If Kentucky's going to fix its problems, it needs to happen soon

The only thing more concerning than the current state of Kentucky Basketball is what it could look like in a month or two.

Let’s put the raging emotions in the Big Blue Nation aside for just a moment and look at the numbers. Through 12 games, Kentucky is 8-4, 0-1 in SEC play. The Cats are currently No. 32 in the NET Rankings and will certainly drop when the update is released Thursday morning. As of now, their most impressive win per the NET is Yale. The Bulldogs are No. 36 in the NET, which puts the win in Rupp in Quadrant 2. The win over Michigan in London is also in Quad 2, as is the loss to Michigan State. Tonight’s loss to Missouri (NET No. 40) is safely in Quad 1.

Louisville is currently No. 344 in the NET, so no matter what happens on New Year’s Eve, Kentucky will begin 2023 with zero Quad 1 wins, a depressing thought considering we were hoping for the No. 1 seed in the Louisville Region just a few months ago. Tonight’s loss sparked concern in the Big Blue Nation that the Cats may not make the tournament at all — which, to this blogger, still feels like an overreaction — but there’s no denying that resume needs a LOT of work.

Watch the latest John Calipari press conference on the KSR YouTube Channel.

A daunting January

Not helping matters is the schedule. Kentucky hosts Louisville on Saturday and LSU on Tuesday. I’m not to the point where I’m worried about Louisville — current emotions aside, they are bad and it is at Rupp — but LSU could be tricky. The Tigers knocked off No. 9 Arkansas 60-57 tonight in Baton Rouge. For a Kentucky team that’s still going back to the drawing board 12 games in, beating LSU, even at Rupp, would be an accomplishment.

From there, the road only gets tougher. In the month of January alone, Kentucky travels to No. 8 Alabama (1/7) and No. 7 Tennessee (1/14) and hosts No. 4 Kansas (1/28). To close the month, the Cats go to Ole Miss (1/31), which came close to beating Tennessee in Oxford tonight. Kentucky should handle business vs. South Carolina (1/10), Georgia (1/17), and Texas A&M (1/21) at home. Vanderbilt is not good this season but that game’s in Nashville and that gym is weird, especially for a team that seems to be horrible at communicating.

February and March present similar challenges, with two games vs. No. 9 Arkansas, one in Fayetteville to end the regular season; a tricky trip to Starkville on Feb. 15; and a home game vs. No. 20 Auburn on Feb. 25. The hope is, by then, the Cats will have solved at least some of the issues facing them at the unofficial midway point of the season. But, it needs to happen sooner rather than later or we could be looking at another sad March.