What does another double-digit loss season tell us about the state of UK basketball?

When Vanderbilt upset Kentucky 68-66 on Wednesday night in Rupp Arena, it did more than hand UK a Senior Night loss for the third time in the past four seasons.

It also gave a John Calipari-coached Wildcats team a 10th loss in a season for the fifth time. Among Kentucky coaches, that ties Tubby Smith for the most such years in UK basketball history.

Back in the days when Smith’s critics had assigned the derisive nickname “Ten-Loss Tubby” to the Wildcats head coach, I argued that some degree of nuance needed to be applied when evaluating double-digit loss seasons.

Of Smith’s five seasons as UK’s head man with at least 10 losses, the Wildcats won the SEC regular-season title in two of them; the SEC Tournament championship in one; and reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in two.

Applying the same standard to Calipari, one of his double-digit loss years (29-11 in 2013-14) yielded a run to the NCAA Tournament championship game. Another such season (26-11 in 2017-18) saw the Cats win the SEC Tournament title and reach the NCAA Sweet 16.

Ten losses or not, I don’t think — even by “Kentucky standards” — you can consider those years as “bad seasons.”

So what should we ascertain about the state of the Wildcats program from Calipari having joined Tubby at the top of UK’s double-digit loss seasons coaching list?

For one segment of Kentucky basketball fans, the 10-loss season metric is used as a measuring stick to evaluate whether the UK program is living up to its historic standards of excellence.

In his 41 years of coaching the Wildcats, Adolph Rupp, amazingly, had only two seasons — 15-10 in 1964-65 and 13-13 in 1966-67 — with at least 10 defeats.

By way of comparison, Joe B. Hall had four double-digit loss years in his 13 seasons leading the Wildcats; Eddie Sutton had two in four seasons; Rick Pitino one in eight; Smith five in 10; Billy Gillispie had double-digit losses in both his years as UK head coach; and Calipari has now had five years with at least 10 defeats in 14 seasons as top Cat.

One problem with using Rupp’s standard of 10-loss season avoidance against modern Kentucky coaches is that teams play more games now than they did when the “Baron of the Bluegrass” roamed the UK sideline.

In Smith’s five double-digit loss years, UK played 32 games, 33 games, 34 games (twice) and 35 games.

Over Calipari’s four double-digit loss seasons before 2022-23, the Cats played 25 games (the “COVID-19” year in 2020-21), 33 games, 37 games and 40 games. This year, Kentucky will have played 31 games entering the SEC Tournament.

Conversely, during Rupp’s two double-digit defeat seasons, Kentucky played 25 and 26 games, respectively.

Had Kentucky teams in Rupp’s era played the number of games that modern Wildcats teams do each season, UK almost certainly would have added double-digit loss campaigns in 1959-60 (finished 18-7); 1960-61 (19-9); and 1962-63 (16-9).

In evaluating how Kentucky’s five double-digit loss seasons in the past 14 years stacks up against UK’s basketball peer group and/or the Wildcats’ primary rivals, there is good news and bad.

Even with five seasons of at least 10 losses, Kentucky under Calipari is ahead of most of the other high-level, power conference men’s basketball programs.

Since Calipari’s first season (2009-10) as Kentucky’s head coach, Indiana has had a whopping 11 double-digit loss seasons out of 14 years. Florida has had 10.

North Carolina and Ohio State have each had nine such seasons; Tennessee has had eight; Baylor and Louisville have had seven; Michigan State and Virginia have had six.

Villanova, like UK, has endured five seasons with double-digit losses since 2009-10.

However, the rub for those Kentucky fans who feel like job one for a UK basketball coach is to have the Wildcats program at the top in every meaningful measurement of program strength, is that two of the Cats’ primary “blue-blood rivals” are substantially ahead of UK during the Calipari era in 10-loss season avoidance.

Since 2009-10, Duke has had only two seasons — 25-11 in 2015-16 and 13-11 in 2020-21 — with at least 10 losses.

This season’s Blue Devils are 22-8 going into their regular-season finale Saturday at archrival North Carolina. So Duke seems likely to add a third season since 2009-10 with double-digit defeats this year in Jon Scheyer’s debut season as the head coaching replacement for the iconic Mike Krzyzewski.

Kansas, which passed Kentucky last season as the all-time men’s college basketball wins leader, has also had only two double-digit-loss seasons — 25-10 in 2013-14 and 26-10 in 2018-19 — over the past 14 years.

With Bill Self’s No. 3 Jayhawks sitting at 25-5 entering Saturday’s regular-season finale at No. 9 Texas, Kansas is assured of not adding another double-digit defeat season in 2022-23.

For that part of the Big Blue Nation that is ever vigilant about UK “program slippage,” it likely does not go down well that Duke and Kansas have been the gold standard since 2009-10 among the major conference, blue-blood basketball programs in avoiding 10-loss seasons.

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