Kentucky coach John Calipari dug a hole for himself and it doesn’t look like he’ll be leaving anytime soon.
After starting season 1-6, the worst of the program since season 1926-27, the United Kingdom claimed three consecutive victories to open the conference in Mississippi, against Vanderbilt and Florida. Just when you thought the Wildcats were gaining momentum, they followed with consecutive defeats to Alabama and Auburn, with the first being a 20-point defeat at the Rupp Arena – the worst home defeat of the Calipari era – and the last being a scratchy defeat. in a game in which the Tigers hit only 37% of the field and 17% in three.
The team was it is close to the surface, ready to take a deep breath and swim back to shore. After suffering the eighth defeat of the year and the quality winning opportunities diminishing, however, it seems that they were pulled back to the bottom of the sea. And Calipari may be the anchor that pulls them down, at least in the short term.
Calipari, a Hall of Fame coach with a national championship under his belt, deserves the benefit of the doubt most of the time. With a title, four Final Fours and seven Elite Eights in 11 seasons as Kentucky head coach, it’s hard to be too critical about falling short of expectations every now and then. He’s been a great coach and a great guy on the show.
This year? Things just looked … different. Coaching left a lot to be desired, and it hasn’t been any better on the public relations side. Between game adjustments, lineups, substitutions and rotations in general, Calipari seemed lost and desperate over and over again in 11 games. And then, when answering questions about coaching decisions, the head coach, who has apparently always had the answers over the years, was at a loss for words.
These fights on and off the court reached a new peak during Kentucky’s 66-59 defeat at Auburn on Saturday and only continued later. During the game, Calipari unsuccessfully experimented with three major lineups, kept the game’s two top scorers on the bench to open the second half and continued to force the players who struggled most at the top of the rotation, among other frustrating decisions.
As usual, the guide was kept long for beginners in difficulty, but short for productive bankers. Go back, repeat.
After the game, Calipari’s hypocritical reasoning was met with heavy (and well-deserved) criticism.
“What you’re trying to do is, I’m not trying – I want to win every game I train, but the flip side is, I’m not trying to take anyone’s heart,” said Calipari when asked about keeping Dontaie Allen and Jacob Toppin – Kentucky’s two top scorers in the break – on the bench to start the second half. “We didn’t start half that badly, so that was not the case. It’s not like you’re replacing quarterbacks. He played a bad quarter, so I’m going to play against that other quarterback. You don’t train that way. What you do is put them inside. “
“I’m not trying to take anyone’s heart.”
What exactly does that mean? Because when you watch Coach Calipari and hear him speak from the ground, it certainly doesn’t apply to all players. It applies only to your top five star talent and star transfers, not to those who fight for minutes and kicks off the bench.
This is the same coach who, when asked about Dontaie Allen’s one-minute quota during Kentucky’s defeat to North Carolina, told reporters, “I could have (played) today, but I’m giving these guys who are in front of him the room they need to be able to miss shots. … You try to give them space and encourage them to shoot. “
After failing to play Allen for a minute in the Louisville game, Calipari made an excuse not to play against the guys in the second half if they didn’t play in the first half, which still doesn’t make sense.
“I had the idea of putting him twice, once in the first half, which I would have liked to have done because I would have been able to face him in the second half,” said Calipari. “If I don’t play with a guy in the first half, and go on, you know. But he will have a chance; it just wasn’t tonight. And I trained the game to win. That’s all I did. “
It took an ankle sprain for Terrence Clarke and six consecutive defeats for Calipari to match think about giving Allen long minutes. And when he finally did, the redshirt freshman lost 23 points in 7-11, going from three to Kentucky and a victory in overtime in Mississippi.
And if we’re being completely honest, would Calipari have escalated guard BJ Boston at the end of regulation and all overtime periods in the same way that Bruiser Flint did if he hadn’t been sent off with nine minutes left? 17 of Allen’s points were scored after that moment.
My instinct says no.
Only today, Calipari failed to place Allen – who led the team in points in the eight-point break – in the second half until the 13:42 mark, and then removed him to the 10:43 mark. Back with 7:57 to finish, and with 6:20 left. Back with 5:36 to finish, at the 4:00 mark. With 2:18 left, he left on the final bell.
Never more than three minutes of continuous play in the second half, and Calipari’s reasoning for this was that Allen missed many open kicks.
“At the end of the day, we were playing for Dontaie and he didn’t want to kick the ball,” said Calipari. “That’s why I took it out the first time. Once, we ran two things at him with shots and he didn’t want to take them. “
Oh, he also highlighted Allen’s defensive flaws for the umpteenth time this season.
“Dontaie looked great in the second half. He was missed, but they were going after him defensively. We had a lot of problems and we could have changed the lineups. At the end of the day, we were defeated. “
Since when are occasional defensive failures and lack of shooting attempts more damaging to a team than open fouls, poor selection of shots and turnovers?
In an ideal world, they are not. In the world of Calipari, this is another story.
And stubbornness goes far beyond Allen. Toppin was in the same boat throughout the season and again tonight, finishing with 10 points (3-4 FG), six rebounds and a steal in 22 minutes. Along with Allen, he carried the Wildcats at halftime, but still hasn’t seen the ground until the 15:27 mark because Calipari “(was not) trying to take anyone’s heart”.
Elsewhere, Calipari took Devin Askew off the starting lineup when he was going through his struggles earlier in the season. He responded well and has since returned to the top five, but there was an adjustment there. Isaiah Jackson and Lance Ware saw their minutes fluctuate with the fluctuating production, as expected. Even Olivier Sarr, who has kept the leash long for most of this season, has been on the bench for long periods in some games.
As for those at the top of the rotation, Boston has yet to play less than 25 minutes in one game this season, while Clarke – who lost five consecutive games to an ankle injury – played 31 minutes or more in five games that was completely healthy , along with 25 minutes in the North Carolina game before the injury. The top ten recruits were given the freedom to correct mistakes, unlike any other player on the list, even though production and efficiency did not follow.
“I’m nor trying to take someone’s heart, ” he says, without realizing that this unwritten rule applies only to a select few. Calipari is the first to say that he will do whatever it takes to put the team first – he sent a player home to “reflect and do a conscience check to get his priorities in order” to restore the locker room in December – but its rotations and substitutions continue to tell another story.
“Players first”, of course, but that approach came with an asterisk this season. And sitting at 4-8 a year with the hope of a birth at the NCAA Tournament slipping through the team’s fingers, it’s clear that the approach just isn’t working now.