Lone unbeaten in the Land-of-D-I, Kentucky (22-0) heads to another clamorous SEC outpost where a throng of hostiles wait in numbers that invite a simple, SRO. Destination Gainesville, Florida.

History says the last time a UK team occupied the perfect pinnacle and was awash in noisy admiration, national acclaim and yes, derision too, was March 4, 1966, a Friday.

Kentucky was 22-0, its climb up the polls had blossomed from Little Engine-that-Could storyline to America’s Team. (Duke was a hoops prep school). Closer to home the team was Rupp’s Runts. A sure-handed, good shooting and unselfish to a fault, team. One destined for Land-of-Beloved. Coach Adolph Rupp was less grouchy, warmed by glow of praise and grrrrreat adjectives. A Sports Illustrated cover story was on its way: Man in the Brown Suit, College Coach of the Year. By first week of the NCAAs, Rupp had passed his old coach at Kansas, Phog Allen, become winningest coach in college hoops, 747.

On that Friday in March 1966 the news item drawing most media attention beyond the war in Vietnam and Kentucky’s basketball team, was John Lennon. In a fit of giddy sacrilege that mortified his English handlers, Lennon had the cheek to declare to a reporter, “We (The Beatles) are more popular than Jesus.”

While Billy Graham gasped and Oral Roberts fainted (we think), the stir and storm Lennon created, let Rupp and America’s Team file quietly onto a charter bus and head down U.S. 25 to Knoxville where Howard Baine and his brutish bunch awaited.

From that Friday on, perhaps ignited by the curse of a Sports Illustrated cover, and fired certainly by a media concoction after the NCAA title game in College Park, Maryland, Rupp’s Runts was transformed from America’s team into five white guys and its racist coach.

Fast forward near half-a-century and another No. 1 ranked and unblemished Kentucky team files onto a charter plane this week and heads to Gainesville. For fans old enough to recall Tennessee’s manhandling their Wildcats 49 years ago (69-62 and wasn’t that close), a win this Saturday would be extra sweet.

Put in current perspective …

While anything short of 40-0 season will deny this Kentucky team lofty praise as America’s team in today’s hoops world (Duke is no longer a prep school), the 2014-15 Wildcats are special, to a man, and becoming more so for every blue-to-white platoon change out. Most remarkable, a growing maturity with it’s team-ness.

Meanwhile, the Wildcats remain the lone unbeaten in the Land-of-D-I.

LOUISVILLE-CAROLINA

A stinging loss (at Carolina January 13), Rick Pitino called it, was erased when the Cardinals exhausted and beat down North Carolina Saturday.

√ Spotted the visitors an 18-point lead … then, classic Pitino Ball. Turn up the heat, create bedlam, defend as if there are seven of us, and presto, new evidence: Team nobody wants to play in February and certainly not in March, Louisville.

Notes …

√ Terry Rozier is an All American, period. If there were a Mr. Clutch Award, he would own it.

√ Montrezl Harrell is a special talent, but his show-boat theatrics will bring special attention at next level from the lummox who take offense to being shown up. Harrell’s antics prove that Pitino has mellowed since his time at Kentucky. For showboating, Antoine Walker was benched.

√ Compared to Pitino’s relentless whip-and-drive ‘em’ passion to coach, Tar Heels’ Roy Williams is a veritable pygmy at firing his team to, against UofL, protect a two-digit lead. The Tar Heels looked tired, out of shape and disjointed and their coach had no answers.

Methinks Williams is pre-occupied with NCAA investigation of his program at Chapel Hill.

If Tar Heel basketball players took phantom classes dating to Dean Smith coaching days as alleged, the question rises: Will the NCAA rule Williams “not responsible because he didn’t know?” (John Calipari free pass at UMass and Memphis), or, will UNC’s coach be held accountable based on what a coach should know is going on in his program?

GAME GONE UGLY?

“… (college basketball) as a whole is ugly and slow and unskilled,” sayeth Yahoo Sports’ Pat Forde in a column the other day.

The two teams at the top, he added, (UK and, at the time, Virginia) “aren’t helping.”

Specifically, he opines, “Kentucky’s best attribute is sheer size and brute force and watching the Wildcats play isn’t “exactly a thrill ride.”

That college basketball has become brutish, at times hard to watch, and worse, NBA-ish, is true.

But to the latter, Forde’ betrays having not watched Kentucky play or has chosen to accentuate defenses played against the Wildcats and ignore the open floor doings of Tyler Ulis, graceful firings by Devin Booker and opportunities created by both for teammates.

I would add, officiating of college games, ones on television at least, are weak, uneven and officials look the other way while coaches behave like children at the playground.

And so it goes.

You can reach me at bob.Watkins24@aol.com