Now that looked like the No. 1 team in the country.

In a game where UK could easily have overlooked its opponent, let another sharpshooter go off on their home floor or let a former Cat come home and earn a career defining win as a coach, the Cats did what they do best: win.

Saturday’s game wasn’t as much a contest as it was a clinic of near perfect basketball. This game looked more Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals than a battle of the two most prolific Southeastern Conference programs.

“We would have done this to 360 teams tonight, no matter who we played,” UK head coach John Calipari said.

The only thing left between UK and its first No. 1 ranking since the end of the 2002-03 regular season is the publishing of Monday’s polls. When asked if his team looked like the best team in the country, Calipari was his usual coy self.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I thought we played good.”

In a season marked by early blowouts and late lapses in concentration that too often let inferior teams back in the games, Saturday’s win was an early snooze. When the Razorbacks went on a late run to cut into UK’s lead, Cats fans started the familiar grumbling. A quick check of the scoreboard revealed Arkansas had just a cut a 40-point lead to 30.

Forgive me if I didn’t switch the DVR on. We can file this comeback in the so-far-out-of-reach-it-doesn’t-matter category.

Earlier this season you could quibble with UK’s bench play. The starting five were great, but what after that?

Two DeAndre Liggins’ first-half floor burns on the same possession, and a host of Daniel Orton blocks ended that complaint.

“We’ve got to build the bench,” Calipari said. “DeAndre changed the game on that one play … Daniel Orton is the difference for us to be that team you want us to be.”

In previous games you could worry about the revolving door at small forward. Darius Miller answered that question Saturday with a team-high 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting.

If Miller keeps hitting four threes per game, or shoots well enough to lead the team in scoring, the rest of the SEC might as well take the season off.

“I think it makes it a lot easier on John [Wall] and Eric [Bledsoe] and all of them,” Miller said of his performance. “It takes a lot of pressure off them.”

The Cats were 10-of-33 from deep as a team, with several of those misses coming from late substitutes in garbage time. Miller hit four of six shots from long-range.

“If they hit perimeter shots it’s a great debate whether they can be beat,” Arkansas head coach and former UK standout John Pelphrey said.

That’s the question on everyone’s mind, can the Cats be beat? I say UK still falls somewhere this season. Maybe they do it at Tennessee or Vanderbilt, maybe at home against Florida, or maybe somewhere no one expects.

But no matter when the Cats lose, if they do, you won’t find a better team in the country than the one on display Sunday.

As of Monday these Cats will have the ranking to prove it.