Kentucky is ready to “shock the world.”
The eighth-seeded Wildcats, the preseason No. 1 after coach John Calipari brought in one of the most hyped recruiting classes in college basketball history, struggled to live up to those lofty expectations. But they finished strong and nearly upset overall top-seed Florida in the SEC Tournament championship game.
“We were preseason No. 1 and we can end up at the end of the season No. 1 as well,” said Kentucky shooting guard Aaron Harrison, one of the team’s seven McDonald’s All-Americans. “We can go as far as we want.”
Sophomore Willie Cauley-Stein said after the strong finish, there is a belief inside the locker room the Wildcats can “shock the world.” When asked to specify what that meant exactly, the talented forward backtracked, saying it would mean topping No. 9 Kansas State in their NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional opener.
“Despite how the season went, now the real season begins [Friday] for us,” Cauley-Stein said. “I think this whole thing is just trying to shock the world and do what people say we can’t do.”
Calipari shook his head when those statements were relayed to him.
“Let’s shock the world [on Friday], one game,” he said. “And then we’ll go from there.”
Kansas coach Bill Self said freshman center Joel Embiid (back) will be out for the second-seeded Jayhawks’ South Regional opener, against No. 15 Eastern Kentucky on Friday, and Sunday against either No. 7 New Mexico or No. 10 Stanford.
With the 7-foot Embiid, a projected top-three pick in the NBA draft if he comes out, in the lineup Kansas is 21-7; without him it’s 3-2.
New Mexico’s size — the Lobos have one of the nation’s largest and most talented front lines, led by 7-foot center Alex Kirk and 6-foot-9 Aussie import Cameron Bairstow — could give the Jayhawks a lot of problems in the third round if the two teams meet as expected.
“In the games in which we lost [without him], teams shot a lot of easy baskets, in large part because we made a lot of the same mistakes we have been making, but he wasn’t there to clean them up,” Self said. “So we have to be much sounder out on the perimeter.”
Self said Embiid is making progress in rehab and is hopeful he will be back for the South Regionals in Memphis, should Kansas get there.
Aside from Manhattan College, ninth-seeded Kansas State of the Midwest region has the most New York City products of any team in the tournament with three: Senior forward Shane Southwell of Harlem, senior forward Omari Lawrence, a St. John’s transfer, of The Bronx and freshman point guard Jevon Thomas of Queens.