Let’s be honest here, John Calipari did a bad coaching job this year.
There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. Not when his Kentucky Wildcats finished 9-16. Not when ESPN Stats & Info informs us UK finished with the worst winning percentage (36.0) of any team in the preseason AP top 10 since the poll started in 1961-62. Not when Kentucky was the only team among the top eight seeds not to make the SEC Tournament’s quarterfinal round.
Bottom line: The program that boasts of owning “the greatest tradition in the history of college basketball” will miss the NCAA Tournament for the second time in less than a decade. Not even Tubby Smith did that, and he was banished to Minnesota.
Yes, to be fair, this odd season produced circumstances beyond Calipari’s control. We speak of Public Enemy No. 1, the coronavirus, which unleashed a global pandemic that wiped out summer workouts, curtailed preseason practices and stole the “gimme” games Calipari normally uses to build chemistry and confidence within his newcomers. And all that happened in a year in which Calipari’s roster included more newcomers than ever before.
The defense team would also like to enter into the record that Calipari’s one holdover, sophomore forward Keion Brooks, missed the first nine games with a leg injury. And heralded freshman Terrence Clarke did not play from Dec. 26 until March 11 because of an ankle injury.
As it turned out, these obstacles were more than even a Hall of Fame coach could overcome, but that’s not the whole story. Truth is not a lot changed from UK’s 65-62 loss to Kansas on Dec. 1 through the 74-73 loss to Mississippi State in the second round of the SEC Tournament on March 11. Crunch-time collapses were a bad habit these Cats just couldn’t kick.
Then of late the Cats added poor starts to their trouble spots. At Ole Miss on March 2, in hopes of improving its conference tournament seeding, Kentucky found itself down 23-13. Thursday against Mississippi State, the Cats were badly bullied by the Bulldogs from the opening tip and trailed 44-30 at halftime.
“The way we started the game was so disappointing,” Calipari said afterward.
The coach also said this: “We weren’t what we thought we could be at some different spots.”
One bad year doesn’t make a bad coach, of course. Ask Roy Williams, who after winning three national titles at North Carolina, went 14-19 last year. Ask Tom Izzo, coach of the “MSU Spartans Presented by Rocket Mortgage,” who are 15-11 this season. Or ask Mike Krzyzewski, whose Duke Blue Devils are done at 13-11, in 10th place in the ACC and out of the NCAA Tournament. In fact, this will be the first Big Dance without Kentucky and Duke since 1975-76, the last time an undefeated team (Indiana) won the title. The field that year contained 32 teams.
But if you thought this year was crazy, wait until next, when the NCAA finally passes its one-time transfer waiver and the portal overflows with possibilities. Forget those freshman rankings. Impact transfers is the next big thing.
As usual, Calipari is trying to get ahead of the curve. He already has former West Virginia center Oscar Tshiebwe on board — the Cats could have sure used the “Big O” against Mississippi State — and will reportedly be a major player for now former Auburn guard Justin Powell, who played high school basketball at both Louisville Trinity and North Oldham.
Some good should come out of a year so bad. A program as rich in history and resources as Kentucky should never go 9-16 in a non-probation season. That it did should serve as a shock to the system, one that requires a thorough top-to-bottom examination.
And the guess here is that the coach with the lifetime contract will get to the bottom of what went wrong, of where he went wrong. That’s his job, and he knows it’s his job. And it’s his job to fix it.
