Why Mitch Barnhart is confident Kentucky basketball can make 2014-esque postseason run
With five regular-season games remaining, Kentucky basketball might find itself firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble, but UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart is not ready to give up on the hope of a special March run.
“I think we can get to the postseason and make a run like we did in 2014,” Barnhart told the Herald-Leader on Thursday after the university’s Board of Trustees athletics committee meeting. “I truly believe that. I watch how hard the kids are working. I travel with them on the road, and I see their dedication to the game. They love the game, and I think they genuinely care for one another. They’re trying really hard.”
Barnhart’s expression of confidence came one day after Kentucky recorded a 71-68 win at Mississippi State, moving the Wildcats to 2-7 in Quadrant 1 games, the NCAA’s measure of the most challenging games on a team’s schedule according to its NET ranking.
Now BracketMatrix.com, which averages projections from 96 bracketologists, projects Kentucky as one of the final at-large teams in the field. That is a steep drop from a preseason No. 4 ranking but does represent improvement from the outlook after an embarrassing loss at Georgia last Saturday.
During his address to the athletics committee, Barnhart pointed to injuries as a primary contributor to Kentucky’s current struggles in both men’s and women’s basketball.
All but two of the Wildcats’ primary rotation players have missed at least one game this season. Most recently, John Calipari’s team has been playing without guards Sahvir Wheeler (ankle) and CJ Fredrick (ribs). Oscar Tshiebwe, Jacob Toppin, Cason Wallace, Daimion Collins and Lance Ware have all missed time at various points this season, too.
Even short-handed, Kentucky was expected to avoid losses like home against South Carolina or at Georgia though. Failing to do so has led a vocal portion of the fan base to question whether the current struggles are part of a concerning trend that included a 9-16 season in the pandemic-altered 2020-21 season and a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s last season.
Barnhart is choosing to look at the current season differently, offering the reminder that while last season ended with a shocking loss, Kentucky was considered one of the best teams in the country for much of the year.
“I want to just concentrate on where we are and make sure we just continue to find a way to play one game, play the next game and continue to grind away,” he said. “Let’s get to the tournament and figure out where we go from there in terms of the team and just making progress. They’re working hard. We’ve got good young guys on our team.
“We all know what the standard of Kentucky basketball looks like. That’s not lost on anybody.”
As for Barnhart’s comparison to the 2013-14 Wildcats, it is not the first time someone associated with the program has called on that team’s unlikely run to the national championship game as a No. 8 seed as proof a late-season turnaround is possible.
That team started the season ranked No. 1 with players hyping the possibility of going undefeated. Instead, it struggled for much of the year, dropping three of its final four regular season games, including a shocking loss at a South Carolina team that finished 14-20. After being blown out by 19 points at No. 1 Florida in the regular-season finale, Calipari made his famous “tweak” to how Kentucky initiated its offense, helping spark a run to the SEC Tournament championship game, which ended in a one-point loss to the Gators.
Like the current Wildcats, the 2013-14 team struggled for much of the year in its marquee games, going 1-6 against ranked teams before the NCAA Tournament. Still, the résumé was good enough that many bracket projections had the Wildcats slotted high enough that the No. 8 seed was seen as a disappointment on Selection Sunday.
Calipari’s current squad still has the chance to secure its NCAA Tournament bid with Quad 1 games remaining against Tennessee, Florida, Auburn and Arkansas in the regular season, plus another opportunity to boost the résumé in the SEC Tournament. Win multiple games in that stretch, and Barnhart’s optimism about a 2014-esque run become more plausible.
Of course, the 2014 Wildcats needed a series of dramatic game-winning shots from Aaron Harrison to reach the title game. That team could have easily lost at any point along the way had just one of those shots not fallen, making the regular-season struggles the lasting impression of a squad that entered the year with so much hype rather than an unforgettable postseason.
Barnhart knows optimism alone will not lead the current Wildcats to changing how the season is perceived over the next few weeks, acknowledging he “understands the angst that we all have.”
“All that is possible,” he said. “That’s all before us. I’ve been on the committee, I’ve seen how that thing works. Are there 15 great teams in the country right now? I don’t believe so. Not from my lens. I think there’s some really good basketball teams, but there’s a lot of really good basketball teams.
“… You look at who’s beaten who. We beat Tennessee at Tennessee. Tennessee beat Alabama. Tennessee is coming back here. Arkansas beats us, Mississippi State goes and beats them. We go down and beat Mississippi State. I’m telling you it’s apple cart upset. That doesn’t mean when we lose we’re OK with it. That’s not the message. The message is, ‘All right, didn’t get what we wanted in that one, let’s go try to find a way to get better.’ I think that’s what Coach is doing.”
Saturday
No. 10 Tennessee at Kentucky
When: 1 p.m.
TV: CBS-27
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Tennessee 20-6 (9-4 SEC), Kentucky 17-9 (8-5)
Series: Kentucky leads 159-77
Last meeting: Kentucky won 63-56 on Jan. 14, 2023, in Knoxville, Tenn.
This story was originally published February 17, 2023 at 11:22 AM.