John Calipari 'hurt most' by fans traveling to see Oakland upset

There’s been a whole lot going on at Kentucky in recent days, what with John Calipari being brought back for another season by athletics director Mitch Barnhart.

Big Blue Nation is anxiously awaiting to see what kind of changes Calipari will make in an effort to turn the program around after it has stagnated in recent years. Calipari knows nothing less than success in March will appease the fans.

“My standard has always been that you’re making a deep run,” he said. “You’re one of those teams that seem to be going in as one of those teams [that could win it all] but we got knocked off. … What hurt me the most was losing that game and knowing fans traveled, knowing they traveled to the SEC [Tournament] and they spent money — maybe money they didn’t have to be there. I know that I’ve never taken it lightly.”

John Calipari feels a certain sense of indebtedness to the fans, who have made his job for the last 15 years one of the best in college basketball.

Never is there a moment when Kentucky doesn’t have major support on the road. ‘Cats fans travel from all over to catch the team play, whether it’s making a deep tournament run or flaming out in the first round.

“I’ve been all over this state and met all kinds of people from all walks of life, and they all love Kentucky basketball, but losing there for the fans killed me,” Calipari said. “But for this team, they cried after this game. And for me, I didn’t get to keep coaching and I love coaching them.”

Kentucky will put together another new team next year. It’ll likely be full of freshmen, but there might also be some additional experience coming in via the transfer portal. That remains to be seen.

One thing that won’t happen is this year’s team suiting up again together. As fun as it was at times with the running and gunning of Reed and Rob, that chapter of Kentucky basketball is no more.

“I’m gonna miss this team,” John Calipari said. “Now I’ve got to have individual meetings and figure out all right, where can I help everybody? Who is going through a process, who is coming back? Maybe there are some guys who already know that they’re going, but we’ll have those talks in the next day or so.”