[Stardust]

Actually, Calipari usually does play a pretty tough schedule. His Memphis teams were known for playing numerous tough out-of-conference games to compensate for the weak conference they played in. Now that he plays in a better conference, he doesn't need to have a brutal slate of nonconference games anymore.



You're kidding, right? I just looked at Gonzaga's schedule, and it's not harder than UK's. I do give them props for setting up a very tough nonconference schedule, but with St. Mary's expected to be down this year, the overall is much weaker than UK's. A look at some of the better teams on each team's schedule:

UK = North Carolina, Notre Dame, Louisville, Indiana, Florida (x2), Tennessee (x2), Georgia (x2), Mississippi St., Ole Miss; likely game w/ Washington, poss. game w/ Michigan St.

Gonzaga = Kansas St., San Diego St., Illinois, Notre Dame, Baylor, Xavier, Oklahoma St., Wake Forest, Memphis

UK still has the edge.

This is from ESPN, no more than 2 minutes ago in regards to strength of schedule (Gonzaga checked in at #1)...

Kentucky gets the nod at No. 5 for its willingness to take another young team on the road. The Cats open the season at the Rose Garden against Portland -- an emerging program in the WCC -- and follow up with true road games at North Carolina and Louisville, the latter of which should make for a rather entertaining New Year's Eve in the Commonwealth (even though Louisville won't be in typical form this season). Assuming John Calipari's team handles Oklahoma in the first round of the Maui, they're likely to get a chance to knock off budding rival Washington, and if Kentucky wins that game, Michigan State is the probable final-round opponent. That's tantalizing stuff, and even if the latter game doesn't happen, we'll get a pretty good idea of what to expect from this somehow-even-younger UK team in the first month of the season.

I guess zaga was right!