The regional final has become a wall the Cats can’t seem to surmount.

The Cats will appear in their fifth straight NCAA Tournament this season. While it’s a streak that certainly shouldn’t be scoffed at, it’s something that UK and its fans have grown accustomed to.

In the NCAA Regional Finals last season, UK Hoops led top-ranked University of Connecticut, 23-22, with nine minutes to play in the first half.

Hope was starting to surface among UK fans, and the dream of making it to the program’s first Final Four was beginning to look like a possibility.

Then Connecticut went on a 26-3 scoring spree in those nine minutes to close out with a 48-26 halftime lead.

The dream was dead, and the UK Hoops fan base accepted its team’s losing fate before the players even took to the court in the second half.

It was a familiar sight for the Cats, as they fell to the Huskies in the regional finals just a year earlier. In fact, losing in the Elite Eight in general was becoming a norm for the program, losing there three of the past four years.

So UK Hoops fans have to ask themselves: Is expecting anything greater than an Elite Eight appearance just wishful thinking? Will the program ever cement itself as a dominant power in the NCAA Tournament?

Unfortunately for the program, losing one game short of a Final Four appearance has also become a customary theme.

Considering the opponent the last two years, realizing the dream looked impossible to begin with. Connecticut has proved it is a dominant power in women’s college basketball, winning eight national titles, including last season. When facing an opponent with that much history, the task of winning seems like climbing a thousand-foot wall.

But UK has stayed in its rut while its closest rivals have won national championships. The University of Tennessee has won eight titles during its illustrious history. Texas A&M University won its first championship during the 2011 season. And most recently, the Cats’ in-state rival, the University of Louisville, went to its second national championship game in five years in 2013.

When is it UK’s turn to fulfill the dream?

Maybe it’s this year. As it stands, ESPN’s Charlie Creme has UK listed as a 3-seed in his Bracketology. The 1-seed in that region is Stanford University, while Louisville, which the Cats already beat this season, is listed as the 2-seed. By not facing Connecticut for a third straight season, a Final Four appearance would look a little more plausible heading into this year’s tournament.

No matter what UK’s draw is, it will be all for naught if the team can’t get past its customary Elite Eight wall. If the Cats want to be seen in a different light than  in the past, they will have to climb over that wall.

If they fall short again this year, it’s tough to imagine them appearing in a semifinal game anytime soon. And the more accustomed the fans get to the team’s expulsion from the Elite Eight, the fainter the Final Four dream will be.