A miserable 28 percent of first-half shooting.  Missing eight of 12 free throw attempts.  Those are the first two stats that jumped off the page in analyzing why Kentucky lost its Final Four game to UConn.

In general, though, the Wildcats just looked like the team that had an up-and-down first three months of the season rather than the juggernaut that ripped off 10 straight wins to carry Big Blue to its first Final Four in 13 years.   There was too much reliance on the three freshmen to carry the offensive load.   Phrases coach Calipari used often like "trusting each other" or "playing off each other" didn't seem to apply on this day.   There were too many questionable choices of shots.   Legendary coach John Wooden used to say "be quick but don't hurry" and the Cats seemed to play in a hurried fashion from the outset.

Once UK emerged from the East Regional by upsetting Ohio State and North Carolina, it took on the role of favorite to win the title and perhaps it was as simple as this team struggling to embrace that change of roles--no matter how hard their coach worked his motivational mojo to keep them believing that no one believed in them.     When Brandon Knight launched his first show of the game against UConn,  the trajectory happened to be right in line with my line of sight on press row.  And when it left his hand, it was clear that the shot was going to be well off to the left.  Everybody misses shots, but Knight rarely misses open three's by that much and it made me wonder if the vast shooting background of Reliant Stadium or Final Four jitters were perhaps more of an issue that we thought might be the case.

But it is a tribute to this group's resiliency that on a night when all of these things conspired to keep them from reaching the title game, the Cats still had a shot in the air to win the game in the final seconds.  The Final Four run came from under the radar, a rare spot for a Kentucky basketball team.  That made it all the more sweet for the Big Blue nation and it turned Josh Harrelson into a folk hero.  Kentucky will win its eighth national title someday--no doubt sooner rather than later with Calipari at the helm--but this team should always be remembered as one that started UK on the path to restoring its past glory, by ending that Final Four drought.

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