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In the eyes of UK head coach John Calipari, Friday’s quarterfinal matchup in the SEC Tournament was going to be the weekend’s toughest test. Not Saturday against Georgia or South Carolina, and not on Sunday in a potential Championship game.

Instead, it was an Alabama Crimson Tide team (18-14, 8-10 SEC) that would test the limits of Calipari’s peaking UK squad the most.

“(The) first game is always the hardest game in the tournament,” Calipari said after his team comfortably defeated the Tide 85-59. “Because you really don’t know what your team is going to give you because we’ve been off a little.”

A rare Tyler Ulis turnover in the first 11 seconds of the game may have confirmed that UK did in fact have some dust to shake off. Alabama followed with a thunderous put-back dunk from Jimmie Taylor and Calipari’s nightmare seemed for a second to become a reality.

The Hall of Fame coach’s two All-Americans were held to just two points in the game’s first 14 minutes. The Tide were riding their momentum from Thursday’s upset win over Ole Miss and showed no signs of slowing down against UK.

“You also have a team that won their first game, which means they’re playing on an emotional high. You don’t know what that mix means,” Calipari said. “Across the country, you’ve seen those games go the wrong way, and those lowers seeds have won a bunch of tournament games because of that alone.”

But UK wouldn’t allow Alabama’s emotional high to get in the way of an SEC Championship run.

The blue and white enjoyed an 11-1 run late in the first half that pushed the UK lead to eight, and the pro-UK crowd packed into Bridgestone Arena loudly gave their approval. Jamal Murray joined the fun by splashing his first triple of the ball game with 4:27 to go in the half, giving the Cats a 27-19 cushion.

UK wasn’t done yet. It still had Alex Poythress, Skal Labissiere and Dominique Hawkins, who were eager to slice into the Alabama momentum.

Poythress, who had been dominant against the Tide in both regular season meetings, finished with 20 points and seven rebounds. Hawkins came off the bench and scored seven points, and Labissiere looked like a whole new specimen compared to the timid Labissiere most UK fans were used to.

“I thought Alex was outstanding, not just that he made jump shots. He made free throws. He was scoring around the basket. He rebounded,” Calipari said.

The senior finished with a career-high four threes, something that caught Alabama head coach Avery Johnson way off-guard.

“We came into the game trying to minimize his success in the paint, and when he stepped out to three, we wanted to contest him at three, but we didn’t expect him to shoot the ball like Jamal Murray,” Johnson said. “He played like a star tonight, not only inside, but from behind the three-point line.”

Poythress was just the beginning of Alabama’s troubles. Once he found his rhythm, so did his teammates. The Cats opened the second half strong and didn’t look back.

“From the jump, everybody on the team was just in a rhythm,” Poythress said. “We were playing great defense, and it lead to offense. Everybody was confident out there, making shots, and just getting in a rhythm and doing what you can offensively.”

Calipari said he didn’t know what he would get coming into the game, but after the buzzer sounded and UK had a 16-point advantage, all he could do was grin.

His team had passed the test. Now he and his team await a new test, against South Carolina or Georgia. And this time, he’ll have a better idea of what his team will give him.