UConn

Tonight the UK Wildcats will play the UConn Huskies at 10 PM EST / 9 PM CST for the championship of the Maui whatever-it-is officially called. This is only the third time UK has played UConn in history, but it is also the third time these two teams have met since 2006. The other two games were both quite interesting.

On March 19, 2006, a UK team that had been incredibly disappointing all year took on the number 2 team in the country -- UConn -- in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. This game was played in Philadelphia -- the same town where UK was eliminated in 1992 and 2001 -- and I watched it in a very angry frame of mind, as I was simply disgusted with the whole team. The 2005-06 UK team was supposed to be really good -- it brought back a lot of players who game within a double-overtime loss of reaching the Final Four the previous year. Instead, it was a big, disappointing mess -- the beginning of the end for Tubby, as it turned out. UK was 22-12 going into the game, and those were 12 ugly losses. UConn, on the other hand, was loaded and potentially on their way to their third national title. At halftime, the expected drubbing was well underway: UConn led 43-31. But in the second half -- for just about the only time all year -- UK played the way it was supposed to. The Cats scored 52 points in the second half. Bobby Perry -- who would rank high on my list of "Why did we ever give him a scholarship?" players -- scored 20 points in the game. Patrick Sparks finished with 28 points for the game. And the Cats threw a real scare into UConn. But it was to no avail; the Huskies prevailed 87-83, and moved on to their destiny: which was to lose one of my favorite college basketball games of all time. Tubby had only one more year left at UK before he was gone as well.

Of course, replacing Tubby proved to be more complicated than we expected, because Billy Gillispie had his own problems. But by December 9, 2009 -- the second time UK played UConn -- the Cats had a new coach and a bunch of new players. And in the SEC/Big East Invitational at Madison Square Garden, one of those players -- John Wall -- played what I considered to be his best college game. On a night where his teammates did very little to help, Wall had 25 points (on 10-16 shooting), six steals, and the key game-winning three-point play -- which is still one of my favorite UK plays ever. The Cats won 64-61, and they were, finally, back from the purgatory in which they had been trapped since that 2005-06 season.

Tonight's game should be another classic. UConn is 4-0 and on a roll, having just beaten Michigan State 70-67 last night. Ken Pomeroy calls this one as a 73-68 win for the Cats, and we will hope he is more accurate than he was when he picked UW to win last night. Vegas has made UK a five-point favorite, and we will hope they are right as well.

One final point about UConn: unlike Michigan State, they have won at least two really big games that I wanted them to win. So I give them credit for that.