John Calipari dishes on what Kentucky needs to return to the Final Four

The past few seasons haven’t been as kind to John Calipari as his first few campaigns at Kentucky were. The Wildcats will enter the upcoming season on an eight-year streak of not reaching the Final Four, the stage that is the expectation in Lexington, as well as a four-year streak of either not making the NCAA Tournament or failing to make it out of the opening weekend in March.

As head coach of one of college basketball’s premier programs, it’s now on Calipari to correct that. He’s well aware of what it’s going to take too based on what he said during an appearance on SportsCenter.

As he shared on Tuesday afternoon, getting back to the Final Four is going to require Kentucky to have success in the Southeastern Conference, remain healthy throughout the year, and have a few stars emerge as they continue to develop daily during the season.

“Our league is way better so we’re going to be prepared to go into March. You’ve got to be healthy. Again, the talent where you have a couple guys who can just take over a game? Where you have great rim protection? Those have been my Final Four teams,” explained Calipari. “I’m looking at this group and our whole thing is let’s just get better every day.”

Thankfully for Calipari, he already has an idea about his team’s capability of accomplishing that goal based on their play in the GLOBL Jam back in July. Now, from here, he wants that performance in Toronto to become their base that they’ll build on with one another as they start the school year.

“We showed this summer what we can do. Now it’s let’s get stronger, let’s get more consistent shooting the ball, skill-wise,” Calipari said. “Young players are not sturdy enough to be real consistent. So that’s why the summer is really important and when they return to campus in the fall.”

“This is a good group that way. I mean they love being in the gym,” added Calipari. “I go in my office and I’ll look out and there’s four guys in there playing. They play a lot of pickup, which is really important too.”

March Madness is as random as a postseason gets in sports. After it went very much their way over Calipari’s first six seasons, Kentucky’s finishes started to drop off from 2016 to 2019. They’ve since bottomed out even more based on the end of their seasons over the past three years.

It’s part of the job description for the head coach in the bluegrass to have Kentucky in contention. Calipari knows just how to get the Wildcats back in the race, though, especially considering the roster that he thinks he’ll have in ’22-’23.