Kentucky Basketball Still Expecting to Travel to Tuscaloosa Despite Weather, Ice Issues

The Wildcats come into the matchup as Alabama's third straight top-five opponent.

With freezing temperatures and ice accumulating around some parts of the country, including around Lexington, Kentucky's trip to Alabama for Saturday's basketball game was in jeopardy. But according to Kentucky head coach John Calipari, it now looks like the team will be able to make it to Tuscaloosa.

"At this point, we’re going to be able to get out," Calipari said during his Friday press conference. 

Alabama head coach Nate Oats held his press conference later in the day Friday afternoon, and he also said that they fully anticipate Kentucky arriving in time to play the game as scheduled. 

Calipari will bring in his fifth-ranked Wildcats into Coleman Coliseum Saturday evening. Alabama swept the regular season series with Kentucky last season and will be trying to beat the Wildcats three times in a row for the first time in program history. 

The matchup also marks the third game in a row that Alabama has faced a top-five opponent. Even though there's nothing easy about the opponents, Calipari said a stretch like this for the Crimson Tide is sometimes easier to prepare for.

"Way easier than trying to gear it up for a team you think you can beat," he said. "That’s hard. The other way— they’ll play. They know who they’re playing. It’s going to be sold out like always— it’s Kentucky. Here we come. So they’ll be ready whether they played four ranked teams [in a row.] The crazy thing is, they beat one and played well in the other."

He's referencing Alabama's 87-78 win over then No. 4 Baylor last Saturday and the 100-81 loss at No. 1 Auburn on Tuesday. Alabama has put together some of the best wins in the country with five ranked wins, but have also lost multiple games they were projected to win. 

It has been a frustrating thing for Oats himself to try to figure out, but for Calipari, this makes the Crimson Tide a challenging team to prepare for and has forced him and his staff to spend a little more time breaking down film. 

“You’ve got to watch more tape," Calipari said. "You’ve got watch tape when they didn’t play as well. Was it the other team or them? Then you’ve got to watch tape when they really played well. Did they do something different? Was the other team doing something that led to them to play well?

"So you get bogged down in tape, and what you try not to do… I’m more concerned about how my team plays than someone else’s. And if they’re at their best and we’re at our best, and they beat us, we move on to the next game."

Calipari was correct in assessing that Saturday would be a sellout. There will likely be a few hundred Kentucky fans in there as Big Blue Nation always travels well, but it is sure to be a packed and loud crowd inside Coleman Coliseum. The Wildcats have lost their last two games (2019 and 2021) in Tuscaloosa.

"At the end of the day, you’re on the road," Calipari said. "They’ve beaten some of the top teams in the country. It’s going to be a really hard game for us to win. We know that.”