Forty-eight males’s school basketball groups have received not less than two NCAA event video games prior to now 4 seasons.
The game’s most deep-pocketed blue blood, towards all odds, isn’t one in all them.
Eight-time nationwide champion Kentucky is struggling to outlive the NCAA event’s opening spherical, not to mention halt its nine-year Remaining 4 drought. A Wildcats program that misplaced within the spherical of 64 one time from 1988-2022 now has achieved so twice prior to now three seasons.
On Thursday, it was a catch-and-shoot specialist who performed for Division II Hillsdale Faculty final season who added to Kentucky’s distress. Jack Gohlke got here off Oakland’s bench to bury 10 threes, one shy of the single-game NCAA event file, propelling the 14th-seeded Golden Grizzlies to a shocking 80-76 upset over the closely favored Wildcats.
This, in fact, isn’t the primary time lately that Kentucky has made an NCAA event folks hero out of a not-yet-well-known opposing participant. Two years in the past, it was Doug Edert, Saint Peter’s mustachioed sixth man, who spearheaded an unbelievable 15-versus-2 upset. Final yr, it was Markquis Nowell, Kansas State’s 5-foot-8 Mr. New York Metropolis, who erupted for 27 factors to take down the Wildcats.
The yr earlier than that Kentucky wasn’t so beneficiant. The Wildcats missed the NCAA event altogether after staggering via their worst season in nearly a century, going from the preseason prime 10 to a 9-16 faceplant.
All this can power Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart to now ask some as soon as unfathomable questions: How a lot cash would he be prepared to pay to oust John Calipari? What’s it price to maneuver on from a coach who can not appear to recapture the magic from the primary half of his Kentucky tenure when Calipari most likely might have run for state governor and received in a landslide?
“Hearth Cal” could have been trending on X on Thursday night time, however the stumbling block is that such a transfer can be removed from low cost. Even when Kentucky had been daring sufficient to wish to jettison a Corridor of Fame coach, Calipari’s contract reportedly requires him to be owed 75% of the remaining worth of his deal. That is greater than $33 million.
It additionally doesn’t assist that there’s not an apparent can’t-miss alternative who might win huge and thrive in that fish-bowl setting. Baylor’s Scott Drew simply introduced that he’s staying put after Louisville made a run at him. UConn’s Dan Hurley doesn’t look like in any hurry to depart Storrs. There’s all the time the choice of throwing huge cash at Billy Donovan, however Kentucky has tried that earlier than and are available up empty.
What this implies is that Kentucky could also be caught with a coach who not is the correct man for faculty basketball’s most high-profile job. Calipari remains to be bringing in McDonald’s All-Individuals and future NBA lottery picks yr after yr, nevertheless it hasn’t translated into success prefer it did within the glory days of John Wall, Anthony Davis and Karl-Anthony Cities.
This season, Calipari had Antonio Reeves, a fifth-year senior who scored extra factors at Kentucky than another participant he has coached. He had nationwide freshman of the yr Reed Sheppard, the sweet-shooting son of two beloved former Kentucky basketball greats. He had Rob Dillingham, a deadly scorer whose teammates name him Little Microwave due to his knack for heating up shortly. He had DJ Wagner, Justin Edwards and Aaron Bradshaw, all Rivals prime 10 prospects within the 2023 class.
All that expertise went 23-10. It produced zero postseason wins, going 0-for-2 within the SEC and NCAA tournaments.
In his postgame information convention, Calipari admitted that he was “actually hurting” after Thursday’s loss — for his gamers, for Kentucky followers and for himself.
“I simply thought I had a group that would do some stuff,” he stated.
Perhaps that group would have achieved extra had Calipari constructed round his three greatest weapons. Reeves, Sheppard and Dillingham did not spend sufficient time collectively on the ground on Thursday night time, similar to they have not all season.
Tonight UK scored 37 pts in 29 possessions with Reed/Rob/Reeves (1.27 per)
With out all 3 they scored 39 pts in 40 possessions (0.98 per)
Simply by no means had been prepared to construct a plan round these 3 weapons.
— Sean Vinsel (@HoopsInsight) March 22, 2024
When requested what went unsuitable towards Oakland, Calipari known as his group “anxious” however bristled on the phrase “tight.” He pointed to errors that a few of his freshmen made — a missed dunk by Edwards, ill-advised photographs by Dillingham, a few wildly overthrown passes by Sheppard.
“When you’ve gotten a extremely younger group and also you have a look at the place the errors come from, they had been freshmen,” Calipari stated.
The issue with that’s it’s Calipari who selected to construct principally round freshmen when school basketball has skewed older lately. Solely Kentucky in 2012 and Duke in 2015 have constructed freshman-dominated nationwide championship groups. Extra just lately, we’ve seen older groups rise to the highest of the game, groups with a few future execs however much more confirmed transfers.
The game has “modified on us,” Calipari admitted Thursday night time. “Swiftly it is gotten actually outdated. So we’re enjoying groups and our common age is nineteen. Their common age is 24 and 25.”
To his credit score, Calipari has tried to evolve with the instances to some extent. His 2021-22 was his oldest ever, constructed principally round transfers and upperclassmen. All his current rosters have every featured older transfers, together with Reeves and Tre Mitchell on this group.
This season, Calipari lastly embraced the 3-point shot, spreading the ground with proficient guards and sometimes even enjoying with just one conventional huge man. The outcome was his greatest offensive group at Kentucky however his worst defensive group. The Wildcats couldn’t constantly string collectively stops, not in non-conference play, not within the SEC and never even towards an Oakland group that had by no means received an NCAA event sport earlier than this in 26 years as a Division I program.
Will Calipari make extra philosophical modifications sooner or later? In that case, it most likely will not be shifting away from a freshman-heavy strategy.
“I’ve achieved this with younger groups my entire profession,” he stated. “It will be exhausting for me to vary that, as a result of we have helped so many younger folks and their households that I do not see myself simply saying, ‘OK, we’re not going to recruit freshmen.’
“I like what we had been doing offensively. How will we get harder? How will we get extra bodily? My groups defensively in rebounding have all been higher than this, however we have by no means been like this offensively. I sort of like teaching the best way I did this yr.”
Calipari has to vary one thing, whether or not it is how he assembles his roster, how deploys his expertise or how he prepares gamers for the postseason. What he is doing proper now is not working.
It was that the most important criticism of Calipari was letting potential nationwide championships slip via his fingers.
Now these look like the glory days.