Kentucky’s near upset of No. 1 Kansas shows potential. But these Cats aren’t there yet.

A day before his young Kentucky team’s first major test, John Calipari summed up the game to come with six words that could have been said of the season at large.

“I don’t know what to expect.”

Surely, no one expected what happened next.

That Calipari’s Cats gave up the first nine points of the game against No. 1-ranked Kansas on Tuesday night wasn’t a shocker. The Jayhawks were a veteran bunch, three returning starters plus Hunter Dickinson, the preseason All-America center who spent the past three years as a star at Michigan.

The final score — Kansas 89, Kentucky 84 — was only really surprising in the number of points that were scored. The five-point margin was right about in line with what the oddsmakers had before tipoff.

But what happened between that terrible start and the final four minutes — when it all fell apart for Kentucky — was certainly unexpected.

There are no moral victories in the world of UK basketball. But the way Tuesday’s game unfolded inside the United Center surely had some of the skeptics thinking twice.

“There was a lot of good,” Calipari said.

Down 9-0 to the nation’s best team, Kentucky could have withered.

“But what I was proud of is they fought,” Calipari said. “… They had to fight to survive.”

The Cats turned certain defeat to survival to something else entirely.

Their first flurry tied things up at 11-all. Kansas punched back, and then so did Kentucky, with two straight 3-pointers from freshman guard Reed Sheppard, who gave UK a 17-16 lead with the second one. It went back and forth for a while. And then the Wildcats, improbably, took over.

Rob Dillingham, another UK freshman, let fly from 3-point range four straight times. All of them went in. The third in that batch was a heat check from nearly 30 feet. After that one, Dillingham turned to the Kentucky bench, and Calipari just nodded his approval. To cap it, the guard playing in his third college game passed up another 3-pointer and gave the ball instead to Antonio Reeves, who made one of his own. By the end of the UK run, a 25-21 deficit was a 37-30 lead.

Former UK star John Wall was high-fiving folks at courtside. Everyone else wearing Kentucky blue in the United Center crowd was going nuts. The lead grew to 12 points later in the half. Kentucky led by 14 points early in the second half.

And then, it all unraveled.

The experienced Jayhawks endured. Coach Bill Self kept them grounded. And KU came back.

“We know it’s a game of runs,” Kansas graduate senior Kevin McCullar Jr. said. “Coach preaches that every day. He’s the best coach in the nation for a reason. Keeps us level-headed. There was no panic with us. We just had to keep chipping away, stay even-keeled. It’s a game of runs — highs and lows. And we made our run. Made a push. And then they made it again. And then we finished it out when the last four minutes came.

“And that’s when you gotta do it.”

After the Cats went up 14, the Jayhawks went on a 21-4 run. Every single KU point scored in that stretch belonged to Dickinson, McCullar, senior Dajuan Harris Jr. or junior KJ Adams Jr.

Kentucky’s eight-man rotation: two fifth-year players, one sophomore who played sparingly last season, and five freshmen playing in the first big college basketball game of their lives.

“Our main mindset coming into this game was to go out there and just have fun,” said Adou Thiero, the sophomore. “Just enjoy the game. Go out, play together as a team, fight, and just have fun playing against them. And I think we did a pretty good job of that in the first half. And then, I think that’s when the age came into everything. We started looking at each other, looking around, trying to figure everything out. And we should have just kept having fun the whole game. And it could have been a different turnout.”

It wasn’t over. The Cats came back. Again.

Kentucky had an 81-75 lead with under four minutes on the clock. A layup from Reeves gave the Cats an 83-78 lead that lasted until the timer ticked down below three minutes.

“I’ve got to do a really good job of showing them how to finish games,” Calipari said afterward.

Kansas ended this one on an 11-1 run. Kentucky missed its final eight shots from the field, many of them bad looks. UK’s only point over the final three minutes was a Tre Mitchell free throw.

And what looked like it should’ve been one of Kentucky’s biggest regular-season victories in years turned into a heartbreaking loss. A KU team that was a 1 seed in last season’s NCAA Tournament and won it all the year before that came up with big play after big play down the stretch. A UK team filled with new guys couldn’t make anything down the stretch.

“We’re a young team,” Calipari said. “… So you’re out there with a bunch of young guys.”

Dickinson finished with 27 points and 21 rebounds. McCullar had a triple-double. Harris, who had a total of two points and four shot attempts over KU’s first two games, scored 23 in this one. The pass-first point guard hit two huge 3-pointers in the final minutes to help turn the tide. UK dared the senior to shoot. He did just that.

Afterward, the Kansas veterans foresaw better things ahead for Kentucky.

“They got a bunch of young guys, and they’re gonna figure it out,” McCullar said. “They got some great pieces this year.”

“They’re super talented. And they’re young right now,” Harris added. “It’s still early, so I think they’re going to learn from this.”

Kentucky’s two projected lottery picks — Justin Edwards and D.J. Wagner — had nights to forget in their first big college games. Wagner was 1-for-12 from the field and scored four points. Edwards missed all six of his shots and finished with just one point.

Reeves, the team’s top returning scorer, led the way with 24 points. But he was 7-for-25 from the field and an abysmal 3-for-17 from 3-point range. Of those eight misses to end the game for Kentucky, he was responsible for five. All of them 3-pointers that failed to go in.

For the three players arguably most likely to lead Kentucky’s offense this season to play like that and the Cats to still have a shot to win it in the final seconds against the No. 1 team in the country? That’s something. For guys like Dillingham and Sheppard and Thiero (16 points, 13 rebounds and some eye-popping plays in big moments) to perform the way they did on a stage such as this? That’s something, too.

The result was a loss. No. 17 Kentucky is now 2-1 on the season. There’s obviously still a lot of growing left to do, but there’s also still quite a bit of time to do it.

“But we’re learning,” Calipari said. “None of us are happy that we lost the game. And I’m not happy. I’ve got work to do to help them finish games off. Figure out who needs to be in at the end of those games. But to come in this environment, with this — everything that goes with this; the bells and whistles — and they perform like they did? I couldn’t ask for much more.

“Other than make some free throws and a shot down the stretch. And win.”

Next game

Stonehill College at No. 17 Kentucky

What: Wildcat Challenge

When: 7 p.m. Friday

TV: SEC Network+ (online only)

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Stonehill 1-3, Kentucky 2-1

Series: First meeting

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