Goals, reassessment and what is good ...

For a half, it looked as if yet another Florida team would succomb to Tubby Smith's invading Wildcats. With so much at stake -- a record-setting home win streak, a top 10 ranking, keeping pace in the SEC race -- it looked to be inevitable that Kentucky would scrape out a hard-fought win. Ignoring the hype of Florida's elevated ranking and the media adulation afforded to sophomores Taurean Green and Joakim Noah, Kentucky has just owned the Gators in similar situations before (Feb 2003 - #1 Florida embarrassed, multiple SEC title clinchers, etc.), making it a shoo-in that the Cats would emerge victorious.

But if there is one motto that UK fans (and players, and coaches and...) have had to adopt this season, it's this: things just didn't go as planned.

Well, at least not in the second half. With a slim 6-point lead (45-39), no foul trouble on Randolph Morris and solid contributions from the necessary parts -- Joe Crawford, Patrick Sparks, Bobby Perry -- the Cats were in good shape. Then, at the 19:32 mark, everything fell apart.


The 50% shooting that propelled UK to the lead disappeared, replaced by a 32.4% second half of shooting that resembled the Kansas, Indiana and Vandy debacles. Normally sure-handed Rajon Rondo turned the ball over repeatedly and the one Tubby Smith constant -- staunch defense -- vanished, replaced by a PAC-10-caliber Florida layup drill for the rest of the half. By the time it was clear it was all over, the Cats faced a 24-point deficit and the roar of a crowd pumped up by years of merciless UK beatdowns and an incessantly chest-thumping Noah (more on that later). That the final score was a more reasonable 95-80 was hardly more palatable ... this was a 19 1/2-minute whippin', plain and simple.

The game dredged up all too familiar calls for Tubby's head, complaints from every nook and cranny that recruiting has been awful since Tubby arrived (revisionist) and that UK has been suffering "down years" every year since Pitino left (laughable) that had been mercifully muted during a five-game winning streak. Some days it gets so bad that one wonders if those harping fans -- and here I draw a strong demarcation between that concerned citizenry and those outright whiners -- would trade in Tubby's 1998 title, simply out of spite or some sense of martyrdom, but I digress.

The bottom line is that, as noted here and many other places, there are problems with this team that can be masked by stellar individual performances and subpar competition. Against good teams, you just can't hide the underbelly.

I, like many dead sober UK fans, am finally facing the hard truth that this season -- the one we've so valiantly tried not to give up on -- is our rebuilding year. No one saw it coming, but in retrospect, all the intangibles that veteran leadership provided last year are missing, and these young Cats relied so heavily on Kelenna, Chuck and the ghost of seniors past that we as fans didn't think -- hell, couldn't imagine -- that the transition wouldn't be as seamless for these guys as it was for all the other teams of the past decade. Had we thought more unbaisedly about what the team faced this year, expectations might have been different. But this being Kentucky, expectations are never different.

A team that effectively features four sophomores among its primary eight players (Perry, Sheray Thomas, Ravi Moss and Sparks being the others), lost its leading rebounder and scorer, lost 3/5 of its starting lineup for the first half of the season and has effectively five sub-10 minute per game scholarship players might be expected to struggle to find itself. And at any school not named Kentucky, there's a good chance that patience or hope might have been a bigger part of the equation. But for better or for worse (depending on the person you ask), those weighty expectations are one of the things that makes Kentucky Kentucky. Screaming at the fan who disagrees with you in that debate only further cements its truthfulness.

All that being said, and in light of what remains of the season, it's clearly time for even the most blue-tinted of us to gather our thoughts and hopes and reassess what can be gained from this rebuilding year. [ED. NOTE: I can only imagine what 85% of the country's other schools' fans would think about deeming a probable 18-20 win season a rebuilding year.] Here are my suggestions, beginning with the most obvious and then heading towards the purely personal.

(1) Reach the NCAA tourney and give it a run


First of all, Kentucky is going to make the NCAA tournament. If they do not, it would take a collapse of utterly dismal proportions. A win over West Virginia, currently undefeated in the best conference in America, will go a long way. And wins over solid Iona and Ohio, seemingly meaningless at the time, actually help keep a 19-11 or 20-10 UK off the bubble. But SEC wins are going to be the key. If UK loses all their games to LSU, Tennessee and Florida, then I'll eat my words. But I don't think that happens.

Any Kentucky season has to end in an NCAA tournament run, be it to the Sweet 16 or beyond. Few can imagine this team getting very far, seeing as they can't seem to muster a consistent effort for 40 minutes. However, a miserable North Carolina team made a strange Final Four in 2000, getting to face Tulsa in the Elite Eight. The point? You never know in the NCAAs.

First goal = stay focused on the end game.

(2) Get the sophomores prepped for next year

This is slightly less dramatic than "playing for next year." There is too much still to play for this year. However, while most UK fans wouldn't be all that surprised to see Rondo try to go pro, or at least test the waters, he seems astute enough to see his shooting and overall game need at least another year of polish. Same for Morris, who has looked much better this season, but still doesn't rebound well for a big, agile player.

Broadly assuming that everyone returns, next year's Cats would feature a starting five of Rondo, Morris, Crawford, probably Sheray Thomas and either Ramel Bradley (SG) or Bobby Perry (SF). it would be a small team, but a quick, good shooting team. But it won't be a better team unless those young men grow up, learn how to play some 'D' and show some spine. I happen to believe they can do all of these things. But they need to start right now.

(3) Play some freaking defense

After all the talk about offensive execution, scoring droughts and poor shooting, what was embarassing about Saturday's loss wasn't the offense. The Cats scored 80 points, well over their average. And the supposedly new rough and tumble Gators didn't seem to bite all that much on defense.

What was sad was allowing the Gators a parade of easy shots. What was depressing was repeatedly uncontested Florida buckets on the way to a 56-point second frame. Maybe it's the lack of extra practice time, maybe it's the constant focus on basics, maybe it's the late start Morris got. Whatever it is, there is no way this team can win allowing 56-point halves; to anyone, much less a team with as much talent as Florida possesses.

It's time to put recent stronger offensive outings together with at least passable defensive pressure. Having a backup center who drew more than odd glances from the opposing defense would help.


(4) Recognize what (or who) is working

Tubby has always been strong at geting the most out of his teams, be they massively talented, quietly effective or simply overachieving. That's why this year's team has been such a disappointment. I think even the harshest of fans can give a pass on the occasional loss. It's the lack of effort even in the face of certain defeat that has fans flummoxed. The Kansas game was possibly the worst I can recall in nearly 20 years of following the game.

However, unlike some of my fellow zealots, I won't deny myself the chance to be proven wrong. Learning is a process. It's a process of failure and spirit and effort. And any player that suits up for Tubby Smith -- and not even the most anti-Smith folks out there will deny this -- will learn. That's why I think that greater things lie on the other side of adversity.

To wit, some of the developments in Florida's massacre still have a silver lining. Mr. Crawford, who nearly left the program for good a year ago this time, had a double double with 19 points and 10 rebounds. His rebounding numbers have surprised and impressed me, and his shooting from deep, generally, has been much better. Rondo, excepting his troubles with the ball, put together a string of good plays, albeit once the game was out of reach. Still, the skill is there, and he continues to show flashes of all-around brilliance. Morris stayed out of foul trouble and was a constant pressure on offense, opening up the game with 5 assists in the first half. These are promising signs to build on.

(5) Play the game with pride, if nothing else

The first time Florida's Noah goes up for a layup in the rematch in March, someone needs to knock his block off. I'm not talking about dirty plays or hurting him, just some good ole fashioned Bill Russell/Wes Unseld power "defense." No one should be allowed to chest thump and gesticulate to the crowd the whole game at your expense, and it was disheartening to see the Cats play the nice guy in that situation. I nominate Woo, who has shown the willingness to thug out in the past, and who can always preach a lack of understanding of the rules of the American game, even if it's hogwash.

For a plurality of Kentucky basketball faithful, fanship is ultimately about pride. It's about something undeniably good. I love my home state. I love the trees and the spirit and the history. But few would deny it is a poor state whose image is often a distorted version of the truth. But Kentucky basketball is something that cannot -- and will not -- be taken away. It is, for lack of a more original term, a birthright.

Where I, and many other fans, differ is that I don't kneejerk to say that Tubby Smith has somehow damaged that birthright. One season does not a change make, and find me a Tubby detractor who was not cheering wildly as Sparks' three-pointer bounced around the rim last March and I'll call you a liar. People take this stuff seriously because their pride -- state pride, personal pride -- is at stake. Perhaps a team viewing of the 1990 win over LSU at home would help. Or a talk from Deron Feldhaus or Cedric Jenkins. Whatever it is that helps, Kentucky hoops pride needs to be on display, even in defeat. It's the difference between stunted hopes and hell bent fury at the boys in blue.

(6) Let it all hang out

Finally, at some point Tubby Smith will have to judge when to let it all go. During the Team Turmoil season of 2001-2002, after an ugly SEC tournament loss to South Carolina, Tubby just started clapping and supporting his fragile ego'd team. Not sure that's the approach this year, but the instinct was to just let what happens happen. And that team actually put a scare into the eventual champs, Maryland, in the Sweet 16. A bounce here or there, a caught pass, a made three, and UK is an Elite Eight win away from redemption.

Some will tell you that this year's Cats lack everything: talent, skill, heart, brains, pride. I beg to differ. They have shown enough glimpses to warrant a belief that they possess these things, just not that they display them or have discovered them. And they're not alone. It took many of the best players time to find themselves. Tayshaun Prince was an underdeveloped "nice guy" before he became SEC MVP. Keith Bogans was little more than a talented piece until he learned to trust his gut and became the 4th all-time scorer in UK history. Gerald Fitch, Erik Daniels, Marquis Estill, Jamaal Magloire ... the list goes on and on. All took time to find their niche, or to realize that subjegation to the team would ultimately bring them more satisfaction.

It may take more than this season for the core of this group to find itself. But it will. And I've got a lifetime's worth of karma that says believing that it will, and trusting that Tubby will dig it out of them, will be far more interesting and worthwhile than deciding in the bad times that they cannot and will not.

Yes, this is our rebuilding year. But it doesn't have to be over, and it doesn't need to be forgotten. If grander schemes fail, then focus on the things that breed immediate results. Above are a few that struck me, and there are scores more. Perhaps we will yet be surprised by this team, perhaps not.

There is good to be had in every season. I firmly believe it. After all, who would deign to besmirch a Kentucky fan's birthright?