Jon Rothstein isn't selling Kentucky stock: "One game does not make a season"

The sky is falling and our pets’ heads are falling off. That’s the vibe you get from a portion of the fanbase following Kentucky‘s blowout loss at South Carolina.

Sure, it sucked. It was the first time the offense didn’t get whatever it wanted and the defense continued to struggle — no more living and dying by outscoring teams. The Wildcats’ very first gut check of the season.

CBS Sports insider and national analyst Jon Rothstein picked Kentucky as a Final Four team just a few days before the loss, the Cats joining North Carolina, Purdue and UConn in the select group. Surely he was ready to cast John Calipari’s group to college basketball’s dungeon and throw away the key, right?

Well, no. Not exactly. It’s almost as if the Huskies lost by 15 to an unranked Seton Hall team on the road, the Boilermakers lost by 16 at Nebraska and the Tar Heels lost to both UConn and UK away from home in December. If those are his Final Four picks, what is everyone else doing? They’re losing tough basketball games and figuring themselves out before March.

“The first thing I would do is tell Kentucky fans to relax,” Rothstein said on KSR’s Sources Say Podcast. “One game does not make a season. A reminder: the NCAA Tournament and SEC Tournament will not be played in a road-type setting.”

The conversation should start, Rothstein believes, with the Gamecocks. Why are they not getting more credit for doing something no one else has done? They’re now 16-3 on the year and 6-2 in Quad 1 and Quad 2 matchups. Maybe Lamont Paris should earn praise for executing a stellar gameplan?

“I’m not going to back off because of one game,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t do this when we evaluate: give the other team credit. Lamont Paris, I think, is the SEC Coach of the Year right now. He’s in a situation where he’s taken a team that was irrelevant last season, installed a system, and is now a good team going to the NCAA Tournament. Give South Carolina credit.”

Paris told Rothstein when he took the job at USC he “wasn’t going to be able to recruit as well as Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee.” Instead, he’d have to bring a comparable style to what he did at Wisconsin under Bo Ryan — yes, he was a part of that Wisconsin team and staff. And he’d have to win with old talent out of the transfer portal.

“Look at the ball security (vs. Kentucky), only nine turnovers. Look at how little South Carolina fouled, trying to not put Kentucky in the bonus too early,” he said. “Those are similar traits to Bo Ryan at Wisconsin. … If you’re not a program that’s going to get a high volume of impact freshmen and have those freshmen stay a number of years, you have to get creative in how you build your roster. B.J. Mack, fifth-year player. Ta’Lon Cooper, fifth-year player. Meechie Johnson, fourth-year player. There is a lot of collective experience on that South Carolina roster and that had a lot to do with the victory against Kentucky.”

The game was what it was for the Cats. It exposed them a little bit, forced them to go back to the drawing board. Maybe it showed the college basketball world what it’d take to beat this Kentucky team in the NCAA Tournament, or at least the kind of teams that could muck things up. The bad matchups.

But that doesn’t do anything to cap the Wildcats’ ceiling.

“We saw the blueprint of the type of team that can slow Kentucky down in the NCAA Tournament if they went up against a Wisconsin or South Carolina, a team who is really, really tough defensively in the halfcourt,” Rothstein said. “This is only January, so I don’t want Kentucky fans to feel too alarmed today, but if you had to sum up Kentucky right now, they have maybe the highest ceiling in college basketball because of the talent they have both on the perimeter and out front. But we also don’t know if Kentucky can win and beat an opponent in multiple ways.

“Kentucky offensively is good enough to outscore any team in college basketball. The question is this: if Kentucky were to get in a situation where it had to win a game in the mud, is this group of Wildcats capable? Right now, that’s to be determined.”

Part of those issues? The rotation. Kentucky tried out 23 different lineups in the loss at South Carolina, none on the floor together longer than three minutes and change. The mixing and matching is too much, things need to start tightening up as we inch closer toward postseason play.

You know Antonio Reeves is playing major minutes, as are DJ Wagner, Rob Dillingham, Reed Sheppard and Tre Mitchell. From there, the rest is a crapshoot. Who will make up the other two or three in the final rotation, especially with Adou Thiero — “(He) is part of that equation, and if he is a part of that equation, somebody else isn’t going to be playing” — set to return shortly.

“The rhythm and chemistry I saw early in the year with Kentucky, that’s something they’re striving to get back,” Rothstein said. “… Kentucky’s got a lot of pieces right now, but the Rubix Cube doesn’t feel it’s aligned. … Sometimes when we talk roster construction, there is so much focus on getting the most talent players, but fit and role understanding is such an important thing of what makes a successful team. … It’s going to be like a piece of clay that John Calipari has to get just right, but he’s got a lot of time. Again, guys, it’s only January.”

There’s plenty to work on, but everybody in college basketball has their own flaws. Nobody is perfect and the field is open. A midweek loss in Columbia isn’t going to take the Cats out of that field.

If anything, Kentucky now understands its top priorities in the coming weeks to get fixed.

“I’m not backing off of Kentucky on a neutral court because of that,” Rothstein added. “I’m not backing off on Kentucky because Kentucky lost a hard-fought game at Texas A&M in overtime against a team that needed a victory desperately. In the next six weeks or so, a rotation has to be set, and we have to find out if this team will be able to win a game defensively in the mud.”

The one game he’s got his eye on to see where this group stacks up both within the conference and nationally: Kentucky vs. Tennessee on February 3, 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

A heavyweight battle of top contenders in the SEC, two teams with Final Four expectations in March.

“I never want to overlook a game, Kentucky’s got Arkansas this weekend and a lot of other things between its game at Tennessee. But on February 3, when Kentucky gets a look at Tennessee, who we can all agree is the team to beat right now in the SEC, we’re going to know a lot about this team,” Rothstein said. “… Kentucky is going to be uncomfortable playing Tennessee. How they respond in that game will be a true barometer of how Kentucky is going to look when it gets in the NCAA Tournament and has to face a team that’s older, bigger, stronger and more physical.”

Kentucky’s loss at South Carolina was a letdown, but it wasn’t a game-changer.

Remember, folks: This is only January.