Kentucky out for blood as UTC visits Rupp Arena

John Shulman had a phone interview to tend to Thursday morning.

A Kentucky beat writer wanted to hear the coach's thoughts on Chattanooga’s impending game at No. 3 Kentucky on Saturday. The Wildcats haven’t taken the court since losing at Indiana last weekend and the locals in Kentucky are restless.

Shulman jokingly told the Lexington scribe that he would send Kentucky coach John Calipari a gift certificate for dinner at his favorite restaurant before the teams meet.  A peace offering, of sorts, to prod Calipari into taking it easy against Shulman's underdog Mocs.

Deadpan, the reporter responded, “I don’t think that will do it. Cal is really upset.”

Shulman asked, “Is he really?”

Again, deadpan, the reporter said, “Yeah, he’s really upset and, to tell you the truth, coach, you’ve got 24,000 fans that want to see blood on Saturday night. Everyone up here is really mad.”

Uh-oh.

“Well that’s great,” Shulman quipped.

Having not beaten a Division I opponent since Nov. 25, Chattanooga will bring its 3-7 record to a lion’s den filled with Wildcats on Saturday night. There are too many differences to list. Kentucky (8-1) is still seething over a loss to Indiana. The Mocs have long forgotten about their 25-point loss to the Hoosiers. Kentucky has a roster littered with NBA talent. Chattanooga has a roster. 

It could get ugly. It could get very ugly, very fast. Shulman knows this. He’s been friends with Calipari since the two coached against each other in 2008. And he knows that won’t matter. He’s watched the Kentucky game film. He’s looked at the stats. He's fully aware that Saturday will be an uphill climb — in the middle of an avalanche. 

“We’re trying to figure out where we can take advantage — where we can score and where can we keep them from trying to score,” Shulman said Thursday with a bewildered mien. “They’re unbelievable in transition, they’re unbelievable in the half court, and they guard. That’s a problem.”

There are problems aplenty.

Kentucky is riding a 38-game winning streak at Rupp. The Wildcats’ entire starting lineup is averaging double figures and each player is projected as a first-round pick in the 2012 NBA Draft by nbadraft.net. The team’s sixth man, senior Darius Miller, would likely win SoCon player of the year and looks like a second-round pick. 

Want more? Kentucky is averaging 10.3 blocks per game. The Mocs have 13 blocks this season. Calipari’s offense is averaging 81.2 points per game (14th nationally) and shooting 49.5 percent from the field (15th). Chattanooga gave up 84 points to Georgia Southern and 87 points to College of Charleston (in 2OT) just last weekend. 

But, even with all that ...

“If you don’t go in with a chance, why bother going in?” Shulman asked. “If we don’t have our guys prepared to go win at Kentucky, then I think we’ve done a really poor job. Now, will it be difficult? I’d say ... probably. But we’ll be prepared and we’re going to go play hard and we’re going to get better.”

Chattanooga is 3-43 all-time against ranked teams and 0-14 against top 10 teams. According to Shulman, this version of Kentucky is better than the third-ranked Connecticut team that rocked the Mocs by 56 points in the 2009 NCAA tournament. Looking for a comparison, he likened these Wildcats to the No. 1 ranked Florida team that backhanded UTC with a 93-44 defeat in November 2006. Those Gators were coming off a national championship and on their way to second one.

“(Kentucky is) right up there,” Shulman said. “It’s scary. They are scary good. Like, do I really want to take my children up there, good.”

While Wildcats guard Doron Lamb (14.9 ppg, 51.4 percent 3-pointers) leads Kentucky in scoring, its dominance starts on the blocks. Forwards Terrence Jones (13.8 ppg, 6.8 rpg) and Anthony Davis (11.6 ppg, 9.1 rpg) play in another stratosphere. It’s no exaggeration. 

“They’ve got men,” Shulman said. “They may be freshmen or sophomores in class rank, but they are men inside. Nobody in the country can guard those guys one on one.”

This is what Sports Illustrated had to say about Davis: “Not since Kevin Durant arrived in Austin in 2006 have we seen such a strangely long, lithe and athletic specimen in college basketball, and Davis is a much different package — his offense is more limited to lob-dunk-collecting, but his defensive impact is superhuman.”

Oh, and then there is Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (12.8 ppg, 7.3 rpg), a colt who was considered the top high school player in America for much of his prep career. He would be the unquestioned star on 98 percent of the teams in the country. And don’t forget Marquis Teague (10.8 ppg, 4.2 apg), who was ranked as the top high school point guard in the class of 2011 and is the younger brother of the Atlanta Hawks’ Jeff Teague.

For Chattanooga, the grim reality of Saturday’s contest can go on and on. Even Don Haskins would doubt the Mocs’ chances. But Shulman would never bemoan an opportunity to lead his troops onto the Rupp Arena floor, even if the seven national title banners in the rafters smile and say, “Mmm, lunch.”

That’s OK. There might be blood spilled. There might be a laughable deficit. Saturday could simply deliver an exclamation point to an already disappointing early season slate. The key for Shulman and UTC will be to take some positives away from Lexington, and leave the rest behind. 

“I know where we are,” Shulman said. “I know where we are as a team and I know where we are as a record. Now, if we had a few breaks, our record would be different, but that shouldn’t change our team. What we have to do is go up there and continue to get better, period. No matter what the score is.”