By BEN JACKEY
Special to One Great Season

Two horses have been stablemates for years. Every time the two hit the track, the younger horse beat the older, more experienced horse. One day, as the older horse neared his inevitable fate as pet food or glue, a dog wandered up to the young horse and asked, "Why don’t you just let the old guy win one?" The young horse responded, "Would you look at that? It's a talking dog."

Experience is great when it comes to brain surgery, base jumping and intimacy. When it comes to putting synthetic laminated rubber in a hoop, however, it means squat. If it did, Chuck Barkley would still be throwing down dunks instead of Burrito Supremes.   Talent > experience. Kentucky Wildcats  > the field.

The same analogies could apply even to Kentucky’s coach, who's certainly no Tom Izzo on the chalkboard. I once heard John Calipari say, "We don’t have scouting reports. We don’t worry about what other teams do."  Pause for astonished silence.

That guy's won 32 games this season and something like 100 in the past three seasons. Wisdom and knowledge appear to be as overrated as Big Ten sports.

John Wall might be the most talented point guard ever to wear a collegiate uniform. More importantly, he might be as clutch as any player to wear a collegiate uniform. DeMarcus Cousins is as talented as he is immature. Patrick Patterson is as talented as he is mature. No one can match Kentucky when it comes to raw ability.

However, even the most obnoxious (yes, there are varying degrees) UK fan donning blue tinsel hair while playing hooky from the unemployment office and wearing a matching off-brand UK2K shirt with their spouse would admit Championship No. 8 will not be an easy task. The Cats' success will largely depend on the answers they get from their fifth "starter." Can Darius Miller score seven or eight points? Can Darnell Dodson make three or four threes to keep a defense honest?

Also, consider that Kentucky's second-round opponent could be the most talented team the Cats will have played all year thanks to an incredibly soft schedule. If that team is Texas, in nearby New Orleans, it could prove to be a stiff test. Playing quality opposition is, perhaps, the one place where experience would help these youthful Cats.

On the first Saturday in May in Kentucky, we crown the most talented young colt. But on the first Monday in April, just up the road in Indiana, we will crown a group of young thoroughbreds. Then we will take that talking dog behind the barn and shut him up Old Yeller-style.

Ben Jackey is a die-hard Kentucky fan who lives in Louisville.