Freshmen Flounder While Veterans Vital in Kentucky's Rivalry Win over Louisville

Kentucky's dominance in the John Calipari era has been almost entirely fueled by freshmen, but it was a quartet of upperclassmen who paced the No. 12 Wildcats to a 75-73 win over No. 16 and loathed rival Louisville on Saturday afternoon.

Well, sophomore Tyler Ulis isn't technically an upperclassman, but he might as well be when we're talking about Kentucky. In one of the best games of his career, he was everywhere, finishing with 21 points and eight assists.

Ulis made several beautiful entry passes, busting the Cardinals' zone wide open time and again by finding forwards at the free-throw line. Frequently, he acted as an entry pass, driving to the four-foot arc before making an acrobatic layup or hitting a teammate on the perimeter for an open triple. At least two of his four made three-pointers came from at least five feet beyond the arc. The 5'9" guard even blocked a shot in transition.

Louisville's guards are going to see Ulis in their sleep for weeks to come.

Ulis, though, had plenty of help from guys who have been with the program for longer. Senior forward Alex Poythress decimated the Cardinals early in the second half, scoring or assisting on four consecutive field goals, which put a capstone on a sequence of 17 straight possessions in which the Wildcats scored at least one point. Poythress also blocked three shots, including one stuff of 7'0" Matz Stockman that nearly brought Rupp Arena to the ground.

"Only Superman can make that play, and he made it," Calipari said in the postgame press conference.

Junior forward Marcus Lee was also strong in the post, tallying eight points and seven rebounds despite dealing with foul trouble for most of the game.

But the biggest surprise was junior guard Dominique Hawkins.

Hawkins had never put up more than seven points in a collegiate game, but he shot 3-of-4 from three-point range—even the lone miss bounced in after hitting the shot clock—and scored a career-high 13 points. Hawkins entered the game a career 17.4 percent three-point shooter (8-of-46) but nearly matched his point total for the season (15 in nine games).

Yet the Wildcats won by only a two-point margin because the outstanding freshman class almost entirely responsible for their preseason position at No. 2 in the AP Top 25 was useless.

Jamal Murray had 12 points and drained a couple of three-pointers at crucial junctures, but he was 3-of-14 from the field with seven turnovers and three fouls, which drew the teaching wrath of Calipari. According to Sam Vecenie of CBS Sports, Murray's was minus-15 for the game.

Isaiah Briscoe—who was noticeably inefficient in last week's loss to Ohio State—missed the game due to an ankle injury suffered in pregame warm-ups. Fellow freshman Charles Matthews started in his place and had as many personal fouls (four) as combined points and rebounds.

Skal Labissiere was once again the worst freshman of all.

Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

After playing with less than a fraction of the passion of Poythress and Lee and missing all three of his field-goal attempts in the first half, Labissiere barely touched the floor after intermission. He played just 10 minutes total, and, for once, it had nothing to do with foul trouble.

Labissiere was not in the starting lineup for the first time this season, and it's almost hard to believe that Calipari is bothering to play him at all. In five games against major-conference opponents, he has averaged 14.6 minutes, 3.4 points, 2.6 rebounds, 1.2 blocks and 3.4 fouls.

During CBS' halftime coverage, Seth Davis and Doug Gottlieb had the following exchange:

Davis: "If Labissiere does what he does well, he is going to have an important impact on important games."

Gottlieb: "What does he do well right now?"

Poythress was exponentially more effective against Louisville than he was against the Buckeyes last week, but there's an awful lot of pressure on him (and Lee) to deliver every single night with Labissiere be so unproductive.

In projecting the SEC standings in August, I wrote this about the Wildcats' frontcourt depth:

"If [Labissiere] is all he's cracked up to be, no problem. Kentucky dominates the SEC, spends the entire season ranked in the top 10 and enters the NCAA tournament as (one of) the title favorites.

"If he's anything less than 2016 No. 1 pick material, well, Kentucky probably still wins the SEC, but you can rule out the possibility of a third straight season with someone going 18-0 in this conference."

That's pretty much where the Wildcats stand with their SEC opener just around the corner. Most would agree that this is the team to beat in that conference but would also say that it almost certainly will be beaten at least a couple of times over the course of the next two-plus months.

It wouldn't take much to flip that script, though.

Ulis, Poythress, Lee and Murray have all been phenomenal at different points in the season, and Kentucky is almost impossible to beat when all four are cooking. Just ask Duke or Arizona State, which both looked helpless late against the firing-on-all-cylinders Wildcats.

It's when two or more of those guys struggle that this team has been most vulnerable. Lee was injured early in the first half of Kentucky's loss to UCLA, and Poythress, Ulis and Murray all posted an O-rating lower than 100 according to kenpom.com. Murray was outstanding in the loss to Ohio State, but Ulis and Poythress struggled considerably.

Getting consistent play from those four is crucial to the Wildcats' success. However, Briscoe has shown prolonged flashes of serious potential—most notably his 20-point game against UCLA—and we know Labissiere has talent somewhere beneath what is now six weeks of tentative play.

This season is more wide open than any in recent memory, and it was only a couple of weeks ago that Kentucky was one of the top candidates to win it all. The veterans need to keep playing like they did against Louisville, and the freshmen need to become more reliable and assertive, but the Wildcats still possess the talent and depth to cut down the nets in April.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.