Alabama is in the Final Four and John Calipari is back at Kentucky. How does that feel, BBN?
Before basketball, a guilty confession. Despite being on the edge of Generation X and millenial, my own peculiar musical tastes tended toward my parents’ days. I was that guy who played the oldies station in his beater station wagon on his way to baseball practice. And my favorite — then and now — was Bob Dylan. Yes, cue the jokes. He can’t sing. He talk-whines all his songs. Tell the one about the hippies who ran out of drugs at the Dylan show and then went, “Man, this music sucks.” Whatever. Bob’s my dude.
Dylan’s most prominent song, “Like a Rolling Stone,” is famous for its chorus. “How does it feeeeeel?” 1965 Bob Dylan asks an unseen audience. As it turns out, he could have been talking to Kentucky’s Big Blue Nation nearly 60 years later.
John Calipari is (somehow) back.
How does it feeeeeeeel?
For many Kentucky fans, not so great, especially after watching another different SEC team (Alabama) reach the Final Four.
How on Earth did the situation get here? Yes, there was some reluctance to Calipari in 2009 when he was hired. That said, there wasn’t much reluctance, thanks to 2 seasons under Billy Gillispie. And his performance was phenomenal. Calipari brought in the best players in the country, fielded a team with instant credibility, and had UK “back” almost before anybody realized it could be done.
The next few years felt like a whirlwind. A surprising Final Four run in 2011. The NCAA title in 2012 — still the most recent. After a down season, a surprise run to the title game in 2014. And an unbeaten team heading into the 2015 Final Four that might be the best college basketball team in my 43 years on this planet.
Whatever deals Calipari had made with whatever entities gave him his supernatural powers in recruiting and player development, the cosmic check seemed to come due at that 2015 Final Four. Kentucky lost and dropped the mojo of the past 6 years in a New York minute.
It probably didn’t help that Duke won the national title 2 days later. Coach K could one-and-done too, and it surprisingly was much less objectionable to talking heads everywhere when Duke pulled the trick than Kentucky’s 2012 run. And then K signed Zion, RJ Barrett and Cam Reddish a couple of years later. Bill Self started winning titles. Roy Williams nabbed another title.
And the losses piled up. No, not at all once. There was an Elite Eight appearance in 2017 and another in 2019. Kentucky won the SEC Tournament in 2016, 2017 and 2018. They won the league regular-season title in 2016 and 2017 and again in 2020 before COVID-19 wiped out the postseason.
But gradually, the excellence slowed to something closer to a trickle. Calipari still produced a first-round NBA Draft pick or two per team. The Cats would have an impressive win or two — like 2022, when Kentucky beat both of the teams that met in the NCAA title game in the regular season (Kansas and UNC), but fell in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
And the angst against Calipari began to pile up. Always adept at a press conference side-shuffle any politician would envy, he became more abrupt. He missed media appearances and sent assistant coaches to fill in for him. When he did talk, he’d circumlocute around anything anyone wanted to hear. For a time, he became enamored with claiming that he could not provide injury updates on any of his players because he hadn’t seen them.
The recruiting, if not superhuman, was still good. But having crafted a culture where one-and-done was expected, Calipari found that few players wanted to field the public insult of staying for a second year, much less a third. On the court, Kentucky’s offense bogged down. The Wildcats struggled in close games, late in games, and in any situation. And the losses happened.
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Kentucky is 1-4 in its past 5 NCAA Tournament games. Kentucky is 1-5 in its last six SEC Tournament games. The Wildcats aren’t winning league titles, they aren’t reaching the second week of the NCAA Tournament, and they’re making one of the most loyal fan bases in college basketball miserable.
In the immediate aftermath of a second loss to a No. 14 or higher seed in 3 seasons, many were sure Calipari would be gone. But no, he was out doing media appearances with Mitch Barnhart. Talking about getting an older team, a tougher team, and still bringing in the next class of brilliant freshmen.
Meanwhile, Alabama and Tennessee were marching toward the Elite 8.
How does it feel, BBN?
If social media and friend circles are any indication, the answer is basically: “Not so good.”
It’s hard to imagine the same recipe that has failed so spectacularly for Calipari suddenly yielding March success next season or beyond. Kentucky’s returning players are mostly expected to go pro or transfer. Kentucky’s best shot at returning a top-level player has to be Reed Sheppard, the actual spawn of two Kentucky stars who fell into Calipari’s lap as the national Freshman of the Year. Calipari reciprocated by not starting Sheppard, and when asked about him in press conferences, immediately pivoting to discuss much less productive players.
Great freshman? Heard it before. Getting older? Senior transfers Antonio Reeves and Tre Mitchell were older. Getting tougher? Still waiting.
The decision to retain Calipari felt a lot like desperation forced a couple with marital troubles to grin and bear it and put in another year. For the kids. But what happens in most of those situations? The Band-aid will still get ripped off, and another year is just longer to delay the pain of what’s inevitable.
Mostly, Kentucky fans are going to start feeling like they stumbled west into Missouri. Consider BBN in “Show me” mode. Better game adjustment? Let’s see it. More dialed in assistant coaches providing better help? We’ll see. A mature and mentally tough team that’s ready for March? Wake everybody up when it actually happens.
Until something actually does change, Big Blue Nation knows too well how it feels. It feels like greatness giving way to mediocrity. It feels like high expectations being settled to avoid an eight-figure buyout. It feels like the kind of compromise where nobody wins.
Most UK fans in regards to basketball don’t see any SEC team as a true rival. Duke, UNC, Kansas, UCLA, these are the teams that are rivals, not an SEC foe who has never been to a final four.
While UK may have fallen from the ranks of the top teams for now, there’s enough historical success to cause me to laugh at such suggestions that Cat fans are worried about the Vols sniffing a final four.
Even a blind dog finds a bone sometimes. Georgia has made a final 4. They are pretty far from being a basketball school. Maybe Bama is rising in the sport. We shall see. But the Vols? They have the mouthiest fanbase for a school that never wins anything.
I remember that final four. I was happy when we stole your coach the next year. As I recall, Tubby made a couple of deep runs in two consecutive years at UGA and I was thinking, “I wish he was our coach.”
Why do you think Gabe is a UGA fan? Anyhoo, wish Tubby had stayed. If he would have known KT was going to fire him, he probably would have.
Gabriella is definitely a UGA fan, and a very vulgar one at that. All you have to do is look at the profile. He has multiple ID’s on here, one copying melch.
Who knows. I don’t read his comments.
PJ, not to correct you, but uga didn’t make a final four with tubby. the immediate future looked bright with him in athens before taking the uk job, but the lone final four appearance for uga was with durham and wilkins.
Love to see an article bashing Kentucky has a gump on here bashing us. We are always on your mind huh? Crack kills dude. Good luck
You know how sometimes you’re scrolling the screen and you tap something a little too hard like an ad for a drug you don’t even know what it’s for or a car you certainly can’t afford? Well, that’s why I’m replying to you, Guv. Nothing personal. KY in b-ball is the blue blood. I’m old enough to remember Adolph Rupp. I’ve never been in Rupp Arena but I watched it on a black & white TV as a kid. The Wildcats will always be strong, just maybe not so strong as the Lady Vols. (See, the Vols can be Final Four good). Hey, maybe part of this is directed towards you, Guv.
Obviously living in the past. I believe UCLA has been to one Final Four in the last 15 years. Wooden and Rupp are gone. Cal recruits, he doesn’t develop. This team was built for March, or so he said. Disregard the SEC competition if you choose, but it’s there now. Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, and even UT have had as much or more recent success as UK. UF is rising again. We are way past the Kentucky and then everybody else thing of the past. But, you always have the hope of next year, and then it’s back to reminiscing about the good ole days. Cal needs an assistant who can coach, or it’s just more of the same.
I’m glad to see the SEC getting stronger. In spite of the NCAA embarrassment early on, I still think we were one of the top two conferences this season.
Kentucky is the only school with five different coaches winning a title, only school with 4, and one of only 3 with 3 different coaches (UConn and Kansas being the other two). Unlike UCLA, our titles span over 70 years and have occurred in 5 different decades (only UNC can lay claim to that many different decades too). UCLA’s last title was 1995 while we’ve won 3 since then. I don’t think we’re “living in the past”. We have as many SEC Tournament titles as the rest of the conference combined. We have 49 regular season SEC titles, more than the next four schools combined (Tenn, Bama, LSU, Florida). We simply expect more than any other school in the conference and there’s nothing wrong with that given our sustained historical successes in the sport. We’re down right now, but we were down with Sutton and came back. Critiques of Cal are valid. He hasn’t been the same since that Wisconsin loss in 2015, and it’s time for him to retire or move on. But, Mitch gave him a Jimbo Fisher deal and we’re stuck with him for a bit longer. What pains most UK fans isn’t the rest of the conference getting better, we like that, we like having rivalries in the conference, it’s more other schools, like UConn surpassing us, Kansas, UNC, and Duke, having continued success with new coaches. Those are the real rivals. Not a new Auburn or LSU…
Theyd love to have just one year of that past.
The past ..like 5 minutes ago when LSUMC was puffing that fat peter
This is not the place for your gay fantasies.
UCLA still leads in championships and that has nothing to do with the past.
Spot on. As a bama fan I view BigBlue as the ultimate in sec hoops. We have something going but y’all have so much equity.
Cal is ok. It is Finebaumish to say otherwise.
And here you have succinctly summed up on one short post the reason why everybody outside of the Bluegrass State cannot abide Kentucky and cheers at their every loss, which have been more and more common.
It feels like I’m taking crazy pills when listening to Barnhart and Cal. Do they really not understand that half of the fanbase is done? and another 1/4 of the fanbase wanted Cal gone a week ago, but are in grin and bear it mode?
If they don’t really realize the heat level, they’ll find out soon when there no money in the NIL fund and Big Blue Madness has 5k people show up instead of 20k
That’s not true easy. Half the fans don’t want him gone. It’s the whi ners that want him gone. They are the loudest on the net, but you are not the majority. Negative Nerds rule the net.
I went to UK, as did my mom, and I work with UK fans in Atlanta, everyone in my circle, from alumns to lifelong fans to casual fans want him gone. He can’t coach. He can recruit, but that’s all. He can’t develop these kids into players who want to play at/for UK. I understand the need/desire to help these kids achieve their dream of playing in the NBA, but UK isn’t a prep program, we’re a college program. Cal’s job is to coach UK and win at UK, not to exclusive produce NBA tallent. There are more Cal kids in the NBA than any other coach in college basketball and what do we have to show for that? 1 title in 15 years and a couple of final fours, all of which were a decade ago. Meanwhile, UConn and Nova have two titles, and everyone of our blueblood rivals have multiple final fours since our last. Hell, UVA became the first number 1 seed to lose to a 16 ever, and then the next year won the title. UK made history as a 2 seed losing to a 15 seed and, lost in the first weekend the next year. UK fans are done with him. He isn’t holding up his end of the contract, which is to win, and not win good as if you’re at Vandy or Oregon, but win like you’re at the best basketball program in the country…
Wow a Cal defender in the wild. Sorry to say you are definitely not the majority there. Every poll that’s been run regardless of platform has had a majority wanting Cal gone. Anecdotally every fan I’ve talked to is done – family, friends, work, though I only know one fan that’s relatively young at like 24/25. Seems like only the young (and ignorant) are in for keeping Cal.
The program is breaking. Worst 4 year stretch in our history. Second longest final four drought in our history. Cal has given absolutely zero indication that he’s going to make the changes necessary (or any changes really) in order to turn this around before we have another embarrassing result. He’ll be fired next year, thank god, after getting blown out by Duke, losing 12 games, coming 5th in the SEC, and bowing out of the tourney in the first round again. It’s a shame we have to go through that before we find someone willing to run a modern program.
Just like I said. Crybaby nerds with no life or wife. Let a kids game determine your happiness. Pathetic!
This kid’s game seems to be the reason you’re checking the posts on a fan blog site that you have to make an account to comments? Maybe you should take your own advice and not pay attention to the kid’s game and let actual fans discuss the state of the program
I’ll tell you how it feels. I’m a UK grad. All of my friends are either UK grads (or even if they went somewhere else for college, they bleed blue). As most fans understand in the southeastern part of the United States, college sports are king. I don’t hate that TN and Bama were in the Elite Eight and that Bama is going to the Final Four. In fact, maybe I’m an SEC homer, but when we play Bama and TN (not to mention Arky, Florida, TAMU and Auburn) next year, you’re going to see some hype and there will be some good games. Older fans will remember that there were occasionally good squads in the SEC- LSU, Arkansas, Florida, etc… But conference play was boring. You could snooze between Midnight Madness and March and not miss much. Kentucky would likely have won an SEC title and/or the Conf Tournament. That’s not been the case lately. That makes college basketball fun. It’s never going to be like football where you have a major event every Saturday for a couple months out of the year. But fun, quality basketball can take you through a lot of cold and rainy Tuesday nights in January and February. Now on to Cal’s return…. Few fans are happy with that. The magical alternative was let’s negotiate a buyout and bring in Jay Wright. Or Billy D. Or some other plug and play successful coach. But the reality once you really think about it is you’re going to have to build success around that- and it’s not likely to be immediate. And that what Kentucky fans want in basketball. They’re fine with Stoops and hoping for a .500 SEC win rate in football. But not basketball. And I tend to fall in that same thought process. Not realistic, but that’s what winning championships will cause. Reference blue blood football programs- they’re not accepting of playing in the Liberty Bowl. It’s all about perception and the history of a school. What I will say is this was the first time Cal was extremely close to being fired. That should shake his ego to the point of making meaningful changes within the program- from recruiting to executing within a game. The runway has gotten extremely short with Cal. He better bring a revamped version of his passion he arrived with in 2010 or 2011. Go Cats…
The facts are that Calipari is not and never was a game coach. Other coaches would have won at least 3 more championships. His recruiting is great but not player development. And now that other schools/coaches recruit well, develop players well and can actually coach a game to win leaves Cal into mediocrity. That’s where we are and it’s very disappointing. It’s time for Barnhart to pony up and pay his buyout. No one truly believes the future of UK Basketball is safe in Cals hands. Next year will be a repeat of the past 8 years.
I’m not defending Cal- BUT, to say that he doesn’t develop players doesn’t really tell the whole picture. I think he develops his freshmen- at least the ones he believes in. The problem with his development, is that we see a lot of kids leave after one year and you’re only seeing a glimpse of who they may become. They continue to develop in the NBA. Player development has to go along with roster management. I do think it’s true that he often fails a highly recruited kid that may not be seeing full potential after his freshman season. That kid sees who Cal recruits for the next year and doesn’t see a path for playing time the next season. We get one of the top recruiting classes every year, but playing all of those freshmen squeezes out minutes for other kids to continue to develop and then you see kids transfer to a program where they can get more minutes and develop on the court. It’s a never ending cycle of churn.
…till the battle is won
TN chokes more than any team in sec tournament time hence zero final fours and definitely no championships period and it will stay like that for many more decades! I would love to see any other SEC team make it than vomit orange Tennessee team!
When are we going to start talking about football? Basketball has changed so much it hardly resembles the sport we grew up with. Basketball – who cares?
I believe a lot of the BBN could care less and is biding our time until Cal is gone.