Why John Calipari should value SEC regular-season, tournament championships more
Shortcomings in the NCAA Tournament have spoiled the month of March for those in Big Blue Nation as of late. However, considering their lack of titles in the SEC either, it starts a larger conversation in regards to the recent job that John Calipari has done at Kentucky in the postseason.
On3’s Andy Staples and Nick Roush of Kentucky Sports Radio spoke on Tuesday about the Wildcats’ lack of postseason success. Staples opened it by discussing the topic of what classifies as ‘enough’ for teams. To him, the answer is consistent contention, even if you don’t necessarily ever win it all or win it every year.
“My thing is the only thing that matters is do you win championships or do you not?” said Staples. “In basketball, we actually had this discussion on the show yesterday. James Fletcher and I were talking about, when you’re at a program that expects to win championships, like, what’s acceptable? How deep do you have to go?”
“We were talking about Rick Barnes and how far does he have to go. Like, Rick Barnes is in the Sweet 16. They’re playing Creighton. Like, if they were to lose to them? Like, there’s no shame in that. That’s a very good team. Like, if you get to a point where you’re deeper in the tournament and you’re just playing good teams? Sometimes you lose. That’s okay but you keep getting there,” Staples said. “Like, Mark Few? Great example – nine consecutive Sweet 16s. Like, he has put them in the mix. He has never gotten over the hump and won the title. He has gotten to the title game but they keep coming back, they keep knocking on it. So you don’t change anything there. But when you can’t get out of the first weekend? That’s where it’s a problem.”
However, Roush took it a step further by bringing up the regular-season title and the SEC Tournament. Even with losses to Saint Peter’s and Oakland, some could get over it with everyone possibly being a victim of the madness in the bracket. Since they’ve been losing league championships for the past four years too, though, it’s an overall trend in the postseason that he believes has put Calipari and Kentucky where they currently find themselves.
“The other part of this too is, like, I know you’re correct in that they don’t hang SEC Championship banners, right? It’s all Final Fours and that’s it in Rupp Arena. But you can get a little extra good will bought up if you win the SEC’s regular-season championship or you win the SEC Tournament Championship,” said Roush.
“It’s the fact that not only are they not winning in the tournament but they’re not winning SEC regular-season or tournament championships. Then Cal acts like those don’t matter when they do,” Roush explained. “We care about going to Nashville, kicking everybody’s ass, tearing up Broadway, and having ourselves a hell of a weekend. Like, there’s a lot of easy wins out there for Calipari.”
During the past five years, Kentucky is 105-52 (.669) in total. If you remove the season that the pandemic ended, that drops to 80-46 (.635). Over that span, the Wildcats obviously haven’t been to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. That also hasn’t been enough in a more competitive Southeastern Conference with no conference titles, in the regular season or the league tournament, over the last four years.
All of this has come together to make things incredibly agonizing for Kentucky as they head into the offseason. That’s especially so considering there may be little that Calipari and the Wildcats can do to change anyone’s minds until the calendar turns back to March next year.
“I think, to your original point, I don’t know if anybody’s going to buy this whole entire offseason and it’s going to make it incredibly uncomfortable,” Roush said. “Like, it’s just going to be so uncomfortable.”
“It’s going to be a long offseason, Andy. We’re going to be asking those questions and I just don’t know what’s going to be enough,” said Roush. “I predicted it would be an uncomfortable offseason on the show last week – I did not anticipate. I’m squeamish just thinking about it and we’re on day three.”