NEW YORK – Let’s start with the optimistic part first, because there’s a lot of not-so-pretty stuff to follow. Kentucky has dozens of opportunities left on its schedule to prove it’s a top basketball team, so it’s not as if Saturday’s offensive performance in a 63-53 loss to UCLA was destined to spur the Wildcats on to something bigger down the road.
What happened here inside Madison Square Garden could be just one more bad, redemptive tear-room loss in the coming weeks and months. There is that possibility.
With that in mind, let’s deal with the reality of the week outside of Christmas. Here’s where the 13-ranked Wildcats stand after losing the CBS Sports Classic to No. 16 UCLA.
Sure, there will be the inevitable collapse of lowly Louisville coming up in less than two weeks, and one more big non-conference opportunity will come in January when UK hosts Kansas in the SEC final round. Big 12 Challenge. Thanks to the SEC with a strong top three and special, Kentucky will have time and opportunity to strengthen its draft. She is fine.
Because John Calipari can’t seem to get himself out of the way of criticism.
More facts: Calipari enters this season under more scrutiny than he’s ever faced as a college coach. Kentucky was a nine-win team two seasons ago, one of the worst years in the storied history of Big Blue Nation. Something that is not directly acceptable, during the COVID-19 pandemic or not. The Cats bounced back last season, getting the No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament and Naismith National Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe … only to be blown out by Saint Peter’s in the first round.
This brought an urgency to Calipari’s office that he had never experienced before. Not that his job is in jeopardy. Of course not. But Kentucky fans hold their coach to account as much, if not more, than any other base in college sports. Ten games in, it’s hard to say there’s much to be excited about. Kentucky continues to face legitimate competition. A 7-3 record with that mark including a 1-3 record against power conference programs won’t cut it.
Calipari talked about his team’s offensive prowess last season. There was a trustworthy promise. He hired him to improve the UK’s attack plan. However, at this point, that announcement is problematic at best. The Wildcats only managed 53 points against a good UCLA team playing three blocks away from where it will be celebrating Christmas
The Cats looked incompetent on offense, and that falls squarely on Calipari. In fact, Kentucky hasn’t done this poorly, offensively, since its infamous and historically shocking loss to UConn in the 2011 Final Four.
“You can’t go 5 13 on the line, not in a game like this,” Calipari said. “You can’t go to the front four one-and-one, so you’re really 5 17. You don’t have to make every free throw, but you can’t go to those numbers.”
Kentucky’s offense was so poor, it dropped from 19th to 28th on KenPom.com in a span of two hours.
Bruins coach Mick Cronin seemed to like it.
“It became a bloodbath,” he said. “It’s been a Big East game for some time. Back on the field, it’s great to be back.”
One man’s fiasco is another man’s Picasso. Calipari tried to spin it after that. Give this: He’s as willing to express hope in the face of incontrovertible evidence as any coach in the game.
“We miss a lot of open shots, it becomes frustrating and the crazy thing is we still have to win the game,” he said.
Kentucky cut the deficit to two points with 4:31 to go. Then UCLA turned off the water and it was a good night. Kentucky did not score again. UCLA was tougher, more confident. She won by 10 points, and deservedly so by a double-digit margin. Kentucky has been lost offensively and still has no answers in the lineup almost a third of the way through the season. This high presence of veterans, that is a red flag. Jacob Toppin is not the breakout player he was promised. CJ Frederick, the 3-point shooter this team needs, scored zero points in six minutes. Antonio Reeves was floating in and out of the flow of the game all evening.
The offense needs a boost, and with physical teams with size and experience, Calipari is still looking for answers.
“We have good shooters,” Calipari said. “We’re one of the better 3-point shooting teams, and we missed.”
It is not true. In fact, a good shot can be some fools gold at this point. In the Big Four teams Kentucky faced this season, it went 1-3 and scored just over 1.0 points per possession in one of those games, a 73-69 win over Michigan. On Saturday, it was 0.79 PPP rotten. From 3-point range against Michigan State, Michigan, Gonzaga and UCLA, Kentucky shot a combined 29.1% (25 for 86.)
There’s a lull There’s a predictable lull in activity late in the game. It seems that good teams are able to figure out Kentucky, and without a dynamic scorer on the roster, it puts a roof over Kentucky’s creativity. I didn’t expect this; In early November, I picked the Wildcats to win the national championship. There is little to suggest that this group is possible.
“We’re not a bad free-throw team. We were today,” Calpari said.
The objective is not true at this point. With a 10-game sample size, Kentucky ranks 304th nationally with a 66.3% success rate from the foul line.
“Those things are contagious,” Calipari said. “When you watch one guy miss and the next one miss and you get up and it’s in your mind, that’s part of it.”
I’m not here to declare that Kentucky’s era is over. If anything, it hasn’t really started. The UK can’t get out of third gear against good teams very often. Calipari’s had projects over the years that took two months or more to figure out, but that wasn’t the case with this team, which didn’t rely on a heavy new component. Instead, Kentucky looks a long way from the preseason top-five team it was promoted to be. When will that team come out? Calipari could claim to have that answer, but even if he did, it would be hard to believe him at this point.
