The scene inside John Calipari’s house on Selection Sunday. And what’s next for Kentucky.

It was a familiar scene at the Calipari residence Sunday evening.

A packed house, the living room so filled with Kentucky basketball players, staff members and others that some of the Wildcats had no choice but to find an empty patch of carpet and take a seat on the floor to get a good look at the television mounted over the fireplace.

Minutes before the show began — that’s the NCAA Tournament Selection Show, for the uninitiated; the only show that matters on this Sunday in March — it was quietly pointed out that sophomore center Ugonna Onyenso was sitting in John Calipari’s favorite chair. The question of how long he would be permitted to stay there was opened up for debate.

Not long, obviously. The Kentucky coach made his way into the room, Onyenso looked up from his phone, a comedic expression on his face. He skedaddled to the sound of laughter. Someone suggested that Aaron Bradshaw and Zvonimir Ivisic — seated next to each other on an adjacent couch — make room. They did, and there sat three 7-footers, scrunched up together on the same piece of furniture. That got some laughs, too.

A few minutes into the show — before Kentucky’s name hit the screen — Calipari turned down the volume and asked aloud, to no one player in particular, how many of them had dreamed of sitting in front of a TV one day waiting to see where they were going to play in the NCAA Tournament.

Hands went into the air all around him. With a team featuring eight freshmen, being on this side of March Madness was a whole new experience for most.

“Think about it,” Calipari said. “You guys are here now.”

And a few minutes later, “Kentucky” appeared in the bracket. A 3 seed — better than most expected before the show began — playing 14-seeded Oakland on Thursday in Pittsburgh.

The room erupted in cheers.

For Calipari — as well as UK players Tre Mitchell and Adou Thiero, who slapped five when the draw was revealed — it’ll be a homecoming. All three are from the Pittsburgh area. And that’s where this NCAA Tournament journey will begin.

The noise quieted down as the CBS crew started recapping the South bracket and began talking specifically about the Cats.

Former Villanova coach Jay Wright — now an analyst for the network — noted that Calipari had always been known as a defensive coach. Calipari started grinning at this, likely knowing where it was headed. Wright then talked about how Calipari had switched up his approach this season to rely more on offense.

The smile on Calipari’s face grew.

“No!” he announced to the room. “I just got no defenders!”

He got a few chuckles out of that one, making light right out loud of the biggest knock on his electric team heading into this tournament. He also got a few looks from some of the players in the room, straight — almost stern — faces that said they were ready to take him up on that challenge.

Only two of the four regions had been revealed at that point, but Calipari asked his guys if they even wanted to watch the other two. Hearing no objections, he led the Wildcats into his basement for a team meeting.

About 30 minutes later, they made their way back up the stairs and talked about what was next.

“He was basically just telling us to do what we do,” Rob Dillingham said of the message in that meeting. “We can’t worry about other teams. We worry about us. … When we play our game, (there’s) really not teams that can play as good as us. But when we play a game and let them force us to play another way, that’s when we lose. But when we play our game, we rarely lose.”

A roller-coaster season of euphoric highs and head-scratching lows will go into its final act on the latter. The Cats were two nights removed from a 97-87 loss to Texas A&M in their first game of the SEC Tournament, another dismal defensive showing to take the luster off a five-game winning streak and renew the concerns that this Kentucky team might not have what it takes to make a run in the big one.

But two days after that loss, Calipari clearly wanted his guys to be looking ahead.

“We did something fun today,” he said. “Oh, it’ll make people mad! We took ’em bowling.”

The UK coach then launched into the recognizable voice he uses for his detractors, taking on that mocking tone as he often does. “Why weren’t they playin’ in that championship?!” is how the mini-rant ended, speaking of the SEC Tournament title game that Auburn had won a couple of hours earlier.

Instead, the Cats were back home in Lexington, where they spent time together off the court.

Calipari excitedly recapped the day of bowling. The team featuring Reed Sheppard, Kareem Watkins, Grant Darbyshire and Onyenso won. Tre Mitchell had the highest individual score. Their coach made it sound like a ball. “All we did was laugh and joke. I just want ’em to be free and loose,” he said.

Calipari also revealed that his team had watched two sets of videos over the weekend. The first was a personalized video sent to each player, Calipari implying that it showed the difference in these Wildcats when they’re on defensively and when they’re not, a close look at each individual’s play within the team structure.

The second video was shown to everyone together in the basement Sunday evening. That one — clocking in at around 15 minutes, according to the talk in the living room — sounded more like a celebration of what this team had achieved over the course of the season.

“I wanted to have them see us,” Calipari said. “And how we played. And how we passed. And the plays we made. And the hard plays we made.”

Kentucky’s path to the Final Four

The Wildcats — No. 11 on the selection committee’s final seed list — will play Horizon League champion Oakland in the first round Thursday in Pittsburgh (a tip time of 7:10 p.m. EDT on CBS).

If Kentucky wins that one, it’ll be 6-seeded Texas Tech or 11-seeded N.C. State in the round of 32.

Two victories in Calipari’s hometown, and Kentucky’s path will go to Dallas and a Sweet 16 game next Friday. The most likely opponent there would be 2-seeded Marquette, with 7-seeded Florida as the next-highest possible foe.

Houston is the 1 seed in the South Region and the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Cougars could be waiting if Kentucky makes it to the Elite Eight. Duke and Wisconsin are the 4 and 5 seeds, respectively, in the South.

Win four games, and the Cats are in the Final Four, somewhere they haven’t been in nine years.

It’s been five years since UK made it out of the first weekend, with a tournament canceled due to a pandemic, a 9-16 season without a March Madness, a monumental first-round upset and last year’s second-round ouster in between.

Senior guard Antonio Reeves is the only player who played considerable minutes for Kentucky in last season’s NCAA Tournament, which ended with a 75-69 loss to Kansas State, a game in which he went 1-for-15 from the floor. Getting one more chance at an NCAA Tournament run?

“A dream come true — to get another shot at it after last year,” Reeves said. “Definitely going to be ready this year, and I feel like we’ve got the team for it.”

First up is Oakland, led by Greg Kampe, who is in his 40th season with the Golden Grizzlies head coach, the longest-tenured head coach in Division I college basketball.

“He’s not a good coach, he’s a great coach,” Calipari said of Kampe, adding that they’d been friends for years and he’d actually tuned in to Oakland’s league tournament title game just so he could cheer on Kampe’s team.

The Golden Grizzlies (23-11) won the Horizon’s regular season with a 15-5 record and will make their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 13 years. They’re the No. 137 team in the KenPom ratings and on the slow end of the tempo spectrum.

Of course, going home to Pittsburgh will add to the storylines around these Wildcats.

Calipari said his phone was buzzing as soon as the bracket was announced but he hadn’t looked at all the messages yet. Probably people wanting free tickets, he said. The UK coach didn’t expect it to be a distraction. Those closest to him in the city are aware of the situation.

“They know I’m on a business trip,” he said. “It’s not for funsies.”

He didn’t talk about the bracket beyond that first game.

Texas Tech (23-10 and No. 24 in KenPom) beat Baylor and BYU by double digits in its two games before getting blown out by Houston in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals.

N.C. State (22-14 and No. 58 in KenPom) was 9-11 in the ACC before winning five games in five days — two of them over Duke and North Carolina — to sneak into the March Madness field.

Houston (30-4), the 1 seed in the South, has been a defensive juggernaut all season long, but scoring points has sometimes been an issue for the Cougars.

Marquette, the 2 seed, is 25-9 on the season and 25-6 against teams not named UConn, the defending national champions and this NCAA Tournament’s top overall seed. The Golden Eagles’ star player, Tyler Kolek, hasn’t played in three weeks due to injury, but he’s expected to be ready to go for the first round of March Madness.

Calipari’s message to his team Sunday night, however, was to pay attention to themselves.

“We watched an unbelievable video of our season,” he said of the basement viewing session. “And the games we played. And the mountains we climbed. And our unbelievable fans behind them and enjoying it, as the clutter was out there.”

Calipari, sitting on his back patio near downtown Lexington as the sun set on Selection Sunday, addressed that negativity that has followed his program — largely focused on him — during the lowest periods of this season and at other times in recent years.

He knows that nine years is a long time for the Cats to go without a banner in Rupp Arena, but he said he felt no more pressure this time around than he normally does. Before this recent skid, he took UK to four Final Fours and won the 2012 national title. But as this drought has dragged on, talk of the direction of Kentucky basketball under Calipari has intensified. And the focus for months has been what this team would be capable of in March.

“Let us just play this tournament,” he said. “And let us all have fun. And if anybody has those things — ‘What if? What if?’ — they’re not a fan. And they’re trying to get this off point. So, I’m good. I’m like, ‘Let’s go.’ I’ve done a lot of these. I don’t even know how many games I’ve coached in the NCAA (Tournament), but it’s been a lot. And we’ve lost way more … oh no. We’ve done fine.

“And I’m looking at this team saying what I’ve said, for how many weeks? We’re built for March. Let’s go. Let’s prove it.”

Kentucky’s tournament opener

No. 3 seed Kentucky vs. No. 14 seed Oakland

What: NCAA Tournament South Regional

When: 7:10 p.m. EDT Thursday

Where: PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh

TV: CBS-27

Records: Kentucky 23-9, Oakland 23-11

ABOUT OAKLAND

Location: Rochester, Michigan

Enrollment: 16,000

Nickname: Golden Grizzlies

School colors: Black and Gold

Head coach: Greg Kampe (698-536 in 41 seasons at Oakland and overall)

Conference: Horizon League

NCAA berth: Automatic (Oakland won the regular season championship and the conference tournament title.)

All-time series: First meeting

Common opponents with Kentucky this season: Oakland beat Marshall 78-71.

Notable games this season: Oakland lost 79-73 to Ohio State, 64-53 to Illinois and 79-62 to Michigan State, beat Xavier 78-76 and split games with Northern Kentucky, winning 70-65 in overtime and losing 99-89 in OT.

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