LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Ever since their time together in Conference USA, John Calipari and Tom Crean have been good friends who often talk by phone after games.
The conversation this week figures to be a little more spirited, what with a rematch of the Dec. 10 epic between Kentucky and Indiana set for the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 Friday in Atlanta.
“I knew we would be playing him,” Calipari said after his team dismantled Royce White and No. 8 Iowa State, 87-71, here at the KFC Yum! Center.
“What I would hope is we were playing him for the final game, but we’re not. We’re playing in the Sweet 16. I cannot stand playing friends because, if they win, I’m sick after the game. And if I win, I enjoy it, but I don’t enjoy it because I know what they’re going through because I know how it is.”
Indiana, which advanced with a 63-61 victory over VCU in Portland, Ore., will be getting a Kentucky team that is coming off arguably its most impressive performance of the season.
“Cal after the game came up to me and told me that’s the best game they played all year,” Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg said. “They can’t play any better than they did.”
Kentucky rattled off a 20-2 game-changing run in the middle of the second half, giving Iowa State a punch in the mouth from which they never recovered.
Freshman point guard Marquis Teague played his best game in a Kentucky uniform, finishing with a career-high 24 points on 10-for-14 shooting to go with 7 assists and 2 turnovers.
On a night when future lottery picks Terrence Jones and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist combined for just 10 points, senior Darius Miller added 19 points and Queens native Doron Lamb had 16.
Now comes the rematch with an Indiana team that handed Kentucky its only regular-season loss on Dec. 10, 73-72, by virtue of a last-second 3-pointer from Christian Watford.
The shot has been replayed endlessly on an ESPN commercial, so much that the Kentucky players say they turn off the TV when it comes on.
“That was a rough day for us,” Teague said. “We hate to lose any game. But the way we lost, that just made it that much worse.
“Like we said, we’ve had to move on past that day. We had other games we had to play. So I guess we got them again. We’re just going to come out and play our hardest. We’re not really saying anything about revenge or anything like that. We’re just going to come out and play like we would any other game.”
That was December and this is March.
Madness.
A berth in the Elite Eight will be on the line when the teams square off in Atlanta.
But both teams are different than they were then.
“Right now Indiana, we’re better than we were, but so’s Indiana,” Calipari said. “Tommy’s done an unbelievable job. Think about where that program was and what he’s got that thing going now. He’s got a great recruiting class coming in.
“So I said beginning of the year. They’ll be a top five program in short order. Everybody looked at me and thought I was crazy. Shoot, they may be a top five now. They’ve got terrific players. They’ve got competitors. And as far as game preparation, you’re not going to have a better coach than Tom. He’s as good as they get.”
Calipari cracked that he might put in some “new out of bounds plays” and “two new offenses” to confuse Crean “because he will watch every tape and know everything that we’re doing except for that stuff.”
“He won’t know that stuff,” Calipari added.
So expect the gamesmanship to continue throughout the week as the buildup to the battle between two of college basketball’s most storied programs reaches a fever pitch.
Then it will be two old friends, and their two teams, slugging it out for the right to move on in March.
Crean is playing with house money.
He’s got Indiana on the right track, has turned the program around and has a loaded class coming in.
The pressure all falls on Calipari and Kentucky, the overwhelming favorites to win it all.
Let the phone calls and the chatter go on.
Then it will be time for the old coaching buddies to tip it off in the game no one wants to say is for revenge.
