State-Journal.com - Are Wildcats ready for the post-season?

Kentucky’s Ramon Harris, right, looks for a teammate to pass to as he’s guarded by Florida’s Chandler Parsons during the first half of Sunday’s game in Lexington. UK won 74-66. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

LEXINGTON – Now that the regular season is mercifully over with Kentucky’s 74-66 win against Florida on Sunday, significant questions remain about the Wildcats’ post-season hopes.

And the No. 1 question is this: Do these oh-so-young Wildcats have the will and the maturity to win the school’s eighth national championship?

The answer is more of a mystery than it should be through Kentucky’s 31 regular-season games, even though the Wildcats have been victorious in 29 of those games.

Kentucky has played like a national champion just one time, Jan. 23 in a 101-70 win over Arkansas, in a game that wasn’t as close as that score indicates.

It will take at least three consecutive efforts like that Arkansas game for the Wildcats to win a national championship. I’m talking about the final three games of the NCAA Tournament, of course, if UK manages to get that far.

I would argue that, by the second game of the NCAA Tournament, Kentucky will need a more concerted effort than they have given most of the time this season, just to reach the second weekend of the tournament, when they would potentially play games three and four of what they hope is a six-game run to the title.

In other words, based on what I’ve seen this regular season, the Wildcats look more like a second- or third-round upset victim than a national champion.

The Wildcats will certainly need a more consistent effort in postseason play then they gave Sunday in the Senior Day win over Florida’s Gators at Rupp Arena. UK played the first 15 minutes like a team on a mission, rolling to a 36-18 lead. But Kentucky played the next 20 minutes with the sense of urgency you might see in a Blue-White scrimmage. That allowed Florida to climb within 62-60 with 5:23 to go.

Only then did the Wildcats wake up, put the clamps down defensively, and ease to the final eight-point margin.

Again, that kind of sporadic effort will get Kentucky a first-round NCAA win over a No. 16 seed, and that may be the end of the line if the Wildcats do not grow up in a hurry.

And make no mistake about it, by the way, Kentucky WILL be a No. 1 seed and will therefore play a No. 16 seed in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, probably in Milwaukee or New Orleans, no matter what Coach John Calipari says. Calipari tried to tell the media, with a straight face, after Sunday’s win that the Wildcats need to win at least one game, and maybe two, in this week’s SEC Tournament in Nashville to guarantee a one seed.

That’s coach-speak, which is a polite way to say Calipari is lying in order to motivate his team.

Kentucky opens SEC Tournament play at 1 p.m. Eastern time Friday against the winner of a battle Thursday between South Carolina and Alabama. With a win Friday, UK will likely play Tennesee in Saturday’s conference semifinals.

Calipari has drawn some criticism recently for suggesting he doesn’t care about the SEC Tournament, but most of those comments have been taken out of context. Sort of. He clarified his position Sunday.

“My teams have had success (in conference tournaments) but we don’t worry about them,” Calipari said. “We are only trying to win them to get a high seed (in the NCAA Tournament).

“I know that will make some people mad,” he added. “’Well, we’re Kentucky and we don’t do it that way.’ You hired me, and that’s how I do it. I haven’t changed, and I won’t.”

Fortunately, the UK players talk as if they recognize the challenges that loom, with the possible exception of freshman center DeMarcus Cousins, who played the first 25 games or so of the regular season like he was the best big man in the country and has regressed in intensity in recent games to where he resembles someone more like, say, Randolph Morris.

Cousins had his second straight single-single Sunday, scoring eight points and grabbing nine rebounds in the win over Florida. There were times Cousins appeared to be looking more at the referees than the man he was supposed to be guarding.

Here’s hoping that Cousins regains a swagger come tournament time and recognizes the danger that lies ahead, as freshman teammate John Wall apparently does.

When asked Sunday if he worries about the Wildcats lack of consistent intensity, Wall nodded emphatically and replied: “Oh yeah, that’s a key thing. That can be the thing that can stop us in the (NCAA) tournament. We get a lead on a team, and we always find a way to let them come back. When we look at a scoreboard and see we’re up 18, we don’t have that aggressiveness anymore, and we don’t play defense with the same passion that we do when we’re up or down two points.”

“There’s no team in the country that’s ever played for a national title that’s been this young,” Calipari said, and then amended that a second later to include Michigan’s Fab Five bunch in the early ‘90s.

“We’re so young, we just don’t get it,” Wall added. “There’s still a whole half left to play. Every team is going to have a run, but we can’t allow the big runs.”

For that reason, Wall sounds like a guy not looking past the SEC Tournament.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” Wall said. “You’ve got to prepare yourself for the conference tournament because this is your last chance to get better. Then it’s off to the real thing.”

“We just have to hope that over the next four weekends that they can come with a mission and they understand and nothing bothers them,” Calipari said.

“But that’s a tall order for a young team.”