Aside from the coaches involved and a handful of largely role players from last year, what is the same about these two teams?

How similar is West Virginia after losing Da'Sean Butler and Devin Ebanks to the NBA draft, along with starting center Wellington Smith? And what about Kentucky, which lost four of its five starters - not to mention a reserve - to the NBA?

Sure, Joe Mazzulla is still around for West Virginia, and he was the game's MVP last year when the Mountaineers beat the Wildcats. Kevin Jones had 13 points and eight rebounds. John Flowers played 23 minutes and had a nice little game with four points, four assists and three blocks. But everyone else on this year's team combined to play 11 minutes and score two points that night at the Carrier Dome.

Kentucky? Darius Miller was a starter and scored two points. DeAndre Liggins played 18 minutes and scored seven points. The only other UK player who got in the game was Jon Hood, who was on the floor for only a few seconds.

Of course, from West Virginia's standpoint, the reason this year's team is so different than last is essentially natural attrition. Yes, Ebanks left two years early for the NBA, but Butler and Smith were seniors. Even more of that natural attrition will take place when the Mountaineers lose their next game or play out the streak, whichever comes first. Five seniors depart this time, including starters Mazzulla, Flowers and Cam Thoroughman, along with Casey Mitchell and Jonnie West.

That's not the case with Kentucky, however. Four of John Calipari's top seven players on last year's team were freshmen who moved on after just one college season for the NBA. This year, perhaps two or three more will do the same thing.

Calipari, of course, has become the unquestioned and completely unrivaled master at exploiting the NBA's rule that prohibits players from joining the league until a year after their high school class graduates. Players who once jumped straight from high school to the pros and who now have to spend a year at a college weigh station - or overseas - choose to do so at Kentucky far more than they choose any other school.

All of which begs the question of Calipari: Does he like a rule that forces great high school players to stop off at a college (more often than not one he coaches) for a year, or does he not like a rule that strips him of his best players annually?

Calipari says he actually hates the rule, but if that's the way it's going to be then he's going to use it to every ounce of its advantage.

"Well, I've said this before and sometimes I don't think people will listen when I say this: I don't like the rule. I don't like the one-and-done,'' Calipari said. "I don't think it's good for college, I don't think it's good for the NBA. But it's a rule that we have to live with.''

Calipari, of course, has lived with it better than anyone. Yes, there is the issue of recruiting all these great players and then not having them around long enough to formulate a cohesive group that can win a national championship. That's been Calipari's problem throughout the existence of the rule, when he had Derrick Rose and then Tyreke Evans for just one year at Memphis and John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton last year, his first, at Kentucky.

Every one of those teams that he crafted around one-and-done players was talented enough to win a national championship. None did, though, perhaps in part because they never had what appears to be the requisite experience necessary to do so. Since the rule was enacted in 2005, no team has won a national championship with a one-and-done freshman at its core.

Not that it can't be done. Two years before the rule was enacted, Carmelo Anthony was a one-and-done kid who led Syracuse to a title (he chose to go to college for a year, he wasn't forced to), but that was also a team that had Gerry McNamara (a freshman who stayed), as well as senior Kueth Duany and sophomore Hakim Warrick. It wasn't a rent-a-title team.

Each year when Calipari brings his latest group of phenoms in, he makes it clear that they will play if they are better than the sophomores or juniors or seniors. This year the two players on the cover of Kentucky's NCAA media guide are Brandon Knight and Terrence Jones, both freshmen. The No. 3 scorer is another freshman, Doron Lamb. If any return to UK next year it would be an upset.

"I recruit the best players I can recruit and I don't try to hold them back,'' Calipari said. "If a freshman is better than an upperclassman, he's playing. There's nothing in any team I've ever coached that says, 'It's my turn.' It's no one's turn. Who deserves to play?''

So when Kentucky and West Virginia meet today for a chance to advance to Newark, N.J., next week - probably to face No. 1 Ohio State and its presumed one-and-done freshman, Jared Sullinger - it won't exactly be a rematch because so many of the faces have changed. And if the teams somehow meet again next year, well, that's not likely to be a rematch, either. West Virginia is sure to lose five of its top eight players and Kentucky, well, who knows who will fill the uniforms next year?

"At the end of the year, it's about the individual player. I will not talk a kid into staying that has an opportunity to go. I never have,'' Calipari said. "And there's some that I will recommend that they do go. If there's some that want to go and I don't believe they should, I'll still support them because it's their life and their choice, and our program will do fine.

"We've lost some players after a year and we've survived. I tell kids, you know, early on I would say if you want to do what's right for you and your family, you probably should put your name in the draft. If you want to do what's right for me and my family, why don't you stay a couple more years so we can win a whole lot more games? You embrace it. It's what the rule is."

Reach Dave Hickman at 304-348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.