John Calipari is taking a ‘big gamble.’ Is it going to pay off for Kentucky basketball?
College basketball is changing. That’s been clear enough to see for anyone who’s even remotely followed the sport these past few years.
The transfer portal offers instant pathways to fresh starts for just about any player that wants to take advantage, as well as a deep mine of veteran talent for any coach in need of more. Name, image and likeness deals make staying in school — and, sometimes, switching schools — an attractive option. The prevalence of fifth-year players has bolstered rosters with experience.
College basketball has gotten older. So have the teams that are winning on its biggest stage. The sport looks much different now than it did even two years ago. And it was already headed in that direction. Times have changed since Kentucky last dominated. That 38-1 season that fell just short of history is now eight and a half years in the past. That magical run to the 2012 title — with freshmen leading the way — is more than a decade in John Calipari’s rearview mirror.
So, with the world shifting all around him, it was striking, though not necessarily surprising, to hear Calipari — a hint of defiance in his voice — utter these three words.
“I’m not changing.”
That’s what Kentucky’s coach said on Oct. 25, two days before the Wildcats’ first exhibition game and less than two weeks before Calipari begins his 15th season in Lexington.
The context of those three words: After two seasons of seemingly swimming with the current of college basketball, Calipari — in a pivotal moment for his stewardship of UK’s program — is choosing to return to the roots of his success. He knows full well what others are doing. He’s not oblivious to the trends of the sport or the makeup of the rosters that have conquered it in recent years. But that’s not the way he’s going to go.
For this team, Calipari first set out to get the best freshman recruits he possibly could. In that, he succeeded. It’s a five-star-studded roster filled with teenage dreams of national dominance and the NBA Draft, just like many of Calipari’s best teams have been.
While everyone else in the sport has gone old, Kentucky is returning to youth.
“Cal’s always proven that it’s worked with younger talent. Talent that we can mold,” said UK assistant coach Orlando Antigua. “You do need some experience, and I think we have that. But you also want to be able to have the most talent that you can have to be able to go out and try to compete. And I think that’s what this team is made of.”
Look at the various NBA Draft boards and you’re likely to see two or three Kentucky freshmen in the lottery — Justin Edwards is often listed at No. 1 — and a few others under consideration as later selections.
“Those are the guys that have had success here, that have allowed the teams at Kentucky to advance, when you get to the tournament,” Antigua said. “When you have that kind of talent level, they’re able to make plays and do things that you can’t coach. We coach ’em up. We get ’em prepared. And then we allow them to go use their abilities and their talents.”
This team has considerable talent. No one is disputing that. Just exactly how that talent matches up against the experience it will soon face has been the question hanging over this Kentucky season well before it tips off Monday night against New Mexico State in Rupp Arena.
When the Wildcats take the court that night, most wearing white won’t know what exactly they’re getting into. They do know that they want to be responsible for hanging another blue banner in the rafters above, one to go alongside the most recent addition to that revered space, which has gone unchanged for what seems like an eternity in Kentucky basketball time.
Calipari’s challenge
Everyone involved seems to understand that this is going to be a process.
Calipari’s first team — led by freshmen John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins — won its first 19 games and finished with a 35-3 record. Calipari’s most decorated team — led by freshmen Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist — finished 38-2 and won a national title. And perhaps Calipari’s best team — a mix of veterans and five-stars — got off to a 38-0 start, demoralizing some of the sport’s biggest names along the way.
This Kentucky team will not be like those Kentucky teams.
These freshmen are good, but there’s no one on the roster projected to have quite the immediate impact that Calipari’s best recruits of those early years had.
This Kentucky team also has a non-conference slate that will include No. 1-ranked Kansas in the season’s second week and three more games against top-20 teams. And then there’s the SEC, which appears to be as strong as it’s ever been.
“It is a process,” Antigua said. “It’s going to be some ups and downs. It’s going to be some growing pains. When you have a particularly young team, that’s part of it. Do we want to win and still try to learn from our failures? Yes. Sometimes we may stub our toes, and we have to keep the process going — of developing with the long picture in mind.”
Calipari has been here before. And he’s often sold the potential payoff of March to a fan base that has had to endure some cold winters of frustrating basketball in the meantime.
What that Wall-Cousins team made look so easy in year one of the Calipari era — and what that 2012 squad perfected a little later — is a rare thing, everyone eventually came to find out. Getting a bunch of freshmen — and this roster has eight of them, plus two sophomores and two fifth-year players — on the same page is difficult.
“This is really hard. And it’s hard because they gotta play different than they’ve played,” Calipari said. “What’s successful in high school may not be successful in college. And what’s successful in college may not be successful in the NBA. So my thing is you’ve gotta create habits that make the uncomfortable stuff become comfortable. …
“When you’re coaching — you asked me the question about eight or nine new guys — that’s the biggest challenge: How do you get them to create habits that will lead to their success, yet bring a team together. That means you better have good guys that are willing to share and have good hearts.”
Calipari says he has that, but he’ll obviously need more.
247Sports national analyst Travis Branham has scouted Kentucky’s freshmen for years. Asked what a UK fan’s biggest concern should be with this team, he listed several.
“Decision-making,” Branham said. “Especially with the guards. Because you’re going to have Rob Dillingham and D.J. Wagner running the point. Neither are true point guards. Both are wired to score the basketball. So you’re kind of putting those guys at the helm, needing them to go out there and make the right decisions. Make plays happen, against older competition. There’s going to be a lot of games, I think, it could get really ugly, in terms of a ball-movement perspective and also a shot-selection perspective.”
An obvious concern is youth.
“What’s going to happen when these young guys are looked on to be focal points of this team?” Branham said. “What’s going to happen when they all face that adversity? How are they going to respond?”
There’s also the balancing of roles and egos, especially with as many similarly talented players in the backcourt and a finite amount of playing time. And then there’s the frontcourt, which features three 7-footers, none of them ready to contribute. Aaron Bradshaw and Ugonna Onyenso are still recovering from foot injuries. Neither has a return timeline. Croatian freshman Zvonimir Ivisic is still waiting for his NCAA clearance. No timeline there, either.
When — if? — Calipari gets those guys back, how will he manage those minutes? And how much will those players, who have all missed out on crucial development time, be able to contribute?
“This is going to be very, very interesting to watch,” Branham concluded.
Trends against Kentucky
Eighteen of the 20 starters in last season’s Final Four had more than two years of college experience. (The other two were in their second years on campus). That’s the way the sport has been trending, and the shift away from freshmen has been happening for years.
Since Duke won the 2015 title with three freshman starters, no NCAA title team has had more than one such player. In fact, only two “true” freshmen — Villanova’s Jalen Brunson and Virginia’s Kihei Clark — have started for the winning team in a national championship game since 2015, and neither were stars in their first season of college basketball.
The transfer portal and abundance of fifth-year players have prompted more and more coaches to look there instead of the recruiting rankings to fill out their rosters.
Tennessee is the SEC’s highest-ranked team in the preseason. The Vols’ roster is jam-packed with upperclassmen.
UT coach Rick Barnes, one of Calipari’s closest friends in the profession, was asked last month about Kentucky’s contrarian roster construction. He interrupted the question at the mention of eight freshmen.
“Did he get some older guys in the portal,” Barnes asked.
Just one, he was told. Barnes raised his eyebrows slightly before saying anything else.
“Well, it’s tough. It really is, when you’re there,” he said. “I’ve got a great coaching staff, but I’ve got five guys that know what we’re trying to get done out there that can help do it. If you don’t have that, it does make it more difficult. The word that John probably doesn’t like — like any other coach — is ‘patience.’ You have to be really patient when you got that many young guys, because you want to see ’em get better every day. Most young guys will have a good day, and maybe the next day not so much. And If you tell them they’ve had a good day, you can almost bet it’s not going to be as good the next day.”
Arkansas coach Eric Musselman has done it both ways. He was a master of the transfer market before it was popular. He also had a star-studded high school class last season, one that featured three one-and-done NBA Draft picks. That Arkansas team lost four straight league games in January, dropped five of seven to end the regular season and finished with an 8-10 SEC record. “That’s a little much for me,” Musselman said of having to depend on so many freshmen. His 2023-24 team, which is ranked ahead of Kentucky in the first AP poll, will mostly rely on upperclassmen.
But while Musselman scaled it back on the new recruits, he did offer a glimmer of hope that it could work. Despite their regular-season struggles, Arkansas ended up making a March run.
“I don’t think there’s a right way or a wrong way,” Musselman said. “I thought our freshmen last year developed. We go from 10th in the SEC to growing with each game, and then it’s a team that upsets Kansas and plays in a Sweet 16. It was because that group got better. I think that there is a lot of upside for freshmen to grow over the course of a 30-game college season. It’s cool for a coaching staff to be a part of a player’s growth and be with guys that still haven’t reached their max or their upside.”
Barnes also offered Calipari an optimistic addendum to his comments.
“We all would tell you talent is a good thing to have,” he said. “He certainly has that.”
‘Whole team full of dogs’
Those talented freshmen also have confidence. And lots of it.
They all know the narrative that’s out there. You need ample experience to have a realistic shot at a Final Four run. It didn’t need to be reiterated, and the very mention led to a few we’ll-see-about-that smirks.
“I feel like basketball is basketball,” Wagner said. “That’s just what it is. If you can hoop, you can hoop. … No matter if they’re older, if they’re the same age — it don’t matter. Once you step on that floor, we’re gonna treat everybody the same.”
Edwards acknowledged the narrative but said he and his teammates aren’t even thinking about it enough to develop a chip on their shoulder over the notion that the young guys can’t succeed.
“We don’t pay it any mind,” he said. “Coach Cal believes in us. He says he would take skill over experience any day. And just seeing him do it with a freshman group before — (the youth factor) doesn’t really mean anything. … We don’t really care about that: ‘Oh, they’re older than us.’ I feel like most of us have been playing against older people our whole life. So it ain’t really nothing.”
Dillingham is just as confident.
“We’re basketball players. The talent is real,” he said. “We’ve been working at it our whole lives. So just ’cause a dude’s older than us, it don’t mean — he obviously has more experience; he obviously knows where to be — but we’re basketball players. We got confidence just like them. Honestly, I just have the confidence to play against anyone.”
Talent will be the great separator when Kentucky really gets it going, Bradshaw also said, adding that this team — young as they are — possesses a never-quit mentality.
“There’s a lot of talent on this court,” he said. “There’s a lot of talent, a lot of versatility, and it’s a lot of dogs. This is a whole team full of dogs. Regardless of who we face — experience or not — we’re gonna go at them.”
So, what has to happen for this Kentucky team to make it to the Final Four? If it’s April 4, 2024 — the day of the national semifinals — and the Wildcats are there, what is it, exactly, that got them to that point?
“That’s a great question,” Branham said, taking a few seconds before coming up with several things that need to go right.
Sharing the basketball. On a team with so many offensive weapons, keeping the ball moving is imperative. Post play. Getting those bigs back on the court to help transfer forward Tre Mitchell in the post will be a major key. The Cats will have to make shots and get hot at the right time, of course. Branham envisions this team playing with the run-and-gun style that defined the 2016-17 squad, led by freshmen De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk and Bam Adebayo — the last great collection of UK newcomers. All of this will take a lot of time and a little luck.
Ask the same question of these Kentucky freshmen — what has to happen for the Cats to make the Final Four? — and there’s even more hesitation.
“I don’t know,” Edwards said.
How could he? Or any of them. They’ve never been here before.
Their coaches have, however, and that’s something.
Antigua was discussing some of Wagner’s character traits and on-court abilities, getting more and more excited with each sentence, a kind of wonder in his voice as he spoke about what the 18-year-old looks like now and what he could become by the end of this season.
That unknown, which so characterized the early days of the Calipari era, is back. And the hope and excitement that it can generate — working with young players to make that jump and then, maybe, watching it actually happen — is quite something.
“And that’s what makes Cal different and special,”Antigua said. “Everyone else is going the other way. And he’s going (back) to doing what we know how to do best. Mold those young men and put them on the stage and empower them and allow them to go and be great.”
Why will this work?
Can this Kentucky team be great?
The Cats will start the year at No. 16 in the AP poll, the lowest preseason ranking in Calipari’s 15 years at the helm. They were picked fourth in the SEC, a sign of both the league’s competitive growth and Kentucky’s relative decline.
Whether it works or not, the college basketball world is intrigued.
“It’s definitely an interesting strategy,” Branham said. “Going young when everybody else is going older. … It’s a big gamble. High risk, high reward.”
Calipari made his name as the brash, innovative, go-against-the-grain coach who seemingly always had something to prove to someone. He’s now 64 years old, a national champion and Naismith Hall of Famer with one of the friendliest contracts in college sports. But much of his fan base is beyond restless. Those major career milestones are years in the past. And while that contract, with five seasons left beyond this one — and a $33.4 million buyout next spring — is tilted in Calipari’s favor, the groans and grumbles will only get louder if this doesn’t work out.
To make his case, Calipari is going back to what’s worked best in hopes that it works again.
“Here’s one of the things that I don’t think Cal gets enough credit for,” Antigua said. “... Cal’s system is adjusting to his players. And to their talents. And sometimes that takes a little time to figure out how to best play for that particular team. And so when you have the national player of the year, you have to adjust to what his strengths are. When you have multiple guards that can pass, shoot, penetrate, then you have to adjust to those strengths. And he’s been able to do that his entire career, consistently.
“He gets a lot of credit for his recruiting. He doesn’t nearly get enough credit for what he’s able to do with the talent that he has. And how much he has to adjust, at times, to try to put them in the best light so they can have success.”
That sounds like a constant challenge.
“That’s why a lot of coaches don’t do it!” Antigua says. “That’s why a lot of coaches can’t do it. Our deal has always been to go get the best players, and then we’ll figure out how to play with them.”
The elephant in the room here is the quality that Kentucky is getting this time around.
Pretty much every major recruiting analyst has said that this 2023 class constitutes a down year, in terms of talent. Calipari acknowledged that sometimes happens when your perennial goal is to recruit the best of the best. Not every class is equal.
“In a certain year, that great class, it may be a down year,” he said.
The UK coach bristled when it was mentioned that this is considered to be one of those classes. “We got all the best of the down year,” he shot back with a smirk.
247Sports had Edwards at No. 3 in its final 2023 rankings. Bradshaw was fifth. Wagner sixth. All three are in the top 15 of Branham’s preseason NBA Draft board. Is it fair to say those players wouldn’t be ranked as high in just about any other recruiting class?
“Yes,” Branham said. “Very fair.”
Calipari spent most of this offseason talking about how his best teams have featured talent and experience, conveniently omitting that this one might not have enough of either.
But with the season nearly here, he’s finally owned up to that possibility. Now it’s time to play the games and find out.
“You know when you’ll know whether it was a down year? When the year ends,” Calipari said. “So you will know when I will know. I’m telling you, the guys that I have in this class — and that’s before Aaron even starts to play — they’re a good group. They’re a good group. And when you say, ‘It’s a down year,’ — they’re still projected to be this, that, that (in the NBA Draft). I mean, so we’ll find out.
“But look, I’m not changing. I’m going to recruit the best freshman player that I can get.”
Calipari talked about a couple of the transfers UK has added in recent years, but it was Reid Travis and Nate Sestina of whom he spoke — two guys that were brought in to help a team filled with underclassmen. One of those teams lost an Elite Eight game in overtime. The other, Calipari has repeatedly claimed, would’ve challenged for a national title if given the chance.
His last two teams have each featured five transfers among the top seven in playing time. Those two teams combined for one NCAA Tournament victory.
So now with Calipari at a crossroads, he’s choosing a different path, but one he knows well.
“Now, you could say, ‘Eh, it’s not gonna work anymore.’ Well, we’ll see,” he said. “Let’s play it out, and we’ll see.”
UK season opener
New Mexico State at No. 16 Kentucky
When: 8 p.m. Monday
TV: SEC Network
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Series: Kentucky leads 1-0
Last meeting: Kentucky won 82-60 on March 12, 1999, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at New Orleans
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