John Calipari addresses March Madness seeding following SEC Tournament loss

John Calipari and the No. 3 Kentucky Wildcats were knocked out of the SEC Tournament, falling 69-62 to a surging No. 2 Tennessee Volunteers squad that continues to gain momentum at the time of the year it matters the most.

Losing to a top-tier squad on the eve of Selection Sunday shouldn’t drastically alter where Kentucky is seeded when the NCAA Tournament meets on Sunday, but Saturday’s falter could have some impact on where the Wildcats ultimately fall.

When asked about where he believes the Kentucky Wildcats will be seeded, John Calipari gave a calm, casual, yet honest response.

“Probably a two, maybe a three,” Calipari responded.

“Who knows? I’m not in the room, but we’ll see. My guess is it will be a very hard path because it always is.”

Kentucky boasts 31 SEC titles — with no other team in the conference having more than seven –but John Calipari is now in a four-year drought without reaching the championship game. The Kentucky front man won six of his first nine SEC crowns to begin his career at UK, but as the college basketball landscape has changed and the SEC is more competitive than it’s been in years, it hasn’t been an easy road.

Still, the veteran Wildcats coach fully understands the most important games are ahead of his young, talented team.

John Calipari addresses state of team heading into Selection Sunday

While Tennessee controlled the game and never trailed after taking a 7-4 lead at around the 3-minute mark, the Kentucky head coach wasn’t dissapointed in his team’s effort and fight.

The Wildcats remained resilient throughout the contest and pulled within three at the 1:31 mark, but wasn’t able to complete the comeback.

 “I think we’re in really good shape,” John Calipari said after the game.

The Kentucky coach is fully aware of what it takes to win it all and while it’s clear to outsiders, and the Wildcats head coach, the 2022 group has what it takes — Calipari believes a valuable lesson came from Saturday’s loss as the team preps for the games that truly count.

“I’ll watch the tape because it’s just what I do, but this we knew would be a physical bump-and-grind game, and I thought we held our own, but there were — when we had it to six, there were three plays back to back to back,” John Calipari exclaimed.

“You can’t win national championships on plays like that. You cannot because a good team will make you pay just like Tennessee made us pay. You can’t, and they were our mistakes. A back door, we were running a play. The guy went the wrong way. That like a quarterback goes to hand it off to the running back that went that way in a national championship game. They clobbered the quarterback. He fumbles, and they run, and you just lost the national title because you went the wrong way? We did one of those. It’s a good lesson for us”

John Calipari made it clear that if his team plans well and executes, they can win a national championship this year. Based on a sloppy performance at times, he reminded his squad, and onlookers, how close they came to winning when they didn’t play their best game.

“And I told them, look, plan to play great. I believe in this team,” the Kentucky coach reiterated.

“Let me ask you, if we would have pulled this off, what would everybody in the country say? Oh, my God, they just played like that and won? You do not want to play them. That’s what I told them after. We’re fine. Let’s go home. I would like to be home by 8:30 to see my dogs, kiss my dogs.”