Kyle Tucker

@KyleTucker_CJ

LEXINGTON, Ky. – John Calipari’s first six teams at Kentucky are easily packaged and labeled for rapid recollection.

His 2009-10 squad got the party started with John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and NBA draft history. Then Brandon Knight’s leadership and Josh Harrellson’s jean shorts turned the 2010-11 squad into Final Four party crashers.

Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist made it won-and-done with the 2011-12 national championship. Ryan Harrow’s bubble guts and Nerlens Noel’s knee injury imploded the ensuing 2012-13 NIT team.

Aaron Harrison’s jumbo guts and Julius Randle’s broad shoulders turned the disappointing 2013-14 Cats into NCAA title-game shockers. Then WCS met KAT and there was so much talent that 2014-15 Kentucky platooned its way to perfection – almost.

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See how simple that is? Name a year, conjure a memory. But this, Calipari’s seventh season with the Wildcats, will be harder to wrangle on down the line. This team was neither dominant nor disastrous. So how will it be remembered?

'Will' and 'should' are likely to be quite different.

These Cats won 27 games, lost nine. They shared an SEC regular-season title, won the league tournament. They earned a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament, had seemingly half the country believing they might sneak up and win the whole thing, then got bounced in the second round by rival Indiana.

After an unceremonious end, this team will surely be remembered as a good one that could’ve been great if, say, Dakari Johnson hadn’t turned pro only to toil in the NBA Development League. The 2015-16 Kentucky team he left behind will be known for its flimsy frontcourt: freshman Skal Labissiere faltering, junior Marcus Lee fouling, senior Alex Poythress fluctuating (again).

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There was Derek Willis, the pride of Bullitt County, who made like a shooting star, teasing what he could do and then torturing when he took it away at precisely the wrong moment.

Speaking of roller coasters, these Cats kept sending up red flags – ugly losses to UCLA, Ohio State and LSU teams that turned out to be pretty bad, plus beatings at Auburn and Tennessee, whose awfulness was never in question – only to counter with apparent breakthroughs that allowed fans (and the team) to dream of a deep NCAA tournament run.

They beat Duke in November and Louisville in December. Even overtime losses at Kansas and Texas A&M in January revealed enormous potential, as did a blowout win at South Carolina after Calipari’s quick ejection in February and OT revenge over the Aggies at the SEC tournament in March.

That could be the tidy tag line for this season: What might’ve been.

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But perhaps what this team should be remembered for is not its failing, rather achievement: that through sophomore point guard Tyler Ulis’ sheer force of will and freshman shooting guard Jamal Murray’s offensive electricity – All-American outputs both – Kentucky had a fighting chance in every game.

Maybe this season should be known for the way a 5-foot-9 Ulis led and fed and dragged the Cats to more than they could’ve ever been without him. Or for how Murray’s shooting, of real basketballs and imaginary bows and arrows, energized a team that needed another weapon.

Ulis broke Wall’s assist record. Murray smashed Knight’s freshman marks for scoring and made 3-pointers. Together, they put on a show almost every night, and Ulis didn’t quit dazzling until all hope and time ran out against the Hoosiers.

So while this one is a complicated season to encapsulate quickly, it should not be one that is easily forgotten. Its would-be heroes deserve better than that.

Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Email him at ktucker@courier-journal.com.