Kentucky did not live up to the hype in its first legitimate test in the regular season, crumbling in a hostile road environment at Louisville to begrudgingly hand over bragging rights for the year after a half-decade of comfortably keeping those in Lexington. It’s hard to say anything good came out of that performance, but the reality is it was a top-15 true road loss against a desperate program, and the Wildcats will have an opportunity to respond exactly one week later against yet another top-20 foe.
Make a statement in this one, and the national perspective will be that Mark Pope’s group is right back on track as the Final Four contender everyone thought it’d be coming in.