Not a ‘death knell.’ Don’t lose hope over losses in Vegas in a season like this one.
Jay Bilas brought new meaning to the term basketball “analyst” Monday. He all but asked Kentucky fans to lay on the couch, take a deep breath, talk about the problem and then realize that the two defeats in Las Vegas last week are not cause for anxiety.
Why? Because all teams — including Kentucky — will lose games in an especially competitive season that lacks a dominant team, the ESPN basketball analyst said.
“So, if Kentucky fans think, ‘Oh, jeez, we’ve lost a few games, that’s the death knell,’ it’s not,” Bilas said in a telephone conversation. “This is not a normal year. So very good is good enough. If you’re healthy and playing well at the end of the year, there’s no reason to think you can’t win the whole thing.”
Despite the losses to unranked Utah and then-No. 5 Ohio State, Kentucky qualifies as one of the teams that can win the 2020 NCAA Tournament, Bilas said.
“Kentucky’s good enough to beat anybody,” he said. “And there’s nobody out there they can’t beat. It’s just that the universe of teams that can beat Kentucky is a little bit bigger than it’s been in some years.
“But that’s true of everybody. There’s nobody out there that can say, ‘Evansville or Stephen F. Austin, that can’t happen to us.’ Of course, it can.”
UK fans surely don’t need reminding that Evansville won at then-No. 1 Kentucky on Nov. 12, and that Stephen F. Austin won at then-No. 1 Duke two weeks later.
Since the preseason, Bilas and many others have been talking about how college basketball would be unusually balanced this season. Further evidence came when Gonzaga was voted No. 1 in The Associated Press 25 poll announced Monday. The Zags became the sixth No. 1 team already this season. Earlier No. 1 teams were Michigan State, Kentucky, Duke, Louisville and Kansas.
The record for most teams ranked No. 1 in a season is seven: Houston, Indiana, Memphis, UNLV, North Carolina, UCLA and Virginia in 1982-83. And there’s three months of polls remaining to anoint two or more new No. 1 teams and break that record.
Kentucky’s fall from No. 6 to No. 19 in The Associated Press top 25 poll announced Monday might seem alarming. But an even bigger drop has happened in John Calipari’s time as Kentucky coach. UK fell from No. 8 to out of the top 25 in the 2012-13 season after losses to two unranked teams: at Notre Dame and home to Baylor. And that was before Nerlens Noel’s torn ACL dropped the floor out from under that UK team.
And Kentucky has fallen more than 13 spots in the AP poll eight times with the biggest fall being from No. 2 to unranked in December of the 1964-65 season.
Like 2009-10
Bilas likened this season to 2009-10. There are a number of good teams, but no dominant team. As evidence, Bilas recalled that three teams seeded 10th or worse — Cornell, Washington and Saint Mary’s — advanced to the Sweet 16 round of the 2010 NCAA Tournament.
Bilas saw no compelling reason for this season featuring good, but not great teams. It happens, he said.
A reboot of talent has been a contributing factor, he said. Of the Atlantic Coast Conference’s top 15 scorers last season, 13 are gone, he said. The Associated Press All-America teams from last season had the same ratio of departures and returnees.
Similarly, only two of the 16 players voted to First- and Second-Team All-Southeastern Conference last season returned this season: First Team guard Breein Tyree of Ole Miss and Second Team guard Skylar Mays of LSU.
“You’re not going to replace talent like that by snapping your fingers,” Bilas said. “It was an odd happening. The talent is down. The freshman class it not particularly great. It’s good, but not great.”
On his radio show Monday night, Calipari said he was not concerned about any other teams wanting to elevate themselves above the pack. Kentucky doing so was his aim, he said.
As Bilas sees it, the air is not so thin at the elevation necessary to do so.
“This is a year where very good is good enough,” he said. “There is not an overpowering team.”
Next game
No. 3 Louisville at No. 19 Kentucky
When: 3:45 p.m. Saturday
TV: CBS-27
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Louisville 11-1, Kentucky 8-3
Series: Kentucky leads 36-16.
Last meeting: Kentucky won 71-58 on Dec. 29, 2018, at Louisville.
