Kentucky Continues Flexing Its Muscles on the Big Stage with Demolition of UCLA

CHICAGO — John Calipari finished his press conference following Kentucky's drop-kicking of UCLA on Saturday afternoon by informing the media that his players are "not machines" and "not computers."

No, the top-ranked Wildcats are just the best darn college basketball team that Steve Alford has ever seen.

Alford said that, or a variation of that, three times after his Bruins spotted the Wildcats 24 points before they even scored and went on to get smoked 83-44.

USA TODAY Sports

"They have everything," Alford said.

Calipari will spend this season trying to control the message and keeping his team motivated, but after this and the Kansas massacre, it's obvious the Wildcats take it to another level when the stage is biggest and the lights are brightest.

Usually, at this point in the season, it would be ridiculous to start comparing a great team with great teams of the past.

But, what UK did to Kansas and UCLA is ridiculous. So let's go ahead and start trying to quantify what we're seeing.

The easiest way to do that, typically, is when a great team plays legitimate competition.

Well, Kentucky has played five power-conference schools. In those games, Kentucky's defensive efficiency is 76.6. The only team in the country with a better number than that is Louisville, and that's against Louisville's cupcake schedule that ranks 241st in the country, according to kenpom.com (subscription required).

Forget whether Kentucky could go undefeated against this schedule.

If anything, the schedule is the only thing slowing the Wildcats.

That's the only logical explanation for how this juggernaut has trailed at halftime to Buffalo and Columbia.

"We have to keep playing against ourselves," freshman guard Devin Booker said. "Coach always stresses to us that we're not playing against the other team; we're playing against ourselves."

Booker, please.

Teams that are out chasing history like making statements. Kentucky knows exactly who it's playing and is out making blue bloods look like cream puffs.

It's almost been counterproductive to have great talent against Kentucky, because great players have pride, and when it starts going downhill, they try to do too much. 

That's exactly the wrong way to play against UK's length, and it's exactly what happened to the Jayhawks and Bruins. They tried to put their heads down and drive, and UK's bigs gobbled up those shots like Pac-Man. 

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

Even when you run good offense against UK, Calipari's guys are so disciplined and long that they can make execution obsolete. 

"The starting five that they have, they can basically switch five ways, and Coach (Bobby) Knight, that was always his dream team, that he could get five guys 6'7" or 6'8" and just switch everything," Alford said. "That's hard to score on." 

So hard that the Bruins looked like biddy-ballers in the first half. They had seven points at halftime. That's not a misprint. Seven. 

Kentucky was so good that it sucked the juice out of an arena that was mostly filled with its own fans. The loudest the United Center got in the second half was for an older UK fan dancing on the big board during the under-four timeout. 

The scary part, Alford said, is that Kentucky can still get better. That's especially the case on the offensive end, where the 'Cats seem to be figuring out roles and figuring out how to play off each other. 

They made 12 of their 26 of three-point attempts, and that's an impressive percentage (46.2), but they should shoot that well. Because when the 'Cats run good offense, as they did against UCLA, they get great looks. Sophomore point guard Andrew Harrison is playing the best basketball of his career, and freshman Tyler Ulis is one of the best penetrators and passers in the country. 

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

Booker, who went 5-of-6 from deep and scored 19 points, wasn't any more wide-open in warmups. 

The real undefeated talk will, and should, pick up next weekend if Kentucky is able to get past fourth-ranked Louisville. The Cards do have some decent wins—Minnesota, Ohio State and Indiana—but none of those teams come close to matching UK's size or speed or depth. 

The good news is Louisville has the type of defense that at least could present some challenges. The bad news is that these Kentucky guys eat up a good challenge. 

So here's some advice for the Cards: Lock your fans out, throw on some pink unis and try to convince the 'Cats they're playing a school with hyphens in its name. 

Because when Kentucky has cared, game over.

C.J. Moore covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @CJMooreBR.