John Calipari insists playing at Kentucky is getting tougher, urges fans to 'be patient'

John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats made their game against Florida A&M a little closer than they would have liked it to be.

Sure, Kentucky took home a 88-68 win at the end of the day, but the game was much closer than the final score lets on. Add that to Kentucky’s failure to beat a team of consequence this season and you have a fanbase that is growing more and more restless as the days pass on.

Following Kentucky’s win over Florida A&M Wednesday night, Calipari urges fans to be patient, stating their best basketball is still in front of them.

Calipari says “it is hard to play here and it’s becoming harder to play here. But you don’t want it to become so hard people don’t want to come play here.

So be patient and we will get there”

— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) December 22, 2022

There are 2 sides to Calipari’s statement. For one, Kentucky is not a program that accepts “above average” season after season. The Wildcats have a very talented roster and just are not where they need to be offensively right now in order to truly compete for a SEC Championship, much less a National Championship.

On the other hand, Kentucky has not lost any bad games and piling on to that fact could negatively affect the players and the team as a whole. At the same time, many are blaming Calipari and his lineups, not the players for the state of the team right now.

There’s a lot of basketball to be played. The real question is, does Kentucky have what it takes to prove the outsiders wrong and Calipari right?