Kentucky primed for rematch with old foe Wichita
INDIANAPOLIS — It was three years ago and might as well have been a lifetime ago. Neither one current Kentucky player nor one Wichita State player played even a minute in the classic, 78-76 NCAA Tournament thriller in St. Louis that knocked the Shockers from the ranks of the unbeaten and propelled the Wildcats into the national championship game.
Sure, that game in 2014 still resonates, as the head coaches are the same (John Calipari at Kentucky, Gregg Marshall at Wichita State) and so many of the fans are the same. The players? The vast majority of them were in high school, doing their own thing, not yet committed to the college program they would attend, when Cleanthony Early and Ron Baker were scoring for Wichita State and Aaron and Andrew Harrison and Julius Randle were saving the day for Kentucky.
“The bottom line is the only two guys that remember that game, other than you media people, are coach Cal and I,” Marshall said Saturday. “Everyone else is new.”
The situation this time around for Sunday’s secondround matchup at Bankers Life Fieldhouse is the same, in reverse. Three years ago, Wichita State was 35-0 and a No. 1 seed. Kentucky entered the tournament as an eight seed, lugging in 10 losses, as Calipari’s freshmen-laden group had yet to find itself. This is not a vintage Kentucky team, but it is a No. 2 seed, and at 30-5, an extended stay in bracket-land would surprise no one. Wichita State did its usual damage in the Missouri Valley Conference and is 31-4 after outlasting Dayton in the first round and, as a 10 seed, is a heavyweight masquerading as a mid-major. “This is a Sweet 16 game, Elite Eight game that we’re playing,’’ Calipari said.
Marshall readied his team for this game by showing his Shockers the loss three years ago to Kentucky, “trying to get our boys prepared for the mental part of the game.” Calipari had no interest in any history lesson.
“It’s just not something I would do because the players are all different,” he said.
Kentucky, as usual under Calipari, is bigger, more talented and decidedly younger, and Wichita State has to be wary of freshman Bam Adebayo, who devastated Northern Kentucky in the first round with 15 points and 18 rebounds. Marshall called the 6-foot-10, 260-pound Adebayo “a mountain of a man” and warned, “You got to put some doubt in his mind when he gets it in the low post, what’s going to happen next.’’ Adebayo was not fazed. “They got confidence,” he said. “And we’ve got confidence, too.”