Kentucky Looks Too Big to Fail After Romp Over Kansas at 2014 Champions Classic

Putting a nice bow on a tipoff marathon that featured more than a few blowouts, Kentucky and its extremely talented front line made a statement against Kansas in a 72-40 beatdown at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

The statement is that these Wildcats are unstoppable giants.

Kansas is a very big, talented team. The Jayhawks have five forwards 6'8" or taller who will do some serious damage this season.

But for the vast majority of the nightcap of the Champions Classic, they looked like a junior-varsity team scrimmaging against its bigger and better upperclassmen.

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As mentioned during ESPN's broadcast of the game, Kentucky has 10 players who are 6'6" or taller, seven who are 6'8" or taller and four who stand at least 6'10".

As Jay Bilas astutely noted, trying to put the ball in the bucket against the Wildcats "is like trying to play Frisbee in the Redwood Forest."

Even with Tyler Ulis, who might be 5'9" in platform shoes, Kentucky's average height is 79.7", according to KenPom.com (subscription required). The gap between Kentucky and second place on that list (78.8") is larger than the gap between second place and 33rd place.

Ken Pomeroy's data on height only goes back to the 2006-07 season, but this year's Wildcats are bigger than any other college basketball team in the past eight years. Convert Kentucky's average height to centimeters (202.4), and you can see that these Wildcats are taller than almost every NBA squad.

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And unlike other teams with big men who have two left feet, Kentucky's giants are outrageously talented. 

Through three games, they have already blocked 28 shots. That's an average of 9.3 per game. Last year, St. John's led the nation at 7.6 blocks per game.

Even when the Wildcats had Anthony Davis, they "only" averaged 8.8 blocks per game.

That ridiculous average isn't because they padded their stats against Grand Canyon and Buffalo. Rather, the 11 blocks against Kansas on Tuesday were the most they've recorded this season.

Kentucky had already tallied all 11 of those blocks before the under-eight-minute timeout in the second half. Marcus Lee and Karl Towns Jr. led the way with four each.

The game barely reached the midway point of the first half before an unofficial contest broke out on Twitter to see who could best describe the sheer dominance of Kentucky's big men:

It could have been so much worse, too. Kansas had at least 10 other shots altered for fear of being blocked, resulting in an almost incomprehensible team shooting percentage of 19.6.

After the game, Kentucky coach John Calipari told Andy Katz on ESPN's broadcast, "We're so long and athletic, and we keep coming at you in waves. We don't have subs. We have reinforcements...It's like tanks coming over a hill."

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Though the defense has been top-level (with the exception of that first half against Buffalo on Sunday), the scary thing is that Kentucky's big men are still finding their legs on offense.

They played incredibly to hold the Jayhawks to just 40 points, but how did the Wildcats only score 72 points of their own?

They shot just 47.5 percent from two-point range, despite having a half-dozen big men who can probably touch the top of the backboard.

What's bizarre is that Kentucky only had two dunks Tuesday night.

The Wildcats had plenty of layups, but this team could be the second coming of Dunk City if it wanted to be. Alex Poythress and Dakari Johnson are among the best "angry dunkers" in the country, but we didn't get to see either of them throw one down against the Jayhawks.

That isn't meant as a criticism of how Kentucky played Tuesday night so much as it is a warning of what's to come. When these big guys are dominating—when Poythress isn't missing all five shots he takes and when Lee is aggressive enough to take more than three shots—this is a team that could win conference games by 60 points.

And how about those platoons that we all wanted to see dead and buried after the Wildcats trailed Buffalo at the half Sunday?

In most sports, "platoon" is a dirty word.

In baseball, whether it's a closer by committee or third basemen who swap starting jobs based on the opposing pitcher, what the manager is basically saying is that he doesn't trust either option. The same goes for football with a platoon situation at quarterback. If you have two QBs, you have no QBs.

But a college basketball platoon designed to get equal playing time for 10 very good players?

That seems to be working out pretty well.

For the big men, it will pay huge dividends in the long run.

While guys such as LSU's Jordan Mickey and Auburn's Cinmeon Bowers wear down by mid-February due to playing close to 35 minutes per game, Kentucky will not only still have six big men, the team will be fresher than all the others in the country.

There might not be a single forward or center on this team who averages a double-double, but the combined forces of the post dwellers from the Blue and White platoons could absolutely average 40 points and 35 rebounds per game.

Through less than one week, Duke's Jahlil Okafor appears to be the best big man in the country. As far as "best team in the paint" goes, though, it's Kentucky by a country mile—and the gap is only going to get more pronounced as the season progresses.

After the game, Katz asked Coach Calipari how Kentucky can be beaten.

"You can shoot threes," Calipari said. "You can get us in the post. We foul. We fouled like crazy (tonight). We kept them on the line. We've got a long way to go."

There you have it. The blueprint to beat Kentucky!

Good luck executing it.

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