ARLINGTON, Texas — Kentucky set out for the improbable and achieved what seemed impossible.
John Calipari’s vision of 40-0 collapsed in three games, his phenomenal freshmen spending most of the season looking like an incredible pick-up team, loaded with talent and lacking chemistry.
After ending the season with 10 losses and a No. 8 seed, the greatest recruiting class of all-time quietly entered the NCAA Tournament without hype or expectation, a team that would surely soon break up and be forgotten once Calipari’s new crop of freshmen came to Kentucky.
It was less than a month ago the Wildcats had lost three of four games — including an embarrassing effort at South Carolina — and were heading toward a legacy that wasn’t worth a memory, a season that inspired angst and insulted potential.
But Aaron Harrison never forgot why he came to Kentucky. He never forgot what was possible. Long before saving the season with three game-winning 3-pointers in three straight tournament games, Harrison still felt there would be a season worth saving, even after the loss to the 13th-place Gamecocks.
“It is going to be a great story,” Harrison said after the loss.
One that could be greater than perfection.
After an incredible string of four straight last-second victories, Kentucky can still do what everyone originally thought the preseason No. 1 team could do — become the first team to win the national championship by starting five freshmen.
“If we are the champions [Monday], it will be because we did it together, played hard, and trusted each other,” freshman forward Julius Randle said. “We just had too much talent and we saw in spurts how good we could be, so it just felt like it was a matter of time before it clicked.”
Looking to accomplish what Michigan’s “Fab Five” failed to do against Duke in 1992, the Wildcats (29-10) will face No. 7 UConn (31-8) in the national championship at AT&T Stadium, a matchup of the highest combination of seeds ever to play in a title game, the first since 1966 (Texas Western-Kentucky) to feature two teams that did not appear in the previous year’s NCAA Tournament.
Last year, Kentucky was the defending NCAA champion, falling in the first round of the NIT at Robert Morris, while UConn was a 20-win team, banned from postseason play because of poor academic performance.
The high-school seniors headed to Kentucky watched last year’s tournament, waiting for their opportunity, the Huskies unable to watch the games they believed they should have been in.
“It is going to be a great story.”
UConn’s players said it was brutal, being banned from their dream because of the mistakes of previous teams, but it has made the magical run that much better.
“Watching the tournament [last year], I would’ve been so mad and so disappointed,” senior Niels Giffey said. “This year gave us extra motivation, but last year built the basis for this year. We found a different way to motivate ourselves. We didn’t play for championships, we didn’t play for the tournament and we still had a great season. We played for our coach, we played for our team.”
Kentucky and UConn represent two of the previous three NCAA champions, but look little like their predecessors.
Three players remain from the Huskies’ 2011 title team, with Shabazz Napier now starring as Kemba Walker, and Kevin Ollie in the seat of Jim Calhoun. Kentucky, looking for its second title in the past three years, still has Calipari, but a new class of the country’s best recruits, making their one-season national championship run before running to the NBA.
The low seeds gave both teams unusually difficult routes, with the Huskies starting with 10th-seeded St. Joseph’s in overtime, then following with wins over No. 2 Villanova, No. 3 Iowa State, No. 4 Michigan State and No. 1 overall seed Florida.
Kentucky’s path could be considered harder, having come back to win all five games, while becoming the first team to beat three teams from the previous Final Four (undefeated/No. 1 Wichita State, defending champion/No. 4 Louisville, No. 2 Michigan).
The Huskies may have more experience, but a season filled with unworldly expectations and insatiable fans have prepared Kentucky’s kids with a career’s worth of pressure.
“Experience always plays a key in these situations, but those kids,” UConn junuior guard Ryan Boatright said before correcting himself. “They ain’t kids. Those guys, they’re here for a reason.
They’ve got experience also. They’re not freshmen anymore.”
One and done could end with something no one’s ever done.