Kentucky head coach John Calipari has dug a hole for him and it does not look like he will be climbing out anytime soon.
After season 1-6, the worst program since the 1926-27 season began, the United Kingdom scored three consecutive wins for an open conference game in Mississippi State against Vanderbilt and Florida. ‘Just when you thought the Wildcats were picking up steam, they followed it up with setbacks against Alabama and Auburn, while the former was a 20-point hit at Rupp Arena – the worst home loss of the Calipari era – and the latter was’ a head-scratching defeat in a game in which the Tigers shot down only 37% of the field and 17% of three.
The team was this near the surface, ready to take a deep breath and swim back to the beach. However, after achieving an eighth loss in the year and declining opportunities for quality wins, it feels like they have been dragged back underwater. And Calipari may be the anchor that pulls them down, at least in the short term.
Calipari, a Hall of Fame coach with a national championship under his belt, deserves the benefit of the doubt. With one title, four Final Fours and seven Elite Eights in 11 seasons as the head coach of Kentucky, it’s hard to be critical every now and then. He was a damn good coach and a good face of the program.
This year? Things just felt like … else. The coaching left a lot to be desired, and he was no better on the PR side of things. Between adjustments, lineups, substitutions and rotations in general, Calipari looked lost and desperate through 11 games at a time. And then, when you answer questions about said coaching decisions, the head coach, who over the years seems to have always had the answers, is left speechless.
That battle off and on the field reached a new high during Kentucky’s 66-59 defeat on Saturday at Auburn and they only continued in the aftermath. During the match, Calipari unsuccessfully experimented with three big lineups, kept the top two scorers of the match on the bench to open the second half and continued to force the most struggling players at the top of the turn, including frustrating decisions .
Usually the leash is kept long for the struggling beginners, but short for the productive bankers. Rinse, repeat.
After the match, Calipari’s hypocritical speech was received with fierce (and well-deserved) criticism.
“What you’re trying to do is, I’m not trying – I want to win every game I coach, but the other side is: I’m not trying to take anyone’s heart away,” Calipari said of retaining Dontaie Allen and Jacob Toppin – Kentucky ‘s two leading scorers at halftime – to start the second half. “We did not start half so badly, so that was not the case. It’s not like you’ve quarterbacks. He played a bad quarter, so I’m going to play this other quarter. You do not practice like that. What you do is divide them. ‘
“I’m not trying to take anyone’s heart away.”
What exactly does this mean? Because if you watch Calipari coach and hear him speak from the floor, it certainly does not apply everyone players. This only applies to his five-star talents and star transfers, but not those who fight minutes and shots off the bench.
It’s the same coach who, when asked about Dontaie Allen’s one – minute award during Kentucky’s loss to North Carolina, told reporters, ‘I could have played him today, but I give these guys who’s in front of him the room they need to be able to miss shots. … You try to give them space and encourage them to shoot. ‘
After not playing a single minute in the Louisville game with Allen, Calipari came up with an excuse not to play guys in the second half if they did not play in the first game, which still makes sense.
“There were two times I thought about putting him in, once in the first half, that I wanted because I could play him in the second half,” Calipari said. “If I don’t play a man in the first half, and it goes on, you know. But he has a chance; it just was not tonight. And I coached the game to win. That’s all I did. ”
It equaled a sprained ankle for Terrence Clarke and six consecutive losses for Calipari think about giving Allen extended minutes. And when he finally did, the Red Shirt freshmen dropped 23 points to 7-11 from three to want Kentucky to a double overtime victory in the Mississippi state.
And if we are completely honest, Calipari would have hung the first-year guard BJ Boston at the end of the regulation and the whole of both overtime periods in the same way as the first-year guard BJ Boston, in the same way that Bruiser Flint did if he did not nine minutes before the time was expelled? 17 of Allen’s points were scored after that moment.
My gut says no.
Only today, Calipari failed to put Allen – who led the team by eight points at halftime – in the second half to the point of 13:42, and then pulled him out at 10:43. Back with 7:57 to go back, back with 6:20 left. Go back with 5:36 to go out at the point at 4:00. With 2:18 left, at the last buzzer.
Never more than three minutes of continued play in the second half, and Calipari’s reasoning was that Allen had passed too many openings.
“At the end of the day, we held plays for Dontaie and he did not shoot the ball,” Calipari said. ‘That’s why I took him out for the first time. One time we ran two things for him with shots and he would not take it. ”
Oh, he also highlighted Allen’s defensive interruptions for the umpteenth time this season.
“Dontaie looked very good in the second half. He was buried, but they attacked him defensively. We had a lot of crashes and could have changed the setup. At the end of the day, we got too tough. ”
Since when are occasional defensive interruptions and a lack of shot attempts more damaging to a team than wide fouls, poor shot selection and turnover?
In an ideal world they are not. In Calipari’s world, it’s a different story.
And the stubbornness goes far beyond Allen. Toppin was in the same boat all season and tonight again and finished with 10 points (3-4 FG), six rebounds and one steal within 22 minutes. Along with Allen, he carried the Wildcats at halftime, but still did not see the floor until 15:27, as Calipari “did not try to take anyone’s heart away.”
Elsewhere, Calipari took Devin Askew out of the starting lineup as he went through his early-season battle. He responded well and has since rejoined the top five, but there was an adjustment there. Isaiah Jackson and Lance Ware saw their minutes change with varying production, as one would expect. Even Olivier Sarr, who has largely maintained a longer leash this season, has found himself on the bench in a handful of matches for long periods.
As for those at the top of the rotation, Boston has played no less than 25 minutes in a game this season, while Clarke – who has missed five straight games with an ankle injury – has played in 31 minutes or more in the five games has. was completely healthy, along with 25 minutes in the North Carolina game before an injury. The top ten recruits have the freedom to make mistakes, unlike any other player in the rankings, even if the production and efficiency did not follow.
‘I am anot to try to take someone’s heart away, ” he says, if he does not realize this unwritten rule, it is only a select few. Calipari is the first one to tell you that he will do whatever it takes to put the team first – he has sent a player home to ‘think’ and do a little soul searching to get his priorities in order ‘to re-establish the dressing room in December – but its rotations and replacements tell a different story.
‘Players first’, sure, but this approach has been a star this season. And as we sit at 4-8 this year hoping an NCAA tournament slips through the team’s fingers, it’s clear that the approach is not working right now.