The $86 million marriage between Kentucky and John Calipari no longer works.
Everyone can see that, right?
After nearly 14 seasons, he’s low on energy, out of ideas and coaching a team that has underperformed so profoundly any other Kentucky coach would be fired by the end of the month.
Those of you who bleed blue know it’s true, especially after a 75-68 loss at Georgia that puts Kentucky on the outside of the NCAA Tournament picture with a month to go. Calipari almost certainly knows it’s true as well, unable to do this job at age 64 with the same innovation and vigor he did at 54.
Hey, it can happen to the best of them. And it’s happening to Calipari right before our very eyes, a Kentucky program so obviously and precipitously in decline that change would be healthy for both parties moving forward.
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And yet, Calipari and Kentucky are so welded together by a ridiculous “lifetime contract” that neither can admit a fresh start would be better than the miserable countdown to a day they can free themselves from each other.
That’s where things are for Kentucky, a team that was ranked No. 4 in the preseason and seemingly positioned to end a Final Four drought dating back to 2015.
Now, nobody’s talking Final Four. Crazy things can happen in March, but Kentucky isn’t a good enough basketball team right now to merit those hopes. At this point, based on all the metrics of the NCAA Tournament selection process, it’ll take some good work over the final six regular season games just to avoid the NIT.
Calipari, ever the salesman, had his talking points in order after the loss to Georgia. He emphasized that Kentucky was down two rotation players in guard Sahvir Wheeler and sharpshooter CJ Fredrick, and he referenced the quality win opportunities Kentucky has coming up at home against Tennessee and Auburn.
“We have a chance to do whatever we choose to do,” he said on his postgame radio show on the UK Sports Network.
But we all know that Kentucky isn’t playing to squeak into the tournament and hoping to do some damage. They didn’t make him king of the bluegrass to watch football schools like Alabama leave the Wildcats in the dust.
So how do you fix it?
The Calipari of a decade ago was the perfect Kentucky coach. That’s undeniable. Not only did he have all the external parts of the job figured out, but he brought in great recruits every year, pumped them out into the NBA and was a threat to win the national title more often than not.
Calipari should have more than just the lone 2012 championship, but there was no real complaint about the kind of program he was running.
Where did that guy go?
Since the 2020-21 season, Kentucky has been adrift. The funky COVID year was a complete mess at 9-16. Last year looked like a potential rebound, but getting popped by St. Peter’s in the first round of the NCAA Tournament made it a failure. And this year, despite loads of experience returning and more highly-ranked recruits, the advanced metrics rate Kentucky somewhere between the 40th and 50th best team in the country.
That’s unacceptable. That’s fireable. And yet, Calipari is almost certainly not going to be fired because it would cost $40 million to do so.
At any other moment of disappointment in Calipari’s tenure, Kentucky fans could point to the next recruiting class coming in as the ticket back to title contention. And sure enough, Calipari has four top-10 recruits on board for next season.
But this time, he’s lost the benefit of the doubt. The same slogans he’s been spitting out since the early 2000s at Memphis have worn thin. And the product looks increasingly stale and unwatchable regardless of what players he puts on the floor.
There are lots of reasons Kentucky has gotten to this point. College basketball has changed over the last decade. Calipari has made some questionable choices with his coaching staff. His offensive system is clunky and uncreative.
But at the end of the day, Calipari’s philosophy has always been that it’s a talent-driven game and Kentucky was the ideal platform to get that talent and win championships. That’s why he has stayed 14 years when he went into the job knowing that the microscope of Kentucky would be difficult to endure for a decade.
It’s unlikely anyone is going to bail either Kentucky or Calipari out of this mess. The NBA isn’t calling. Texas is going to hire a new coach after this season, but the Longhorns need a coach for the future, not someone whose best years are in the past. And with more than $8 million a year due to him for the next six seasons, Calipari won’t willingly walk away from a dime.
In other words, there aren’t a lot of options to fix what’s broken at Kentucky. Calipari said over and over Saturday it’s up to the team whether it wants to right the ship on this season. The same could be said for him and a program in desperate need of someone to either save their relationship or end it.
