SEC: Thank You Kentucky Wildcats For This College Basketball Season

The 2015 NCAA tournament battle between the Kentucky Wildcats and Wisconsin Badgers happened inside of a packed Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, where everyone in the arena looked like they wanted Goliath to get slain.

We knew who the Goliath was in that game and it’s been four days now, and the huge 71-64 upset loss that Kentucky suffered to Wisconsin hurts just as much as when it happened on the night before Easter Sunday.

The painful agony of watching Wisconsin celebrate in joy after pulling off arguably the biggest win in their program’s history will be haunting fans in Lexington, Ky., until Kentucky’s next Final Four and national championship appearance, which might come next season.

The loss produced a historic upset of epic proportions because there was so much at stake. Kentucky was going to play for its ninth national championship. They were attempting to become the most recent team since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers to go undefeated in a season. They were on their way to playing the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers in an exhibition game (well, not really so).

But what Kentucky was getting ready to do was make its way to sitting at the table among the greatest

college basketball

teams in sports history.

As we learn in life the heart of man may plan his way, but ultimately a person’s true steps are decided. The Kentucky Wildcats might have fallen short of their ultimate goal of going undefeated, and living in infamy with the rest of the legacy-filled sports teams in history but that doesn’t mean that their season was a complete failure.

In fact, because of their team everyone in college basketball found a singular polarizing figure and a reason to fall in love with college basketball again.

For two, or three nights a week diehard and casual fans alike were either rooting for Kentucky to win and complete their undefeated season … or they were rooting for them to lose.

Either way we all were enthralled to see if this team could actually make history or fall short on its wings. For younger college basketball fans like myself, and the rest of the millennials we’ve never lived to see a college basketball team go undefeated.

So it was exciting to see the way that most of the entire season everyone brought out their A-game when they played Kentucky. We saw teams like Columbia, Louisville, Texas A&M, LSU, Ole Miss and Notre Dame all throw their best punches to their wit’s end but ended up falling short.

With the other flip of the coin, we also got to see Kentucky treat most of their opponents like cattle and ended up committing mincemeat murders in the process. The games against No. 5 Kansas, No. 6 Texas, No. 21 North Carolina, No. 21 Arkansas, Auburn, West Virginia, and Alabama were set as examples of how great this team actually was when they were rolling on all cylinders.

For as good as this team was for 38 games, they couldn’t finish off the historic feat with only two games remaining.

On a team chock full of future NBA players (as many as 10) it made college basketball fun to watch because we didn’t know what could happen. We didn’t know who would become the first team to beat them. We didn’t know how they could be defeated.

Though Kentucky lost to a better Wisconsin team (more like a better team on that night) it doesn’t diminish the historic season they put together. Simply put, we may never see another team go 38-0.

Because of the way that this 2014-15 Kentucky team created storylines and headlines every week they will always have a seat in history.

Just like the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels before them that also fell short, Kentucky has left their legacy in college basketball. That same UNLV team has documentaries made about their almost perfect season, and people to this day still talk about their season like a folk story.

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Wildcat Blue Nation

People can say that coach John Calipari, a new member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, blew the game because of his mismanagement of players (ironically). Or they can simply just look at the game and say that Kentucky lost to a more determined Wisconsin team that was looking to avenge their heartbreaking loss that was handed to them by the Big Blue Nation.

Let’s just say that there was a reason why retailers lost almost $15 million. There was a reason why Twitter world went crazy. That 20 seconds when the Earth stopped spinning … yeah, that was Kentucky too.

With all seriousness, we may never may get to see an undefeated season but we all should be thanking the Kentucky Wildcats for making college basketball even more fun to watch.

None of us knows how much amount of money any player on Kentucky’s roster has right now, but what’s guaranteed very soon is about seven members of their team will be driving really nice cars in the next three months.

Thanks for the memories fellas.

Next: SEC: Why Do People Love To Hate The Kentucky Wildcats?

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