Rating:

4.0 (1 vote)

After winning the NCAA Championship in 1951, the Cats were feeling great about themselves in 1952.

Adolph Rupp had the number one team in both AP and UPI. UK was undefeated in the SEC and finished the season at 29-3. They were led by All-Americans Frank Ramsey and Cliff Hagan.

Kentucky opened up the NCAA tournament by blowing out Penn State 82-54. Next up was St. John's who had never made it to the Final Four. Plus, UK destroyed St. John's 81-40 earlier in the season.

St. John's shocked the Cats winning 64-57. It was the first of two Final Four trips for St. John's. Ironically the second time was in 1985 when the Final Four was played at Rupp.

That loss stayed with the those that played for UK for decades.

Obviously, you can't call Thursday nights game with St. John's a revenge game. None of the parents of todays players were even around in 1952. So playing St. John's is all about getting these young Cats to keep on growing up.

Cal is always talking about how young this team is and that they don't know what they don't know. After a while, you might say, that comment gets old. Now it's easier to understand.

"Coach Hall was in here yesterday and we did a trap drill," says Cal.

"You would think that every player would understand how to play against the trap. When I sat down, Coach Hall laughed and he just said can you imagine? You would think they would know. They don't."

When the Cats are getting ready to play an easy team, not a St. John's, Cal likes the expression popcorn state. He says you learn nothing from playing popcorn state. He likes the St. John's game and the North Carolina game because you are going to learn something and you are going to find out exactly where this basketball team is at.

Plus, Cal likes to get rid of a problem before it might become a problem. It's all about keeping UK level headed being number 1.

"What I did the last two days I beat them up pretty good. We went longer than I usually go this time of the year. And I mean we mean we went hard and long and we ran for two days. I'll back up today a little bit because they've really pretty good to be honest with you. And I've been hard, I've been on them. I've been tough on them. Not in a mean way but just raising the bar to get them, forget about all that other stuff, we're worried about getting better. That's all we are worried about. Forget rankings, all that becomes is a bigger target on your back. It's a nice badge of honor, but that badge is a target for someone else."

Since the Cats responded to the tough practices, you get the feeling they want to show Cal that they are growing up.