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The Kentucky Wildcats Are Obsessed With "Super Smash Bros."

The Kentucky Wildcats haven't lost a basketball game this season. They also are obsessed with Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64. Coincidence?

There is no easy way for a college basketball team to go undefeated, despite what the University of Kentucky's 36-0 season might suggest. Yes, the Wildcats have generally pushed their competition around all season, but as the games get harder and the history gets heavier, their task becomes even more difficult. There is a great deal of pressure on a team that is, in the end, largely comprised of kids in their late teens. There is a great deal of stress. But, as they have all year, the Wildcats have found a way to work through it.

Naturally, they are doing this through marathon hotel room sessions of Super Smash Brothers. How this came to pass—how, of all things, these future NBA players (and Derek Willis) opted for a Nintendo 64 game that came out when Bill Clinton was President and they were diaped-up toddlers—is a story that Kentucky Wildcats TV set out to tell in the video above. It is not a complicated story, but it is an important one.

The short answer is that Alex Poythress had a Nintendo 64 in his dorm room and that good video games are good video games. The broader answer is that even being bone-tired, stressed out, obsessed over, yelled at by John Calipari, and otherwise kicked around as these players have been all season long does not extinguish the fundamental human wish to beat up your dear friends, as Yoshi. Between this and the Wildcats' youthful adventures in mumblecore cinema, it might be time to admit that there is such a thing as a likable juggernaut.

H/t to Kotaku