By Nick Gray

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John Calipari sat in a  chair at his customary blue-clad podium Sunday after UK’s exhibition win over Georgetown. His brow was dry, a sign of an easy day at the office of Rupp Arena. His customary expression exudes confidence — a wry expression where a smile is trying to poke out, but never entirely does. His hair was spotted with gray marks that are results of hard work coaching young teams in the past.

The man who held court just prior was Georgetown coach Chris Briggs, a former NAIA Coach of the Year and a national champion coach himself, albeit in the lower division of NAIA. When asked how he would stop UK’s team if given a major college roster, Briggs responded that he did not think the Cats would lose a game this season. He continued to say that UK could “have beaten some NBA teams tonight” and that the Cats “can be an NBA playoff team.”

Hyperbolic, it was.

A few questions into his post-game press conference, a media member alerted Calipari as to what Briggs said about how the Cats may never lose a game this season.

“Coach, did you do that to me?” he asked Briggs.

“I’m sorry, Coach,” Briggs responded with his head down and smiling, realizing the nature of his statements.

Three years ago, UK’s expectations were about obtaining a national championship. It succeeded.

Two years ago, a young Cats team’s expectations were to be a Top 5 team. It failed drastically.

Last season, the talk was 40-0.

In the next step of the evolution of expectations in college basketball’s most prestigious program, UK’s expectations are not of whipping every college team. That would be too easy, at least according to Briggs.

Nevermind the silly talk about a college team beating a team of professionals. UK’s coaches or players could not help hearing what Briggs had to say. In the quest of trying to find the appropriate — and fresh — title for this season’s team, people outside of the program have lost the grasp that the 2014-15 Cats will be a great college basketball team who will win more than 30 games and have a good shot to claim a national championship.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

The media and other coaches will continue to label this team filled with college recruits morphing into NBA prospects. It will get worse as the season goes on, especially if UK gets through its taxing non-conference schedule.

But there is a reality, beside the result at the end of the year for those who want this team to be inexplicably more than it can be.

There’s nothing wrong with being a great college basketball team.