The hope is everything will be back to normal, or close to it, by next college basketball season. The vaccines will have worked and COVID-19 will have waned. Programs will have summer workouts again, as well a close-to-typical preseason and a normal regular season with fans in the stands and the traditional powers returning to their rightful spots at the top.
And yet, even if all that’s true from a health and safety standpoint, the fact is there will be no going back as far as college hoops is considered. Not when you consider the current trends and the coming rule changes. Nothing stays the same. Adapt or die. And at Kentucky, John Calipari will have to adapt.
We’ve seen the need this year. The Wildcats are 8-14 overall, including 7-8 in the SEC after Saturday’s 71-67 loss to visiting Florida. Riding a three-game win streak, UK reverted. Bad habits resurfaced. Turnovers. Blown assignments. Missed shots. Poor execution at crunch time. For the 11th time in 22 games, Kentucky failed to score 70 points. UK is 0-11 in those games. Even Kentucky’s defense slipped. Florida shot 52.1 percent from the floor, a season high by a UK opponent.
As a result, UK’s ultimate task grew much tougher. Winning the SEC Tournament is its sole path to the NCAA Tournament. And Saturday’s loss all but eliminated any chance the Cats had at gaining a top-four seed and a double-bye in Nashville come March 10-14. Instead of needing to win three straight games to advance to Indiana for the Big “Bubble” Dance, the Cats will most likely have to win four in a row, a feat it has failed to accomplish all season.
“Back to the drawing board,” Calipari said Saturday.
Truth is, it will be “back to the drawing board” when the season is over, as well. Yes, the lack of summer workouts, a normal preseason and the usual early-season guarantee games hindered the development of a Kentucky team with so many new pieces. But we’re into March now, a time when coaches tell us freshmen should no longer be freshmen, when transfers, both regular and graduate, should have adjusted to their new surroundings, when teams shouldn’t be repeating the same costly mistakes.
Yes, the more experienced teams have best survived this unusual of all seasons. But the data shows experience has thrived the past six seasons. Since a freshman-ladened Duke team won the 2015 national title — the same year UK went 38-1 — the successors to the throne have all been teams led by veterans who have circled the block a time or two.
The guess here is that will continue for at least a couple of reasons. Look for the straight-to-the-G League influence to grow, cherry-picking the top prep prospects, making it more difficult for programs to corner the market on elite freshmen classes. Plus, the coming one-time transfer waiver is going to open up the player market even more, putting a greater emphasis on attracting quality transfers.
There is proof of that already. Look at Arkansas, the SEC’s hottest team right now with nine straight conference victories. Eric Musselman has an NBA-quality freshman in Moses Moody, but he also has several difference-making transfers in Jalen Tate (Northern Kentucky), JD Notae (Jacksonville), Connor Vanover (California) and Justin Smith (Indiana). Look at SEC-leader Alabama with Jordan Bruner (Yale), Jahvon Quinerly (Villanova) and a pair of juco stars in Keon Ellis and James Rojas.
Kentucky’s most consistent player this season has been Davion Mintz, the grad transfer from Creighton. And the ACC’s Player of the Year this season could very well be Louisville point guard Carlik Jones, a grad transfer from Radford who made all the winning players in the Cards’ 80-73 overtime victory over freshmen-heavy Duke on Saturday.
COVID-19 or no COVID-19, that’s the direction the game is headed. Will Calipari head in that direction, as well? It says here he will, because it will be required. Don’t worry, signing top freshmen will continue be a high priority, but we now know that’s no longer enough. Adapt or die.
