Is this the beginning of the end of the John Calipari era? Or a potential rebirth?

Is this the end for John Calipari and Kentucky? Or some sort of odd rebirth?

Coaching Kentucky basketball team isn’t an easy job. In the same way that inhabiting the White House seems to age its occupant in multiple year chunks, it’s not a young man’s gig. Since Adolph Rupp left at age 70 in 1972, nobody has approached his longevity marks at UK. In over 4 decades, Rupp coached 1,066 games at Kentucky.

Joe B. Hall held the job for just over a decade. Coached 397 games, went back to his horse farm, and lived a long and happy life. Rick Pitino left after 269 games. His annual NBA wanderlust got too strong when the Boston Celtics called. Tubby Smith made it 351 games. A combination of fan weariness over “Ten Loss Tubby” and UK’s stringent anti-nepotism hiring policies sent him to Minnesota.

John Calipari has coached 532 games at Kentucky. Had he stopped at the midpoint, which is almost exactly when Pitino left town, his legacy would be like Pitino’s: Epic rebuilder, great recruiter, won an NCAA title.

But he didn’t. And a new legacy followed. Unfocused strategist. Guy who took a decade to instill an out of bounds play and has still played a handful of possessions of zone defense in a decade and a half. Guy who promises playing time to inferior players and hamstrings more talented guys out of fealty. Disinterested, cranky. Maybe even underachiever.

And here’s the thing: Kentucky basketball fans can be unreasonable in expectations, quick to anger, and short in memory. They can also be right. As a third of the NBA All-Star teams hails from Calipari’s UK teams, it’s harder and harder to explain why those NBA All-Stars played a game or 2 or maybe 3 in the NCAA Tournament … but no more.

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The 2023-24 season has felt like a microcosm of the second half of the John Calipari era. Alternate impressive victories (Alabama, Auburn, North Carolina) with inexplicable snorers (UNC Wilmington? Getting crushed by South Carolina? Giving up 97 to Texas A&M, twice?). Alternate prep phenoms — in this case, Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham, each of whom is about to be an NBA Draft lottery pick — with underachievers like Aaron Bradshaw or the slumping DJ Wagner. Add a tendency to look lost in late-game situations and in even routine matters of strategy (defending baseline out of bounds, for instance).

Admittedly, the Calipari era is one of constant death and rebirth. When you have a player for only a brief span of a few months, it has to be that way. Hello, Reed. Goodbye, Reed. Remember Kentucky when you’re in the All-Star game.

Even in the glory years, things could get awkward. The 2010 team had plenty of late-game and early-season stumbles. That bunch ended up in the Final Four. The 2014 team was a punching bag of semi-underachieving freshman stars. Until Aaron Harrison started hitting big shots and UK ended up in the national title game. But it hasn’t been that way lately.

Here’s a list of some Kentucky players since UK last reached the Final Four in 2015: Jamal Murray, DeAaron Fox, Bam Adebayo, Malik Monk, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, PJ Washington, Tyler Herro, Keldon Johnson, Immanuel Quickley, Tyrese Maxey, Oscar Tshiebwe. Add the current group. That’s an NBA team. But not a Final Four team (at least yet).

So here the season is again. Kentucky didn’t win the regular-season SEC title. Got crunched in a quarterfinal game in the SEC Tournament. Gets a decent seed and a reasonable NCAA Tournament path. Would it be surprising if Oakland upended the Wildcats, who are favored by 13.5 on ESPN BET? Or Texas Tech over the weekend?

More important, is it the end of the era that it feels like it has to be?

Calipari’s contract for life isn’t sending him anywhere except to another round of financial planners. But what could send him elsewhere is what moved Hall and Smith, and in a slightly different way, Pitino — pride. Unfounded criticism was one thing for Cal. Those wacky Kentucky fans. They just don’t understand. Think you should win them all.

Until it wasn’t so unfounded.

It’s not just the wild-eyed wackos who think maybe UK would be better off with a different coach. One with less baggage, less stubbornness, more hunger to blaze his own path. The question is does Calipari feel that way? And would another early exit send him to feeling that way?

This could all amount to nothing. Calipari could reach the Final Four. Win that second title. Turn the energy of the fans picking up a moving van into building his statute on UK’s campus.

Weirder things happen. But they haven’t happened in Lexington for a while.

And John Calipari has to notice. Doesn’t he?