What would you suffer through?

At roughly the 19:00 mark of the second half on Sunday, around the time that UK gave up an easy breakaway bucket on a turnover to Arkansas to go down by 16 -- 39-23, Hogs -- I had pretty much settled on what I was going to write about. It's a subject I've been stewing over for some time in this, the most unpredictable and frustrating season in half a decade. The subject is one I think resonates with fans of any struggling powerhouse teams, particularly this season at such hallowed programs as Kansas, Arizona and our very own Kentucky.

And then a funny thing happened ... the Wildcats clamped down on 'D' and revved up the offense to score 55 second-half points on the way to a very improbable 78-76 comeback win.

That it took the highest scoring half of the season to beat a game Arkansas team at home cannot be overlooked. And while I'm joyous at the victory, particularly as it keeps the Cats on pace to contend with Tennessee and Florida on the Eastern side of the conference standings, I can't shake the idea that this is all some big test.


Chalk it up to a combination of good fortune (Georgia & Auburn games to revive season), clutch plays (Sparks, Rondo (twice)) and timely coaching moves (Tubby going small vs. South Carolina, Arkansas) that Kentucky is 14-6 (4-2 SEC) heading to struggling Mississippi State. Kentucky could easily be 11-9, with losses at home to South Carolina, Arkansas and Central Florida (!). And yet, they are not.

But all this back and forth, this confounding inability of the Wildcats to move forward without taking steps backward, got me thinking. What would I be willing to suffer through if there were a return to the championship podium awaiting my favorite team on the other side?

It's a purely hypothetical question, of course, but one that has a glaring recent example. In 2001-2002, a year after losing to Penn State in the second round, and fielding a young team minus their NBA departed star Joe Forte, North Carolina went 8-20. A year later, bolstered by the recruiting of future lottery picks McCants, May and Felton, the Tarheels went 19-16 and advanced to the 3rd round ... of the NIT.

Far from even imagining the response of Kentucky fans to an 8-20 non-probation season, it made me wonder what winning is worth. Had you found a die-hard Tarheel fan in April of 2001, asked if he or she was willing to go 27-36, miss the tourney for two years and lose their coach, if the end result was evenutally the school's 4th national title, what would be the response? In retrospect, it's likely the answer would be, "Of course."


But as Big Blue fans lament their fate with a team sporting three McDonald's All-Americans, a coach with a national title under his belt, "struggling" to a 70% winning percentage, I would pose the question thus: What would you, Big Blue Nation, be willing to sacrifice?

• If I told you that Kentucky would crumble this season, miss the tournament and return all of their top scorers for a title run next season, would you accept that?


• If I said that Kentucky would not make a Final Four until 2009, but would win the title that year, would that be OK?


• If I could forsee that Kentucky would chase off Tubby Smith, suffer a losing season, player transfers and bad press, but emerge with two Final Fours in three years (2007-2010) under a new coach, would you allow that to happen?

Yes, these are useless hypotheticals. No, I don't honestly believe that any of these are possible. And, no, there is no reason that one must always suffer through pain to find pleasure. But it does raise the question of the balance between our admittedly high expectations and a borderline unhealthy win-at-all-costs mentality.

I should add that I don't write these things to call out any specific fan element. In fact, I am extremely sick of the negative back-and-forth between overzealous fans on both sides. Tubby Smith is neither destroying the Kentucky legacy nor acing the exam. The players he has recruited are neither collectively NBA caliber nor "midmajor" recruits, as some would mention. As with most of life, there is a middle ground.

But as we scrape and claw as fans through a season we are grossly unaccustomed to -- and it should be added that Tubby's recent success are precisely why we are feeling so out of sorts -- we should ask ourselves a reflective question ...

At what price victory?