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No one pays more attention to Kentucky's schedule than John Calipari, and he knows his bracket inside and out. With that being said, he doesn't think that Virginia, Cincinnati, Tennessee and Arizona all falling the first weekend gives No. 5 seed Kentucky a cakewalk to the Final Four. Calipari has already warned his team to not "drink the poison" heading into Thursday's game against No. 9 Kansas State.
"The poison being we have an easy road," Calipari said at his Wednesday news conference. "If they drink the poison, we'll be done on Thursday.
"If they don't drink the poison, it'll be a dog fight Thursday -- let's see what happens."
Calipari's phrasing evokes memories of something that Alabama football coach Nick Saban said in October, when he called the constant conversation about how good Alabama was "rat poison" after a win against Texas A&M. The Crimson Tide, of course, won the national championship a couple months later.
Kansas State, Loyola-Chicago and Nevada are the other teams remaining in the South Regional, based in Atlanta. Both No. 1 seeds have been eliminated from the left side of the bracket, with Xavier falling to Florida State in the Round of 32.
Bear in mind, Calipari wasn't happy with his draw, saying that he was told the NCAA "threw the hatchet" at Kentucky. Its first three match-ups? The No. 12 (Davidson), No. 13 (Buffalo) and No. 9 seeds in the South. It would be one thing to call these games flukes, but Virginia and Arizona's losses were absolute routs at the hands of mid-majors.
So maybe Kentucky's portion of the bracket wasn't as bad as he thought. But you'd never hear Calipari admit it. If you ask him, Kentucky has the hardest remaining road of any team remaining. With that being said, Calipari is hardly off-base.
"It's a one-game thing, just play your best," he said in regards to the tournament, per ESPN. "If you think, 'We've got this, it's easy,' you'll be done. ... This thing is unpredictable."
Tony Bennett and Sean Miller can attest.
Now, however, Calipari thinks that people are trying to influence his players.
"Sometimes you wonder why [the media is] trying to paint that picture with my team," he said. "Probably because they're young and they know they don't know better. But the teams here [have] veteran coaches, and the teams are all playing well."
His way of having his players deal with the newfound pressure?
"Don't read it, don't watch it."