NASHVILLE, Tenn. — John Calipari loves to remind everyone that he does not really care about the SEC tournament, as if that isn’t abundantly clear by now. Kentucky’s latest one-and-done performance here, a 97-87 loss to Texas A&M and a quarterfinal exit as the No. 2 seed, means Calipari has won just two total games in the last five SEC tournaments. Calipari’s open disinterest in the event was less offensive to a fan base that loves it when he nevertheless won the thing regularly. The 2018 SEC tournament title was his sixth, and fourth in a row, and last.
To be fair, the whole point of his stance on conference clambakes is that they aren’t the tournaments that matter most. That one comes next. Calipari knows how his team does in the NCAA Tournament is all anyone will remember.
“We’re playing for a bigger picture,” Calipari said after another SEC flameout Friday. Still: “I felt for the fans. They put everything into being here. You want to win for them. But our kids did too. I told them: When you walk in this arena, you’re going to think you’re in Rupp Arena. Let’s go play for them, have some fun, let them see who we are.”
But that’s actually the much bigger problem: The Wildcats once again showed exactly who they’ve been all season. They followed their latest big win — the regular-season finale at Tennessee — with another befuddling loss, courtesy of another nightmarish performance on defense. The way the Aggies beat Kentucky (again) played out like a rerun of so many previous losses and a preview of its worst nightmare, like a dress rehearsal for what fans have feared for months, that despite breathtaking offensive talent, they’ll be done in by a deficiency that neither Calipari nor his players seem willing or able to fix.
The Cats (23-9) shot 50 percent, hit 11 3s and scored 87 points, yet never really had a chance. They led for 41 seconds, trailed for 38 1/2 minutes. Not even one of Rob Dillingham’s signature scorchers, when he dropped 27 points and almost singlehandedly cut a 16-point deficit to six in less than three minutes, was enough to overcome the latest lifeless defensive performance. Kentucky will enter the NCAA Tournament with a top-10 offense nationally and sub-100 D, which has now allowed at least 89 points in six of nine losses.
“When you can score the ball, you got a chance,” Calipari said. “Now, come on, let’s just guard a little bit.”
John Calipari’s teams have had short stays in the postseason recently. (John Bazemore / AP)
But is that even a realistic expectation 32 games into the season? There have been blips of competent defense, like when the Wildcats held Tennessee, Auburn and Arkansas under 40 percent shooting on the road, but those have been exceptions, not the rule. Texas A&M scored 97 points the first time it beat Kentucky, too. Wade Taylor IV and Tyrece Radford combined for 59 in that meeting, 55 in this one, bombing in wide-open 3s and driving to the rim at will in both games. The Aggies ranked 360th in 3-point percentage but somehow hit 23 of 58 3s in two games against the Cats.
How does that happen?
“We’re young, so sometimes we just do stuff like that,” Dillingham said. His solace: “Our team comes back after losses. We take it, and that’s our wake-up call.”
While it’s true that Kentucky has only lost consecutive games once this season, there’s no more snooze button. The next time that alarm goes off, the season is over.
“We’re not done yet,” senior Tre Mitchell said. “We have a team full of hungry dudes, (and) this minor setback is going to motivate a lot of dudes to play that much harder come the tournament.”
To make a Final Four requires four consecutive games of focused performance. To win a national title takes six straight.
Kentucky did win its final five regular-season games and seven of its last eight, which rekindled belief that these Cats can, in fact, make a deep run in March. But then they face-planted again Friday night, following such a familiar script, and all the lingering doubts come rushing back. See, the thing about this next tournament, the only one that matters to Calipari? He’s also won just one game in that tournament since 2019.
As bad as UK fans want to stay longer than one night in Nashville again someday, they desperately want to make the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament even more. They want to reach the program’s first Final Four since 2015. And they want to hold onto this year’s team, which has been as wildly entertaining as it has been maddeningly inconsistent, for as long as possible. They’re supremely talented and as likable a group as Calipari has assembled.
The general sentiment in Big Blue Nation right now: Don’t waste it. The players feel that too.
“We all talk about it a lot, just how close our team is,” senior Antonio Reeves said. “That’s the mentality we’re going to have, taking everything a little bit more serious now, because everything from here on out is win or go home.”
“And we don’t want this season to end,” sophomore Adou Thiero said. “We all love each other. We all support each other. We all want to see each other succeed. We all want to keep seeing that and take that as far as we can go with it, and not let that end short.”
(Photo of Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard and Texas A&M’s Tyrece Radford: John Bazemore / AP)
