Paul Finebaum did not hold back about his reaction to Kentucky losing to Kansas State on Sunday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. A once proud program has fallen off the map, the ESPN commentator said on his regular appearance on WJOX and “McElroy and Cubelic In the morning.”

“Kentucky has become irrelevant, you’re right, Greg,” Finebaum said. “We get all excited about them every year, because they’ve got the No. 1 recruiting class coming in, which they do again. In November, they were the No. 4 team in the country. They had to fight to get into the tournament in February, which they did. Then they laid another egg. To the elite college basketball world, getting knocked out in the Round of 32 is a failure.”

Finebaum noted that even by “moving the goal posts,” UK had to reach the Sweet 16 because of the last few seasons of having a losing season, and last year losing to Saint Peter’s to open the NCAA Tournament.

“Just to wash away the stench of the last couple years,” Finebaum said. “… There’s no way you can look this season as anything other than a failure. And there’s no way you can look at John Calipari’s career as saying nothing but the clock is ticking loudly.”

Finebaum pointed out that it’s been 11 years since a national championship at UK, and 8 years since a Final Four.

Keith’s take on Calipari

Calipari and UK are headed toward an awkward parting of the ways, if not next year, within the next 3 years. The common refrain about the Wildcats’ future is that he has a No. 1 recruiting class coming in. Well, that’s never been much of an issue in Lexington, in fact a top 5 class is an annual occurrence.

Calipari will continue to repeat his tired lines such as, “Kentucky isn’t for everybody,” and how his “young team” hasn’t come together yet, and it’s up to them to build chemistry. He’ll continue to skip press conferences and send his assistants, and cut short his post-game radio appearances as fans and media increasingly stack questions for him. It’s everyone and everything besides him. The old-fashioned offense isn’t the problem, it’s the “young” players running it.

The cold reality is that this has been an underwhelming and underachieving experience because no one believed on the day Calipari was introduced that he would have one national championship at this point. And to Finebaum’s point, recently he’s not even close to sniffing it. It’s an easy argument that UK isn’t even a top 3 program in the SEC anymore. Sure, he’ll keep luring recruits in, and they’ll probably sign mega contracts in the NBA, but the rafters in Rupp Arena will gather dust, and post-game radio shows will need a counselor on staff.

The proud fans of the Bluegrass deserve better, but unfortunately that won’t come for a while.