Kentucky had been so cool about winning, so unenthusiastic in celebration two nights earlier when the Wildcats blitzed UCLA to reach the Elite Eight, that the scene in Sunday’s postgame locker room was jarring.
Point guard De’Aaron Fox was launching into a rant about how critics will say freshman-driven teams don’t really care — about each other, about winning, about anything other than their NBA draft stock — when his voice cracked and he crumbled. Fox slung an arm around fellow freshman Bam Adebayo and pulled him close.
Two future millionaires held onto each other and cried. The finality of North Carolina 75, Kentucky 73, a breathtaking battle for the last spot in the 2017 Final Four, which wasn't decided until Luke Maye's dagger with three-tenths of a second to go, wrecked them.
“This isn’t a locker room that looks like guys don’t care,” Fox said through sobs. “I love my brothers, man. That shot is just playing back in forth in my head. It’s going to be difficult to get over.”
Fox had shown minimal emotion on Friday night, after he lit up Lonzo Ball and UCLA for a career-high 39 points in the Sweet 16. That game mattered to him — Ball is a potential No. 1 overall pick and the Bruins had beaten UK at Rupp Arena in December — and still his postgame celebration was muted.
“We won the SEC regular-season championship, we won the SEC Tournament, but we were looking for bigger things,” Fox said. “We were winning games and coming in here looking like nothing happened. That just showed that we had bigger goals.”
Fox, Adebayo and their fellow freshman star, Malik Monk, a trio of projected first-rounders, assembled in pursuit of a national championship. Just get by North Carolina, a team they’d already beaten in December, and the path to a title looked promising. Through a series of upsets, Oregon, Gonzaga and South Carolina were the three other teams still standing.
If Kentucky could reach its fifth Final Four in eight seasons under coach John Calipari, the Wildcats would be favorites to win the program’s ninth NCAA championship. Anything less would be a disappointment — for a rabid-to-the-point-of-unreasonable fan base, obviously, but also as it turns out, for their young stars.
“I knew if we were ever to lose, even if it was in the championship game, last game of the season, it was going to hit me hard,” Fox said. “And especially the way we lost, that shot, with 0.3 seconds left, it’s tough to handle.”
About the Author
