The University of Kentucky entered this season ranked No. 4 in the AP Top 25 and received multiple first-place votes. It was a pragmatic candidate to win a national title, even after the embarrassment of losing to Saint Peter's in the first round of last year's NCAA Tournament.
The deeper we get into this season, the more that game feels like a hangover Kentucky can't shake.
On Saturday, the Wildcats underestimated another opponent, this time losing 75-68 on the road to Georgia after unraveling deep in the second half. In case you've mistaken the 15-10 Bulldogs for one of the other SEC teams with viable NCAA Tournament expectations, a reminder that they entered the day ranked 123rd at KenPom.com, 129th in the NET rankings.
There is no such thing as a must-win game on Feb. 11 in college basketball, but Saturday was as close as Kentucky (16-9, 7-5 SEC) could get to the concept. Shorthanded, it failed another test.
Now Kentucky's on the outside looking in and is faced with the possibility that this year could be tied to one of the worst stretches — and potentially the most disappointing era — in Wildcats lore.
What's happened over the past three months has amounted to one of the more calamitous campaigns in school history — and this only two years removed from the COVID-affected 9-16 doozy. That was the program's worst season since the 1920s, which is to say: its worst season ever, in practical terms.
Kentucky is 1-7 in Quad 1 games, and it's got that disgusting wart that is the home loss to South Carolina, a Quad 4 L that has haunted this team for weeks. If Kentucky misses the NCAA Tournament, it will mark only the second time since the 1940s the Wildcats don't make the NCAAs two times in a three-year span. The only other time this happened was 1989-91, when the program was in NCAA hell and served a two-year postseason ban before Rick Pitino brought the school back to national prominence.
John Calipari is doing the opposite of that at the moment. Taking into account the circumstances from 30-plus years ago, Kentucky is facing the prospect of missing the NCAA tourney as an eligible participant two times in a three-year span for the for the first time since 1947. The NCAA Tournament was comprised of eight teams that year and played second fiddle to the NIT in that era.
The situation in Lexington has reached critical mass for Calipari.
Are there caveats for Saturday's loss? Yeah, a couple. I'll entertain them, if only to provide context. The Wildcats played without key wing C.J. Frederick and veteran point guard Sahvir Wallace due to injuries. Foul trouble plagued freshman point Cason Wallace (he still played 28 minutes), which allowed Georgia to capitalize against a Kentucky team that gets stagnant without a floor general. Kentucky's Oscar Tshiebwe, who was the 2021-22 national player of the year but is outside the running to be a finalist for the honor in 2023, finished with 20 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks.
Good stat line, but if you watch the games, Tshiebwe isn't the player now he was a year ago. After the game, and for the second straight weekend, Calipari said Tshiebwe was at least something of liability in defeat.
Bottom line: you can't lose to Georgia with your season dangling in the wind. It's Georgia; Kentucky had won 16 of its past 17 games against this program. Mike White is in his first season, and credit to him for winning this game. He could have UGA in dancing 13 months from now and that would not surprise me in the least. But these Bulldogs aren't going to this year's NCAA Tournament and they don't have the pound-for-pound roster to match up with Kentucky.
At least they weren't supposed to.
Earlier this season, after UK got handled in New York City by UCLA at the CBS Sports Classic, I dedicated a column to the mess Calipari made. Almost two months later, little has changed. Down the stretch, it was Georgia that made the plays, Georgia that took advantage, Georgia that looked like the team with its NCAA Tournament résumé on the line. Kentucky's offense went limp, as its done more times than not 25 games into this teetering year.
This loss irrefutably invalidates Kentucky as an NCAA Tournament team — for now. Sure, it'd be easy to cook up a quick column after a lackluster effort and just declare this season over for Cal and company. That would also be lazy, incorrect and intellectually dishonest. Kentucky still has ample opportunities to salvage itself. In fact, if Calipari can do his job properly and get the most out of this team, UK can still make the NCAA Tournament with room to spare. Quad 1 opportunities vs. the likes of Mississippi State (road), Tennessee (home), Florida (road) and Arkansas (road) all remain, and that's before we get to even more in the SEC Tournament.
UK could turn its season around. I don't think that's the point, though.
Opportunity vs. ability, or even capability, is that the heart Kentucky's ongoing crises.
The Wildcats shouldn't be anywhere near the bubble, let alone on the wrong side of it heading into Valentine's Day. This is downright odd. The roster is good enough, and what's even more alarming is how Kentucky got outplayed after it just lost by 15 at home vs. shorthanded Arkansas.
The loss looks even worse when contrasted against how fellow bubble team/overhyped blue blood UNC didn't mess around Saturday and kicked Clemson out of the Dean Dome with a 91-71 victory, helping its vulnerable NCAA Tournament chances in the process.
Does anyone, even Calipari, have confidence Kentucky can put on a similarly dominant performance in the near future? How will (or can it?) Kentucky play itself out of the rut it so easily seems to fall back into? Selection Sunday is a month out and there is almost no room left for error.
