By Neil Schmidt
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LEXINGTON - The sky falls fast in Kentucky, where the Wildcats suddenly find themselves No. 1 in the nation but No. 2 in the state.

A loss to Louisville always gets the Chicken Littles clucking.

"You've been hearing about this all year long," UK senior Cliff Hawkins said. "We almost feel like we let people down."

Now comes the acid test: How do these Wildcats react?

Remember, they did fine dealing with a Louisville loss last season. UK won its next 26 games to finish No. 1 in the nation.

"Hopefully we'll do the same thing," senior Gerald Fitch said. "I think we will."

There's no way to quantify how much this game is taken out of context. Some talk-show callers insist even a national championship doesn't make up for a loss to Louisville.

Yet it sure wouldn't hurt. UK might want to draw upon the 1997-98 season for inspiration, when Tubby Smith's first Wildcat team rebounded from a similar home loss to the Cardinals but wound up with an NCAA title.

"For now, we take this loss and learn from it," junior Chuck Hayes said. "The only thing we can think about is tomorrow."

The scary part about Saturday was how it followed the formula of Louisville's upset last season. UK lost a 14-point first-half lead, then wilted against Louisville's aggressive defense. Tired legs failed the Wildcats.

"Our guys got a little winded," Smith said. "We didn't have our legs after the first 10 or 15 minutes of the first half."

A popular theory afterward was that the Wildcats were too pumped up for this one, expending too much energy as they raced to a 24-10 lead.

"The adrenaline was pumping, and when that happens you have a tendency to not be careful," Smith said. "Maybe we should have rested some guys early."

This was the first time fans could be critical of UK's short bench. Though the Wildcats got good play Saturday from Antwain Barbour and Brandon Stockton, only one other reserve - Lukasz Obrzut - even entered the game.

Chuck Hayes played a career-high 39 minutes and Erik Daniels played 32 despite foul trouble, and no teammate had more than three rebounds to help them.

"The depth factor played a major part, because we asked Chuck and Erik to give us a lot," Smith said. "We need some more energy from some more people. . . . We weren't getting much help from our perimeter guys."

Said Hawkins: "All the woulda, coulda, shouldas are over. We had a chance to do it, and we didn't. Now it's time to learn from it."