The end was swift, but Kentucky’s ‘Record Breakers’ brought back joy this season.
The celebration of Kentucky basketball over the years has included giving favorite teams affectionate nicknames. The examples include the Fabulous Five, the Fiddlin’ Five, Rupp’s Runts and the Unforgettables.
When Kentucky was rolling earlier in the season, a caller to John Calipari’s weekly radio show suggested the 2021-22 team deserved a nickname. The caller suggested “The Record Breakers.”
Oscar Tshiebwe had set a Rupp Arena record for rebounds with 28 against Western Kentucky.
TyTy Washington had set a program record with 17 assists against Georgia.
A 98-69 victory over North Carolina was Kentucky’s second-most lopsided victory in the series.
Later, an 80-62 victory at Kansas was UK’s second-most lopsided victory in Lawrence.
An 18-0 home record marked only the 14th unbeaten record for Kentucky in the 46-year history of Rupp Arena.
Tshiebwe went beyond record breaking to near unprecedented achievement. He had double-doubles in UK’s last 16 games and 28 overall. The latter made breaking David Robinson’s NCAA record of 31 in 1985-86 seem plausible, if not likely.
Of course, Kentucky flirted with the wrong side of record breaking in losing to Saint Peter’s in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday. UK became only the 10th No. 2 seed to lose to a No. 15 seed.
Kentucky was distinctive to the end, which Calipari called “sad” and “devastating.”
Though the defeat against Saint Peter’s led to seemingly inevitable fan grumbling, it was not as distinctive as it might initially seem. Kentucky was one of five teams ranked in Ken Pomeroy’s top 25 that lost first-round games Thursday. Besides No. 8 Kentucky, the others were No. 13 Iowa, No. 21 UConn, No. 22 San Francisco and No. 25 San Diego State. Two more — No. 19 LSU and No. 20 Virginia Tech — were knocked out Friday.
This reinforced the idea of parity in college basketball.
So did Kentucky’s season. More than a third of UK’s games (14 of 34) were decided by a single-digit margin. Kentucky’s record in those games: 7-7.
Kentucky started the season with a 79-71 loss to Duke and finished the season with the 69-62 loss to Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference Tournament and the 85-79 overtime loss to Saint Peter’s.
After the loss to Saint Peter’s, Calipari said a rash of injuries blunted earlier momentum and changed Kentucky’s team for the worse.
Kentucky played only 16 games at full strength this season.
The MIAs included Keion Brooks (missed one game because of an illness), Davion Mintz (missed three games because of an illness), Jacob Toppin (missed four games because of a shoulder injury; then played only six minutes at South Carolina because of a sprained ankle, then missed the Florida game), TyTy Washington (limited to nine minutes at Auburn and missed one game because of an ankle injury; then left a game against Florida because of a lower leg injury, limited playing time at Tennessee, then missed two more games), Lance Ware (missed three games because of an ankle injury); Sahvir Wheeler (a neck injury cost him most of the game at LSU plus two other games; then was injured late in the game at Tennessee with an upper extremity injury before missing two more games).
That’s not counting CJ Fredrick, the transfer shooter from Iowa who sat out the entire season after undergoing surgery on his left hamstring.
Kellan Grady said the adjusting and readjusting caused by injuries contributed to losses in three of the final six games, and four in the final nine.
“The biggest thing was we got away from guarding like we were guarding on a high level,” he said.
This was reflected strikingly in the backcourt. Calipari likes to say that in preparation for NCAA Tournament play, he wants multiple UK players to have scored 25 or more points in a regular-season game.
During the regular season, nine opposing guards scored 25 or more points against Kentucky. That included Vanderbilt’s Scotty Pippen Jr., twice (32 and 33), Mississippi State’s Iverson Molinar (30), Arkansas’ JD Notae (30), Alabama’s Keon Ellis (28), LSU’s Xavier Pinson (26), Ole Miss’s Matthew Murrell (25) and Duke’s Trevor Keels (25).
Before Thursday’s game, former UK player Scott Padgett, now an assistant coach at Manhattan, said guards Daryl Banks III and Doug Edert were key to Saint Peter’s chances of beating Kentucky.
The pair combined for 47 points and made seven of 10 three-point shots.
Another record-breaking moment that the Big Blue Nation surely hopes will not occur is at hand. If Kansas were to beat Creighton on Saturday, the Jayhawks would tie Kentucky for the most all-time victories with 2,353. Then Kansas could surpass UK by beating the Richmond-Providence winner in the Sweet 16 round on Friday.
Records aside, Calipari spoke of this season’s good vibrations. Fans seemed to love Tshiebwe and his teammates. Effort (Tshiebwe) and making three-pointers (primarily Grady, Washington and Mintz) made for fan-player love and surely helped build player-coach love.
“Sad day,” Calipari said late Thursday night. “Not just that we lost the game, but that this season ended with this group, and how much joy they brought to me and our staff.”
