Things in Lexington are at a fever-pitch right now. I’m not talking about a fever pitch of excitement — but rather general feelings of rage, anger, and disappointment. No. 3 seed Kentucky crashed out of the NCAA Tournament courtesy of No. 14 Oakland by a score of 80-76 in the first round of action Thursday evening.
Golden Grizzlies guard Jack Gohlke hit 10 threes (out of 20 attempts) in the victory over the Wildcats. While Oakland moves on to a date with NC State, Kentucky heads home with a collective vibe of disbelief. People may want to point to the roster as a reason for why the Wildcats couldn’t win the game. Oakland is a team chock-full of veterans, and UK is a team loaded with young, inexperienced players.
As we’re learning in this current age, experience more often than not trumps a talent advantage — especially when said talent advantage is coming from first and second-year players. Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham did not play well, but that’s to be expected…they’re freshmen! But no one on the roster is drawing the ire of the fan base. All of the negatively is being thrown directly at John Calipari.
Considered one of five blue bloods in the sport (UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Duke), this program is trending in the wrong direction — and it has been for years despite the NBA talent it churns out. Kentucky has won only one NCAA Tournament game since 2019. The Wildcats have also won only one SEC Tournament game since 2019. This is not acceptable for such a proud program. We can lament over Calipari’s decision to traditionally turn his roster over on an annual basis — focusing on uber-talented freshmen rather than building with multi-year players. He’s started to shift slightly from that premise with the addition of grad transfers.
With that said, the lack of in-game acumen is a massive worry. The lack of winning at a high level is also something that is strikingly poor when considering the expectations put in place within the program. Would UK make the move and actually fire Calipari? Due to the lifetime contract he signed, Kentucky would have to buy Calipari out for over $33 million. There is, however, one provision which gets Calipari out of the head coaching spot without a financial commitment.
According to reports, Calipari could be reassigned as an athletic director/university representative. He’d be making reportedly $950,000 annually along with some other perks. Can Kentucky convince Calipari to leave his post for this new role? If so, who would Kentucky go and target to replace Calipari? As it stands, the Wildcats could be losing the vast majority of its roster this offseason.
