Kentucky came within two victories of a national championship last season when the Cats reached the Final Four in Houston. This year, expectations are that UK might clear that final hurdle by winning it all when the NCAA Tournament concludes in New Orleans.

One thing is certain. Coach John Calipari knows what it takes to win those final two games on basketball’s grandest stage.

“Usually it's a play or two or it's shooting,” Calipari said. “One team is on fire making shots. The other team isn't, stuff like that. But you know, the confident team, the team that has a swagger and has that one player, sometimes in the NCAA tournaments, one guy that separates you from every other team, and you just hope that you've got that guy on your team.”

Question is, does Kentucky have a candidate for that “one guy” between senior Darius Miller, sophomores Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb and the nation’s No. 1 ranked recruiting class of freshmen Marquis Teague, Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Kyle Wiltjer?

“To really be a good team, you need three guys, at least two,” Calipar said. “You know, the ‘coaching up’ stuff, you need three pros on your team in all likelihood to try to do something crazy. And that's just how it is.

“I talk about the team they had here in '96. They had nine NBA players. There were nine NBA players on that team,” the coach said. “But back then, kids didn't leave early. Now they leave early.”

The biggest difference between the national champs of 1996 and the contenders of 2012 is that this group will rely heavily on freshmen, which has been the case every season since Calipari arrived in Lexington.

“If you've ever coached this sport, to get freshmen to play without the basketball on offense, to make hard cuts that don't really matter for the play, to make the extra pass, to not worry about stats, and then defensively play off the ball, to do all of the things to help your team, it's just hard,” Calipari said. “I would like to get them to talk to one another on the court. That stuff's hard and it takes time.

“Last year, we lost six league games on the road. We couldn't win a road game,” the coach said. “By the end of the season, we got together and we were good and we were one of those teams. We were one of the three or four teams that was playing their best basketball at the end of the year.”

KEY ROLES FOR ROOKIES
If the freshmen are going to meet the challenge then it will begin with Kidd-Gilchrist. The 6-foot-7, 232-pound forward can do it all and has the intensity to infect everyone around him.

“There’s just this level of intensity,” Calipari said. “His starting point is where DeAndre Liggins finished. That's what he is right now, only he's 6-7, he's long, he can play inside, outside, he can guard three positions, or four positions for that matter, like DeAndre. He just brings a burning desire to get better. He was in the building last night like at 11 o'clock shooting. He's like the guys that I've had here who -- they are chasing greatness.”

Kidd-Gilchrist has the intense play, Teague has the intense stare.

“They tell me that Marquis has been the best in the weight room of any freshman that I've had,” Calipari said. “That's why when you look at him he's like a pit bulldog right now. Marquis Teague stares at me when I talk to him, I tell you, an open eye, what am I saying -- he's going to do exactly what I say, it's unbelievable. He looks like one of the most coachable guys I've had to this point.”

“You want more than one leader,” Calipari added. “It's like flying like geese, somebody steps up and then you let this guy lead for a while. It's not your day, let him lead for a while. Those are the best teams I've had where you have more than one guy that can take the reins of the team and run with it.”

Freshmen get the hype each season, but sophomore Terrence Jones may prove to be the best player on the roster. He has matured to 6-9, 252 pounds behind a drive to be one of the first players taken in the next NBA draft.

“I said, ‘Terrence, you look at these freshmen and you say, ‘You guys are all really good. You are just not better than me.’ That's what I told him. You look at them and tell them, ‘You're really good. You're good. You’re good. But none of you are better than me.’ And he's practicing that way. He's trying to say, ‘Look, I went through this. I just went to a Final Four. I got 15 rebounds in the Final Four game.’”

STYLES ON OFFENSE, DEFENSE
When these numerous talented parts are blended for this new season, Calipari said is he is uncertain how his teams will play on offense or defense.

“What I try to do is how do we have to play to win?” Calipari said. “Last year was handoffs. That's how we played our best. I'm really looking at exploring pick-and-roll for this team. We've been doing it in practice and I kind of like it. It may be. It may not be. It may be a dribble drive team, my old school dribble-drive where we did it 80 percent of the game.”

If it is pick-and-roll, give thanks to the coach’s stint as coach of the Dominican National Team this summer.

“It gave me an insight that I did not have of 1) how to guard it better, and 2) on the real subtle opportunities it creates for your team, especially when your bigs can really shoot, and our bigs can really shoot.”

Defensively, Calipari couldn’t resist a jab at his own reputation for hating to play zone defense.

“This could be a zone team,” he said. “Could you imagine us in a zone? 6-10, 6-10, 6-9, 6-7, 6-3? Go against that zone. I can't teach it but I bet you it would be a good zone.

“We may stretch it out. We may press more. We may play passing lanes, which I haven't done for a long time, because we have got shot-blockers; and we have more than one shot-blocker. We have four shot-blockers. Two or three of them may be on the court at the same time. We may do things to scramble up the game to make the game faster, so the other team has to shoot it faster so we can go.

“But it's not a system. It isn't like, my system wins,” Calipari said. “What wins are good players that play together, that care about one another. Jim Boeheim's team is a top five team. They play all zone. You have other teams that play all man. You have teams that play fast. You have teams that play slower. You have teams that play flex. There's not one system to this. It's about getting good players, who come together, and play, and care about one another, and understand that together, great stuff happens.”