Kentucky basketball: Wildcats fail to collapse but Hogs deliver fatal bite with 4.3 left

This group finally played as a unit and to win

It has taken almost a whole season of heartbreak for this Wildcat team to actually play as a cohesive unit for 40 minutes.

As Calipari remarked that came from him being positive and his team responded by not bowing their heads.

"“But this team fought. You know, B.J. (Boston) played better. We took open shots. We didn’t make them all but we took open shots. We flew it up the court. We posted it. We added a little wrinkle or two today — for today. We did some things defensively differently. We’re just trying to see if we can bring some aggressiveness out now. I was going crazy in this game. I was not going to let them hang their head. I had to tell them, we’re down four baskets. There are five minutes to go. They look like the world ended. What? And so this was a breakthrough that way. Am I happy we lost? No. I want to watch the end of the game and make sure I know exactly what happened. But the plays and the execution that we had, flawless.”"

Watching it play out you never got the feeling they were totally out of contention. It’s just a shame this team couldn’t pull it out. They truly deserve something good for how valiantly they fought.

Next up it’s Auburn on Saturday and Calipari said he didn’t know who they even played but he was just focused on that one game and not the six regular-season ones they have remaining. There is no focus either on the SEC Conference Tournament which is the only chance they have of making the NCAA Tournament.