Let's take a step back and examine the full magnitude of what Kyra Elzy, Rhyne Howard, Dre'una Edwards and the Kentucky women's basketball team just accomplished.
It's not just that UK won four games in four days to claim the Wildcats' first SEC Tournament championship in 40 years.
Not just that, from the quarterfinals forward, Elzy's Cats defeated the teams ranked No. 6, No. 18 and No. 1 in the AP Top 25.
Nor that, in three straight days, Kentucky defeated LSU's Kim Mulkey (three NCAA championships), the historically regal Tennessee Lady Vols (eight NCAA championships) and South Carolina's Dawn Staley (one NCAA title).
Heck, it's not even that UK, down 15 points late in the third quarter against the No. 1-ranked juggernaut that is South Carolina, staged a rally for the ages that was capped when Edwards sank a pick-and-pop three-pointer from the top of the key with 4.2 seconds left to give Kentucky a stunning and stirring 64-62 win.
No, the full magnitude of what was accomplished is this:
The same UK team that provided the Big Blue Nation with a thrill ride through the SEC Tournament stood 9-11 on Feb. 10 and looked absolutely dead in the water. That Kentucky is now 19-11 and the SEC Tournament champions is the greatest in-season turnaround by a UK sports team in my lifetime.
"I'm just proud of the tenacity of this team," UK's Elzy said Sunday after the Bridgestone Arena nets had been cut.
There have been other impressive midseason course corrections in modern Kentucky sports history, of course.
John Calipari's 2013-14 men's basketball Cats ended the regular season at 22-9 after losing three of their final four games. They then "tweaked" themselves to an improbable run to the NCAA title game.
In football, Rich Brooks' 2006 Wildcats stood 3-4 after absorbing a 49-0 mashing at LSU and the wolves were circling the fourth-year coach. That is when Kentucky won five of its final six games and defeated Clemson in the Music City Bowl.
Mark Stoops and the 2016 Cats started 0-2 with a horrid come-from-ahead loss to Southern Mississippi and a blowout defeat at Florida. They reversed course to win seven of the final 10 games, including a stunning upset of No. 11 Louisville only weeks before Lamar Jackson accepted the Heisman Trophy.
But none of those teams transformed as fully and dramatically as the 2021-22 UK Hoops squad has done.
Last season ended for Kentucky with an NCAA Tournament round of 32 blowout loss to Iowa. By that point, the Wildcats' talented roster appeared to have massive "chemistry issues."
When this season began, the Cats still seemed disjointed in many games — and then the injuries and other off-the-court issues set in.
After losing projected starter Blair Green to a season-ending leg injury in a preseason scrimmage, Kentucky entered the season with only nine available scholarship players.
An early-season illness cost sophomore post player Nyah Leveretter needed development time. A nagging ankle injury robbed valuable guard Robyn Benton of six games. Concussion protocol and an unspecified injury, respectively, cost point guard Jazmine Massengill and forward Treasure Hunt a game each.
An in-game injury that sidelined prized freshman point guard Jada Walker contributed to what, at the time, seemed a season-finishing overtime home loss on Feb. 6 to Texas A&M.
Meanwhile, Edwards, an all-conference-level talent, missed five games due to two separate suspensions.
Battling to ever get its full team on the floor, Kentucky lost eight of its first 10 league games.
The Cats seemed destined to waste the final season of Howard — one of the transcendent athletes in UK history — and to see her leave Lexington without having ever won a meaningful championship.
Critics of Mitch Barnhart's decision to elevate Elzy from Matthew Mitchell's top assistant to his replacement as Kentucky head coached lit up the message boards.
Yet rather than UK pack it in, what has happened since that 9-11 start has been a primer on that mystical sports phenomenon that occurs when a team suddenly finds chemistry and gains confidence.
Ten straight wins later, Kentucky has gone from a team with dim NCAA Tournament hopes to one that nobody will want to see in their bracket.
The next challenge for Elzy is to guide her team through the euphoria of its SEC tourney success and get it refocused for the NCAA Tournament.
"Our job is not done," Elzy said Sunday. "We will celebrate this SEC Tournament championship, but we still have work to do. We look forward to the NCAA Tournament and making a run."
If ESPN.com bracketologist Charlie Creme is right that UK will be a No. 7 seed, it means the Cats would have to beat a No. 10 seed then, likely, a No. 2 seed on its home court to make the Sweet Sixteen.
If Baylor wins the Big 12 Tournament, that could knock Louisville from a No. 1 to a No. 2 seed ... and wouldn't that be interesting.
Alas, all of those are next week's issues.
Right now is the time to appreciate the resiliency of Kyra Elzy and her "Team Turnaround" — which just produced one of the great moments in all University of Kentucky sports history.
