team has done this season, his performance art during mundane press conference after dispatching a rival by 17 points.
That is the public persona you know so well. But it’s the little things that endear him to the ravenous big blue nation. It’s things like listening to the student section bellow “we want seniors” and inserting the three walk-on four-year players into the game as the clock wound down.
After his press conference, Calapari walked back onto the hardwood and held a court of his own addressing hundreds of fans that stay back to listen to him do his radio show an hour after the game ends.
Kentucky is rare, a team with a gear no one else has. The Cats showed it Tuesday night, when Georgia had them on the ropes on the road.
And they showed it Saturday. Florida didn’t exactly have them reeling, but at least a little wounded. Next thing you know the Gators are 17 point losers and the party begun.
Even with the achievement, the entire game’s atmosphere seemed a bit subdued. Sure, there were T-shirts and pictures after the game and the players said a few words over the mic. But the crowd excitement left a lot to be desired the entire game, and it’s because the 24,428 on hand desire so much more.
“31-0.. not done,” the T-shirts read. It’s the not done part that should scare the hell out of you — because I think the players really believe it. I think the fans do too.
Kentucky is the thoroughbred that doesn’t have to expend all its energy to get to the three quarter pole running a perfect race.
Now with only nine victories surrounding them and the 40-0 finish line they crave so vehemently, down the stretch they come.
You shouldn't have to bother to ask whether they made it there or not.
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
Kentuck's Willie Cauley-Stein, third from left, address the crowd during a ceremony marking the teams undefeated season after the Wildcats' 67-50 win against Florida on Saturday at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.
