Patience with John Calipari has worn thin in Lexington, but has it worn out? That's for Mitch Barnhart to decide

John Calipari‘s future in Lexington is genuinely in question, a decision Mitch Barnhart is currently in the process of working through and has been since the disaster in Pittsburgh. Firing the Hall of Fame coach would be a financial and logistical nightmare, but what would be the cost of bringing him back for another shot at Kentucky? Is that something either side even wants to pursue? And who would be able to fill his shoes as the face and leader of this program — and all of the pressure that comes with the role?

The issue isn’t finding someone better than Coach Cal and his ability to build rosters and win basketball games. There just isn’t a clear-cut choice out there that is both available and affordable, one Barnhart would like to have in hand rather than making a $33 million change just for the sake of making one today. On the flip side, how hard is it to find someone similar who doesn’t believe he’s bigger than the program that made him the second-highest paid coach in college basketball? Someone who doesn’t actively burn bridges with major boosters, administrators and media while minimizing the importance of everything leading up to March Madness, only to watch an entire graduating class earn a degree without knowing what a second weekend looks like?

Calipari put himself on an island with few trusted confidants, believing he could raise money his way to build rosters his way and to win games his way. It’s been an internal free-for-all with just win being the sole requirement. And then they won nothing of substance, nothing to show for one of the most entertaining Kentucky teams of his time here. No regular season title, no SEC Tournament championship, no Final Four, not even a single postseason victory.

A complete waste of everyone’s time.

And think about what went into this season. Antonio Reeves became the all-time leading scorer under Calipari in terms of game average, putting up 20.2 points per contest. He was one of three Wildcats to close out the year in the top-six of all-time 3-point shooters in Lexington, led by Reed Sheppard at No. 1 — by four-plus percentage points, no less. DJ Wagner was being recruited here out of grade school while Justin Edwards and Aaron Bradshaw were top-four consensus signees in the class. And how about Tre Mitchell falling in your lap in June thanks to Bob Huggins’ drunken departure at West Virginia? Coach Cal called that one “fate.”

As the rest of the college basketball world zigged, Calipari zagged with a promise of getting back to “Kentucky good.” His words, not ours.

“The last couple of years, we’ve been good, but just not Kentucky good,” he said before the season. “We’re expected to be in the Final Four every single year.” He said in a later interview that Kentucky good was “you’re one of those last teams standing.”

That does not mean the GLOBL JAM, the only hardware this team and coaching staff brought back to Lexington this season. That means events that matter to this school and its legacy as the greatest tradition in the history of college basketball.

This roster was supposed to be that. Dangling the meat on a stick means zero to this fanbase anymore, part of the frustration in Calipari’s “we have an unbelievable group coming in that I feel really good about” spiel after the loss. Regular season wins resulted in showboating and chest-puffing, losses didn’t matter because ‘built for March.’ The SEC Tournament not only didn’t matter, but you were told you weren’t a real fan for — in his mind — putting the pressure on these kids by acknowledging the magnitude of this NCAA Tournament run after devaluing everything up to that point.

“There are people that can do that, ‘If they don’t do this or they don’t do that,’ they’re not fans of this program or these kids,” he said. “What they’re trying to do is put more pressure on them so they don’t play well so they can double down on what they’ve said. I don’t buy into it. …  I’m looking at this team saying what I’ve said for how many weeks? ‘We’re built for March.’ Let’s go, let’s prove it.”

All of that to fall in the opening round to a double-digit seed for the second time in three years, no regional appearances since 2019. Only to follow that up by talking about excitement for next season in his ongoing cycle of gaslighting this fanbase into thinking the current results are acceptable and why demanding more makes you the bad person.

What dream can Calipari sell moving forward? Humility is a start, accountability, too. It’s on Barnhart to enforce those things, if that’s what he wants to do at all. And that’s no guarantee.

That would be the expectation, Coach Cal returning from isolation to rebuild the bridges he helped burn down while getting his own program in order, starting with his staff — who at times focused more on keeping the local bar scene in Lexington thriving or where their dinner reservations were that night than watching film. You’d almost have to guarantee you got some of the toss-up roster pieces back, as well, along with the big fish in Reed Sheppard. Could the USBWA Wayman Tisdale National Freshman of the Year anchor a returning group alongside, say, DJ Wagner, Zvonimir Ivisic and Adou Thiero with the “unbelievable” freshmen Kentucky’s got coming in? Would that be enough for one last dance with Calipari? Maybe it all comes with a renegotiated contract that gets the school off the hook for his lucrative buyout that puts all of this in question in the first place?

Sounds like a lot of ifs, if you ask me. And years of what-ifs add up quickly — ask Indiana.

Patience has clearly worn thin in Lexington, but it’s on Barnhart to decide if it’s worn out. We won’t have to wait much longer to find out.

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