The answer to the question has become almost cliche. At the very least, it’s coachspeak.

“So, coach, tell me what you like about this team?”

“Well, we have a nice mix of older players and younger players that should help to make us successful.”

Many say it, but it’s likely that few are convinced it actually will make a difference in results.

Perhaps Kentucky coach Craig Skinner said words of that ilk during the preseason when talking about his team. Whatever the case, the Wildcats proved that, indeed, a blend of savvy, battle-tested upperclassmen and eager, talented freshmen can make a successful team.

Even a title contender.

The Wildcats (21-7) are in their ninth NCAA Tournament round 16 since 2009 and face SEC rival Arkansas (27-5), which has advanced this far for the first time since 1998. The teams square off at 3:30 p.m. Central Thursday at Nebraska after the Huskers (30-1) play Georgia Tech (24-6)

Kentucky and Arkansas faced each other twice this season, with the Wildcats winning a five-setter in October and then sweeping the Hogs to clinch at least a share of the SEC title in the penultimate match of the regular season.

It was the seventh consecutive conference title for Skinner — one of four SEC co-coaches of the year — and his program. Kentuck, which has won 18 in row, swept Wofford and Baylor in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. For that matter, Kentucky has swept four matches in a row, which included winning at Arkansas just weeks ago. When Arkansas visited UK in October, the Wildcats won in five.

“We have played Arkansas twice already this year, but I think it’s just another obstacle for us to overcome,” senior outside hitter Reagan Rutherford said. “I feel like we all felt pressure playing them for the SEC title, and just being (defending SEC) champions, so that was a really intense game, and we made it out of that.

“So I feel like it’s just the same kind of intensity we’re ready for.”

The Wildcats are ready. All of them. From the four 2020/spring ’21 national championship team holdovers — Rutherford, fifth-year middle blocker Azhani Tealer, senior middle Elsie Goetzinger and senior libero Riah Walker — to fab freshmen Brooklyn DeLeye and Molly Tuozzo.

That mix of seniors and freshmen is clicking on all cylinders.

But it wasn’t always that way.

Early in the season, the Wildcats struggled to find their stride, losing six of their first nine non-conference matches.

Then, just as SEC play was about to start, Rutherford sustained eye and ankle injuries that kept her out of six matches, including the first meeting with Tennessee, Kentucky’s only SEC defeat.

“We had so many people who were moved and shuffled in different places,” said Rutherford, an all-SEC selection, one of a conference-high five for Kentucky. “But they rose to the occasion. As a team, that just made us closer and made us trust the process even more.”

Few rose to the occasion like DeLeye and Tuozzo.

While Tuozzo made the SEC all-freshman team, DeLeye was named the conference freshman of the year and also was on the all-SEC team. On Tuesday, she was named AVCA Southeast Regional freshman of the year.

Brooklyn DeLeye/Tyler Ruth, UK Athletics

DeLeye, a 6-foot-2 product of Topeka, Kansas, ranks eighth in the conference in kills per set (3.71) and is hitting .298. She also averages 1.74 digs per set and has 22 total blocks.

“Nothing surprises me with Brooklyn,” Skinner told the assembled media on campus before the team left for Nebraska. “She wants to do something a little bit better every single day. When you have that type of athletic ability on top of the drive and persistence and passion, great things are going to happen.

“You never know with freshmen how they’re going to respond to the pressures and the expectations, but Brooklyn has taken that in stride and worked super hard.”

Junior setter Emma Grome, who led the nation with 12.18 assists per set and also earned all-SEC honors, has a front-row seat to the DeLeye show.

Emma Grome/Caleb Bowlin, UK Athletics

“I mean, she just continues to get better,” Grome said. “From her front-row attacks being so lethal to her back-row attack really coming a long way this season, and that’s been huge for our offense, too, having that fourth option when it’s needed.”

Said DeLeye: “I had a lot of goals that I had in mind, but just actually completing those and getting that recognition has been just so surreal. Obviously, I did not expect that. I just came to play volleyball.”

Rutherford, DeLeye and Grome formed only part of the Wildcats’ attack. Tealer, who earned all-conference honors for the fifth time, led the SEC in hitting (.406) while averaging 2.25 kills per set. Goetzinger contributed 2.63 kills per set, and junior outside Erin Lamb added 2.23 kills per set.

That offensive diversity, Grome said, is what makes the Wildcats so difficult to defend. The Wildcats ranked second in the SEC in hitting percentage (.290), second in assists (13.52) and second in kills (14.52).

“I think it makes it that much more special when you have so many good and athletic hitters on your team,” Grome said. “It gives me a lot of freedom and creativity to be able to run what I want to run with the offense.”

Of course, the offense can’t work if the defense is letting balls hit the floor. Junior libero Eleanor Beavin, the fifth all-conference selection, leads the back row with 4.05 digs per set, which ranked third in the SEC. And giving her plenty of support is Tuozzo.

A product of The Woodlands, Texas, Tuozzo stepped right in and chipped in 2.15 digs per set. She also served a team-leading 33 aces.

“Our back row has been incredible this year,” Grome said. “They’ve just been making plays left and right. One of the things we talk about a lot is not just getting the ball up but having dig precision and digging high and to the middle of the court so we can run all of our options at all times.

“Molly has been incredible at that. She makes plays that, you think the ball is going to be down, and, somehow, she gets it up.”

All of that has combined to bring the Wildcats to this point and get there as, arguably, the hottest team in the country. It remains to be seen if they can continue to ride that wave all the way to the title.

Should the Wildcats hoist the championship hardware in Tampa, it would be less of a shock to the volleyball world than the first time it happened. In 2021, Kentucky became the first SEC team to win a national title, crashing the party that generally had been reserved for the Penn States, Stanfords and Nebraskas of the world.

Rutherford, the high-flying 6-footer from Missouri City, Texas, said she is aware that those Wildcats might have been seen as an anomaly. But she thinks Kentucky volleyball — and SEC volleyball — are here to stay among the NCAA’s upper echelon.

“I guess outside looking in, it was new for everyone else,” she said. “But, yeah, definitely outliers and underdogs in that tournament.”

Added Grome: “I think the SEC continues to grow every year and get more and more competitive, and I think we want, collectively as a group, to show the NCAA that. And I think that starts by having eight teams make the tournament. That’s huge, more than any other conference.

“With the addition of Texas (the 2022 national champion) and Oklahoma next year, it’s going to be that much more competitive, and I think it’s definitely one of the strongest conferences in the country.”

Three SEC teams remain among the final 16 (Tennessee plays Texas at Stanford).

“Tournament time is totally different from any other type of season,” Rutherford said, “because you never know when your last chance is and your last game is. There is a level of intensity to it.

“But we don’t have to do too much because, at tournament time, we just have to play our game, and that will carry us very far. … Adrenaline comes, but I think that’s natural, and I would be worried if you’re not anxious and nervous.”

The prospect of facing Arkansas for the third time — and trying to buck the dreaded axiom that it’s tough to beat a team three times in the same season — doesn’t seem to faze anyone in blue and white one way or another.

“It’s going to come down to who can play the cleanest and most aggressively,” Grome said. “Every time we play Arkansas, it’s a really fun, competitive match. They’re a really good defensive team, and they make some crazy plays. And I think we do, too, and I think that’s what makes those games so fun is you know you’re going to see a lot of long rallies.

“It happens every time we play them. I think it’s a good matchup.”

Rutherford said Kentucky reminds her of that title team, with upperclassmen and freshmen working in tandem.

“I think this team, we have a lot of experience, and our senior class are people who have been in the program and really dialed in to what Kentucky volleyball is all about,” she said. “We just shared that with an amazing freshman class.

“I just feel like those connections are similar because we had an amazing senior class my freshman year and an amazing freshman class, and those were big factors in the tournament run.

“I definitely think we are a legitimate threat, especially having a national championship under our belt from three years ago. But that just makes us want it even more for the people who haven’t experienced that.”