With an 80-64 dismissal Tuesday of the Ole Miss Rebels, the Wildcats (17-5, 7-2) won their second consecutive Southeastern Conference game against an opponent with NCAA Tournament ambitions. Sophomores Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress combined for 28 points and 18 rebounds off the bench.

Afterward, John Calipari was presented a question about Cauley-Stein’s escape from a recent slump. The exchange went like this, according to UK’s transcript of the coach’s postgame news conference:

Q. Did you see this coming from Willie? Did he have a different approach tonight?

Coach Calipari: "Yeah, I told him to go back blonde. I said you play better blonde. But, no, he's been practicing. Look, if you think he wants to play bad, he doesn't. I said this after the game to the TV, this is the most overanalyzed team I've ever seen in the history of the game, at any level, in any sport. There is a weekly update on what we are and what we're not.

Then they go to Synergy, and take out every play to show where we've — I've never seen it. Our losses are worse than every other loss in the country. We lose, you're not in the Top 25.

Now you understand LSU has three NBA players, a junior guard and a senior guard. They're no schmoe team now. At the end of the day, they'll be in the NCAA Tournament. LSU is good. This team has to deal with that. I went and told them. I told them before the ranking I thought we'd be as low as 19. I said it will be 17, 18, and 19, so when I was right I asked the staff, when is the last time I was wrong? They said 1978. I think it was '78. Might have been '77, but I think it was '78 though.

"So it's hard to play here. How about this one? When I recruit these kids, I can't hide you. Is that true? You're not hiding here now. You have a bad game, you can't play anymore. Another guy has a bad game, yeah, tough game. He's a terrific player. My guy has a bad game, he can't play. He just goes from a great player to he stinks in one game. You're playing at Kentucky. Good luck. The good news is the success rate, so just fight it. I think that's part of the reasons our guys go on and do so well. They can deal with all the crap. They've dealt with it here."

This was the second question posed in a postgame presser following a comfortable victory, so it was not what one would call a contentious exchange. So what sparked Calipari’s harangue? Some Kentucky supporters believe it resulted from Kentucky’s plunge in the polls after splitting SEC road games last week at LSU and Missouri.

Of the 25 teams ranked in last week’s AP poll, 12 lost a game and four lost twice. No team that lost once — other than Kentucky — fell more than two poll positions. Michigan and Iowa State held their rankings. Oklahoma actually jumped two spots after losing at Iowa State. Duke surged ahead by seven following the compelling loss Saturday at Syracuse.

The Wildcats dropped from No. 11 to No. 18.

“They're 18 and 19 years old. This is the youngest team in the country to play at this level maybe ever. Yeah, it affects them,” Calipari said later in his postgame. “I tried to tell them. I said, you know, you think it's opinion. Most cases it's the hope of the writer. It's not their opinion; it's their hope. Don't deal with it. You can't let it affect you.”

So there was at least some impetus for Calipari’s filibuster.

There also might have been some strategy.

Calipari’s good friend Bob Huggins, whom I covered as a beat writer at Cincinnati for four seasons, used to spend the first half of every season tearing into his teams for substandard efforts, quite frequently even after easy victories. Then, once he’d convinced the media his team was underachieving on a regular basis, he would begin using his postgame addresses following victories to criticize those who were criticizing the team — though they’d often done so by using Huggins’ own words.

This usually happened early in February, when he needed his team to gain confidence for the closing stretch of conference games and the challenge of March.

Is Calipari executing from that playbook? Well, let’s take a look:

After UK 81, Eastern Michigan 63: “I trust their basketball. We made free throws, but we didn’t shoot it particularly well today. We had open shots. But it’s not basketball with these guys. It’s: Will they compete? Will they look to the other guy and say, I’m competing with this guy?”

After UK 70, Boise State 55: “Look, this is a work in progress. We still have stuff we’re going to keep experimenting with and trying until we get it right. But whatever we do, you have to take it personal and look at the other guy and say, ‘I’m going after you.’ You have to take it personal.”

After UK 93, Belmont 80: “We still have things we’ve got to get better at. I thought we fought, we battled. But, you can tell how young we are. When you have a scouting report that said when (number) 1 catches it, he must bounce the ball, you watch the game and say, ‘Did they even know the kid could shoot?’ And then the game gets going, and he makes a couple, and you say again — but that’s the lack of focus for young guys.”

So, well, yeah — Calipari has been honest about his team’s need to grow quickly, and the media have honestly been reflecting that.

On the other hand, swatting the Wildcats seven spots down the rankings because they lost a road game to a team fighting for an NCAA bid was curious. And it was primarily the AP poll that was guilty; the coaches dropped UK from 11 to 14, matching Louisville’s fall. No other team in the coaches’ poll dropped more than two spots after losing a single game. Duke jumped five spots.

“It's everywhere, and that's why kids want to play here, but that's what makes it hard here,” Calipari said. “Everybody has an opinion, and they write them, and then is it their opinion or their hope that they're writing? I don't know. You'd have to ask them.”


HAIRSTON STUNNED ABOUT DECISION


P.J. Hairston is playing NBA D-League basketball for the Texas Legends in suburban Dallas, nearly 1,200 miles from where he starred at North Carolina.

It’s there where Bleacher Report reporter Jason King tracked him down to discover that Hairston was surprised that he wasn’t able to be reinstated because of his link to party promoter Haydn “Fats” Thomas, the man who paid for the rental cars Hairston was driving last spring and summer.

“I never had any doubt that I was going to play,” Hairston told Bleacher Report, “so yeah, I was surprised. I was hurt at first. Coach (Roy Williams) said it was one of the saddest things that ever happened to him. That was the mood around the whole locker room."

Hairston said he deserves all the blame for what happened, but would not go into further details.

As it stands, the D-League should be only a place to crash until the 2014 NBA Draft comes in June. Hairston was considered to be a first-round talent in the 2013 draft but opted to return to school for his junior season. DraftExpress.com lists him as the No. 18 overall pick in this year’s draft.


ONE MORE YEAR FOR EMBIID?


Anyone else initially scoff regarding word Tuesday that Kansas freshman center Joel Embiid told ESPN.com that he is “strongly considering” returning for his sophomore season?

But a millisecond later, you understand an Embiid return is indeed a real possibility considering that Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart turned down a likely spot in the top five of the 2013 draft to return for his sophomore season. DraftExpress.com is among those who have Embiid projected as this year's No. 1 overall pick.

But Embiid’s situation is a little different than Smart’s. In playing basketball for only three years, Embiid still has much to learn about playing the game at a consistently high level. His recent comments came after posting just five points and seven rebounds in a win over Baylor, and eight points and 10 rebounds in a loss to Texas.

He told Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy last month that consistency is something he’s still working to achieve.

“Even in high school, I wasn’t consistent," Embiid said. "I would have games where I’d have 20 and 15, and the next game I’d have 5 and 5. I need to get that consistency. I think I’ll be good after that. I’m working. I think over the past couple games, I’ve been good overall, but some good halves of basketball and other ones that are bad. “I think it’s just me. When I come to the game, I have to have the mindset: I want to do this. I’ve got to block that many shots, get that many steals. In my mind, I’ve got to be like, ‘No one can stop me.’ ”

Embiid told ESPN.com that his decision largely will come down to how he plays down the stretch.

But given how good Kansas coach Bill Self has been in developing big men (Cole Aldrich, Darrell Arthur, Jeff Withey), Embiid would remain in a great situation should he decide to stay in Lawrence.

Contributors: Mike DeCourcy, Roger Kuznia