Kentucky basketball was forgettable last season, but John Calipari deemed it fixable

When you are a basketball team and you win just nine games and lose 16 games in a single season, there is nowhere to go but up, right? When that basketball team is Kentucky, it better head upward in a hurry.

John Calipari knows this. He’s the Kentucky basketball coach, of course, the man who endured the Wildcats’ pandemic-induced pratfall in 2020-21, an oddball occurrence he now refers to as a “blip” in the grand history of the school’s hoops program. “I’m not even thinking about that,” he said at the team’s recent Media Day.

That’s not quite true, of course. Actions speak louder than words, even Cal’s words, and the actions of the head coach suggest he has taken steps to avoid the “blip” from becoming a recurrence. If last year was forgettable, Cal determined it fixable.

Step one, he made ample use of the transfer portal to bring his team much-needed experience. Last year’s Cats were young even by Calipari standards. Just one notable player, Keion Brooks, had played for UK the year before. And Brooks missed the first part of the season with a leg injury. The lack of experience showed. Boy did it show.

Since becoming Kentucky’s coach back in 2009, Calipari had dipped his toes into the water for a transfer or two, here or there. This year, he took a dive off the platform into the deep end, adding four to the roster — Kellan Grady from Davidson; Sahvir Wheeler from Georgia; Oscar Tshiebwe from West Virginia and CJ Fredrick from Iowa.

The quartet addressed last season’s incorrectly configured roster. The Cats couldn’t shoot from the perimeter. Grady and Fredrick should help with that. The team lacked an effective point guard — a must in Cal’s system. Wheeler should help with that. The team lacked a physical presence. The muscular Tshiebwe should help with that.

Also, last year’s edition never developed any sort of chemistry. Blame that on the pandemic, which robbed the roster of those team-building summer workouts and a normal preseason. This year, Calipari piled his players into vans and toured the state via satellite camps. The guys acted as camp counselors and coaches when they weren’t goofing off together.

“We were forced to be around each other,” Fredrick said. “And I think that helped.”

Last year’s team also lacked that mega-star capable of carrying the load. Let’s face it, while still excellent, Calipari’s recruiting had slipped just a tad in recent years. When last season mercifully ended in the first round of the SEC Tournament, the coach admitted evaluation mistakes had been made at certain spots.

So Cal shook up the staff. Time for a change. Joel Justus headed to Arizona State. Tony Barbee accepted the head coaching job at Central Michigan. Former assistant Orlando Antigua returned, and this time brought fellow Illinois assistant Chin Coleman along for the ride. You know that any Chicago-based coach nicknamed “Chin” has to be a good recruiter.

The result: “I’m having a ball,” Cal said on Media Day.

We won’t know the results until they actually start playing ball, of course. Without naming names, we’ve heard rosy practice reports from the Joe Craft Center before, only to have the production at Rupp Arena not always match the hype. Just because you have the tools in the toolbox doesn’t make you a plumber.

This year? I like the changes made and feel around this year’s team, but admit that last season has me a bit leery. The failures can’t all be explained away by COVID-19. Big-picture adjustments were called for and Calipari appears to have addressed those concerns.

On the flip side, the SEC will be no picnic in 2021-22. Other programs have benefited from the transfer portal, as well. Coaches like Alabama’s Nate Oats, Arkansas’ Eric Musselman, Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, LSU’s Will Wade and Tennessee’s Rick Barnes, to name a few, aren’t settling for second-best to the Cats.

One certainty: Kentucky will be better than its 9-16 of a year ago. How much better? We’ll see.

This story was originally published November 6, 2021 at 7:55 AM.

John Clay

Lexington Herald-Leader

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John Clay is a sports columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader. A native of Central Kentucky, he covered UK football from 1987 until being named sports columnist in 2000. He has covered 20 Final Fours and 42 consecutive Kentucky Derbys. Support my work with a digital subscription