Will this be the year Kentucky basketball gets back its Final Four mojo?
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2020-21 College Basketball Preview
The Lexington Herald-Leader’s 2020-21 College Basketball Preview special section was published in the print edition on Sunday, Nov. 15. Click below to view all the stories from that section that have been published on Kentucky.com.
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News flash: John Calipari likes his team.
During a preseason video news conference late last month, the Kentucky men’s basketball coach was working through the issues of trying to play college hoops amid a global pandemic.
“We’ve got a good team. (So) I just want to play,” Calipari said. “We have to get this underway in a safe way.”
Assuming the 2020-21 college basketball season finds a navigable path through the coronavirus and to the NCAA Tournament, we will find out if Kentucky’s team is good enough to return the Wildcats to their first Final Four in six seasons.
From 2010-11 through 2014-15, Calipari and UK made reaching the Final Four look easy. The Wildcats played on the final weekend of the NCAA Tournament four times — 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015 — in five seasons, winning it all in 2012.
Alas, since the 2014-15 Cats saw their dream of an undefeated national championship end in an excruciating Final Four loss to Wisconsin, Kentucky has not been back to the college hoops promised land.
In evaluating whether the 2020-21 Wildcats have the qualities to produce a return, it seems helpful to compare the current Cats to Calipari’s prior UK Final Four teams in certain vital areas.
Top 10 recruits
Kentucky’s 2012 NCAA title team featured three recruits ranked in the top 10 of the Rivals 150 — Anthony Davis (No. 2 in the 2011), Michael Kidd Gilchrist (No. 3) and Marquis Teague (No. 5).
Both the 2013-14 Cats — who made an unexpected run to the NCAA title game — and the 2014-15 team that finished 38-1 after falling to Wisconsin in the Final Four boasted five top-10 recruits on their rosters.
Of Calipari’s UK Final Four teams, only the 2010-11 Cats (Brandon Knight No. 6) did not have multiple top 10-ranked recruits.
The current Cats have two players who cracked the top 10 of the 2020 Rivals 150: Brandon Boston (No. 5) and Terrence Clarke (No. 8).
Though below the average number (3.5) of top-10 recruits on Kentucky’s prior 21st century Final Four teams, this year will be the first time UK has had multiple top 10-ranked prospects on its roster in the past four seasons.
Veteran moxie
The 2014-15 Kentucky roster was the most experienced team of the Calipari era as measured by the number of career starts that players on that team had accumulated before the season in question.
UK began 2014-15 with a combined 164 college basketball games started.
By the standards of Kentucky’s one-and-done era, UK’s 2012 NCAA championship team was also relatively experienced with 125 combined starts.
Conversely, the Final Four teams in 2010-11 (37 combined starts) and 2013-14 (46) were two of the least-experienced of the Calipari era.
This year’s Wildcats enter the season tied with the 2019-20 Cats as the fourth-most experienced team of the Calipari coaching era.
Graduate transfer point guard Davion Mintz started 79 career games for Creighton; 7-foot Frenchman Olivier Sarr started 31 contests for Wake Forest; sophomore forward Keion Brooks made six starts for Kentucky last season; and transfer forward Jacob Toppin started three times last year for Rhode Island.
That gives the 2020-21 Cats 119 career starts entering this season — above the average of 93 prior starts on Kentucky’s four 21st century Final Four teams.
The tourney ‘X-factor’
In a sport where big-name coaches are paid millions to produce March magic, many are loath to admit a basic truth:
NCAA Tournament success/failure is massively impacted by luck.
During UK’s 2011 Final Four run, Brandon Knight beat Princeton (round of 64) and Ohio State (round of 16) with last-second shots. OSU’s William Buford had an open three-pointer at the buzzer that would have trumped Knight’s heroics.
It missed.
From Kentucky’s 2014 drive to the NCAA finals, everyone remembers Aaron Harrison hitting game-winning shots vs. Louisville (round of 16), Michigan (round of eight) and Wisconsin (Final Four).
People forget that Wichita State’s Fred VanVleet (round of 32) and Wisconsin’s Traevon Jackson (Final Four) had shots in the air at the final buzzer that would have eliminated the Cats.
They missed.
In contrast, during UK’s current NCAA Final Four mini-drought, the Cats have lost in the round of eight on a buzzer beater (North Carolina, 2017) and in overtime (Auburn, 2019).
Even if Calipari has assembled the right mix of high-end talent and veteran know-how to build a Final Four-caliber team in 2020-21, Kentucky must still hope that the March Madness gods are again ready to smile on the Cats.
This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 7:38 AM.
