Columnist Dean Juipe: Kentucky rolling toward title

Dean Juipe

Monday, March 24, 2003 | 10:01 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Say hello to the Sweet 16, where there's a little bit of everything.

There's predictability: Each of the No. 1 seeds from the NCAA tournament's four regions is left standing.

There's a feel-good story: Butler, a No. 12 seed and a team perhaps unfairly bypassed by the tournament selection committee a year ago, is the lowest seed left alive.

There's a dominant conference: Four Big East teams are still playing.

And there's a flaw: Arguably college basketball's two finest teams, Kentucky and Arizona, will, if each continues winning, meet not in the national championship game but in a semifinal in New Orleans.

Just as was the case with the NCAA know-it-alls mistakenly putting BYU in a bracket it might have had to abandon for religious reasons (had it won two games), you would think Kentucky and Arizona would have been placed in regions where they wouldn't have met until the championship game. After all, Kentucky and Arizona were 1-2 in both the final regular-season polls and the Sagarin computer rankings.

Personally, I like one or the other to win it all. In other words, I like the Wildcats.

The Kentucky Wildcats, in particular.

In Sunday evening's Midwest regional second-round game with Utah at Nashville, Tenn., the 'Cats looked great in doing what they always do: rebound, run the floor, flaunt their experience and -- to Utah's dismay -- beat the Utes. Kentucky's 74-54 victory marked the fifth time since 1993 that it had ousted a Utah team in the NCAA tournament.

Not losing sight of the fact the Utes lost to since-departed UNLV a week earlier and therefore have their shortcomings, Kentucky was dominant against a decent team and led from start to finish while covering the astronomical 14-point spread. Two Utah field-goal droughts -- one of six minutes and one of seven -- were the result of Kentucky's deadly inside defense, something the Utes didn't see every night in the Mountain West.

Kentucky is 31-3 and hasn't lost a game in 86 days. Its 25-game winning streak reflects its 10-deep depth, to say nothing of its size and smarts.

"We've got to be opportunistic and judicious," Utah coach Rick Majerus said before the game, yet it was Kentucky that imposed its will on the Utes. Aside from a brief letdown some eight minutes into the second half when it fell into the trap of walking the ball up the floor, the Wildcats pushed the ball and picked up the scraps as if it were men vs. boys.

They play Wisconsin next, and, like the three other No. 1 regional seeds, Kentucky is going to be tough to beat. In fact, the sports books in this city will do their best to entice some action on the underdogs, but it's hard to picture not only Kentucky but Arizona (vs. Notre Dame), Oklahoma (vs. Butler) or Texas (vs. Connecticut) not hurdling their next challenges.

Of course there's bound to be a surprise or two as the Sweet 16 is halved and then halved again. But consider this about Kentucky: It has won all but one of its past 21 games by at least seven points, and it was the first Southeastern Conference team to go undefeated in the regular season and win the conference tournament in 51 years.

Basketball is big in Kentucky, and Kentucky looks big in this basketball season.