Dick Weiss on College Basketball
PITTSBURGH, Pa.– Rick Pitino once compared the University of Kentucky basketball program to the Roman Empire.
Today, John Calipari knows want it looks like to watch Rome burn.
The mighty Wildcats, who won eight championships under Adolph Rupp, Joe B Hall, Pitino, Tubby Smith and Calipari, have blown themselves
up again in the NCAA tournament, losing to 14th seeded Oakland (Mich.), 80-76, in the first round here Thursday night.
This has become a disturbing trend for Coach Cal’s teams.
Kentucky has only won one title since Calipari arrived in the spring of 2009, and that was in 2012 when he had 6-10 freshman Anthony Davis, a perennial
NBA and Olympic star.
The Cats arguably also had the best team in the country in 2014, 2015 and 2017. But they didn’t win and having back to the Final Four since 2015. Worse yet, they
have not been to a second weekend since 2019 and have been eliminated in the first round by double digit seeds –Saint Peter’s and Oakland–in the
first round two of the last three years. It’s not for lack of talent. Calipari has established an assembly line for first round NBA draft picks and has 27 of his players making millions in the NBA.
As you can imagine, the Big Blue nation isn’t happy with the way this blue blood has fallen apart.
I’ve never seen more Fire Cal messages on Twitter. That may be a little difficult to do since Cal received what amounts to a lifetime contract from AD Mitch Barnhardt and has a $33 million buyout.
But the degree of vitriol in the Commonwealth is palpable with Kentucky’s fanbase, who have expectations built on 80 years of tradition.
When Calipari arrived in Lexington, he had a reputation for being an innovative coach who thought outside the box when he established is one and done philosophy of
recruiting elite talent, then sending them to the pros after one season.
But basketball is constantly evolving, and Coach Cal hasn’t always evolved with it.
The teams that are winning big these days have upperclassmen and an offensive and defensive efficiency in the Top 40 of KenPom metrics.
Kentucky was the most entertaining team in the country this season, but the young Cats never learned how to defend the ball screen and couldn’t string together stops.
It might have been hard to stop Oakland’s fifth year senior guard Jack Gohlke no matter what the Cats did. Gohlke torched them for 10 threes and
32 points, making dagger shots the entire game. Calipari tried multiple defenders to slow him down.
Good luck.
“I know I may never play in the NBA, and they have draft picks, but I can play with those guys,” he said.
Kentucky had the best recruiting class in the country last year. He entered the game with two blue chip freshmen– Reed Sheppard and /Robbie Dillingham– who were both listed as top six draft picks. They had two others– fifth year guard Antonio Reeves and freshman wing Justin Edwards– who should be selected.
But rabid fans here don’t care about that. They expect the Cats to make a run at a Final Four on a consistent basis. And sadly, the days of reaching the promised land with freshmen are over.
Leave it to Jay Wright, who coached Villanova to two national championships in 2016 and 2018 and currently works for CBS as a studio analyst during college basketball season, to put it in thoughtful perspective.
“The era of taking these young freshmen and trying to play against older players is over,” Wright said. “I think he did a phenomenal job with these guys all year. You can see, they’re playing against grown men, The guys on Kentucky will be far better pros than any of these guys on Oakland or any of these guys in the tournament.
But they’re not as good college basketball players. At this point in their careers, they’re not as disciplined as the guys for Oakland. It’s not Cal’s fault. It’s they’re 18 years old and they’re in this era where everyone is telling them how great they are. Just show up in college and you’re going to win. It doesn’t happen that way.
And the more guys stay in college because of NIL, it’s going to be tougher for young teams like this to be successful.”
Brilliant advice.
Kentucky found out the hard way. Reeves scored 27 and Edwards had 10. But Dillingham, Sheppard and Wagner shot a combined 3 for-19 against Oakland. Wagner, who was considered the best prospect in the country, went 0 for 4 and failed to score. Although Calipari has the use of three seven-footers on the roster, two– 7-2 Zvonimir Ivisic of Croatia and 7-1 Aaron Bradshaw are freshmen- and Ugo Onyenso is a sophomore who hardly played last year. Their youth showed on the big stage where Oakland outrebounded them and grabbed 14 offensive rebounds.
It was a recipe for disaster and a loss Calipari admitted was painful.
“I thought they were anxious, and when you’re anxious, you get really tired really fast,” he said. “So we had a couple guys that started the game and were exhausted within a minute and a half, two minutes. So I think they were a little anxious.”
Cal seems reluctant to change completely, though.
“I’ll look at other ways that we can do stuff, but you know there’s– the thing here, it’s a different animal,” Calipari said of the ever-changing landscape of college basketball. “We’ve been able to help so many kids and win so many games and Final Fours, national titles and all this stuff, win league championships with
young guys.
“It’s changed on us. All of a sudden, it’s gotten really old. So we’re playing teams– and our average age is 19. Their average age is 24. So do change because of that. Maybe add a couple older guys to supplement.”
This is a bottom-line spot at Kentucky, based on success in March. Kentucky desperately needs to win now because he’s lost the fan base.
