By Kyle Arensdorf

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With a win against Florida on Saturday, UK Basketball improved to 31-0 and are nine wins away from being the first team in 39 years to achieve a perfect season. The Cats are by far the best team in college basketball. It’s not much of a stretch to say UK should sweep the SEC and NCAA tournaments, but doing so has proven to be difficult for UK teams in the past.

The best team in the John Calipari era at UK was the 2009-10 team – helmed by John Wall, Demarcus Cousins and veteran Patrick Patterson. That team swept through the regular season nearly as easily as this year’s team. Its only blemishes were two road losses to South Carolina and Tennessee, but that was at a time when the SEC was much stronger than it is today.

Despite the regular season losses, the 09-10 team blazed through the SEC Tournament and won its first three games of the NCAAs by an average of 25 points. The Cats were the best of the eight remaining teams that year, but inexplicably fell to an above-average West Virginia team that was 24-6 before their conference tournament. UK simply went cold against the Mountaineers, missing 28 of its 32 3-point attempts and sinking just 16-of-29 free throw attempts.

West Virginia beat UK by seven points, and if the Cats had gone just seven for 32 from beyond the arc (just 22 percent), they win the game. But that’s the point – anything can happen in a single-elimination tournament with unfamiliar referees in an unfamiliar venue. What’s even more concerning is that this year’s UK team doesn’t have a player of Wall’s or even Cousins’ caliber.

There is one who’s close, however, and he’s come on strong down the stretch for the Cats. Freshman forward Karl-Anthony Towns has scored double-digit points in eight of his last 11 games. And in close-game scares he’s stepped up in the second half and has been a go-to force for the Cats.

But more importantly, he’s becoming more consistent, something that’s key come tournament time. In the next nine games, the Cats will meet a situation – if not a few – where they need one shot to either win the game or just get them back on track.

Just as they did when Georgia had them down by nine with nine minutes left. On the very next play after a Calipari-called timeout, the ball was dumped to Towns who made an easy move to the basket and scored, facilitating UK’s final run that won the game. Towns has proven he can be a go-to player in crunch situations.

Granted, Towns’ supporting cast is better than the one Wall, Cousins and Patterson had during the their season. And college basketball doesn’t possess a team that’s as talented as the Cats this year. But while UK could and should run the table, it’s important to remember that better UK teams have fallen short.