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Kentucky head coach John Calipari has dug a hole, and it doesn’t look like he’ll be coming out anytime soon.
After starting season 1-6, the worst schedule since the 1926-27 season, the United Kingdom notched three straight wins to open the conference game at Mississippi State, against Vanderbilt and Florida. Just when you thought the Wildcats were picking up speed, they followed with back-to-back losses to Alabama and Auburn, the first beating 20 points at Rupp Arena – the worst home loss of the Calipari era – and this the latter being a mind-boggling loss in one game, the Tigers shot just 37% from the field and 17% from three.
The team was this close to reaching the surface, ready to take a deep breath and swim to shore. After picking up an eighth loss of the year and the chances for quality wins dwindle, it feels like they’ve been pushed back underwater. And Calipari may be the anchor pulling them down, at least in the short term.
Calipari, a Hall of Fame coach with a national championship under his belt, more often than not deserves the benefit of the doubt. With one title, four Final Fours and seven Elite Eights in 11 seasons as Kentucky’s head coach, it’s hard to be too critical not to live up to expectations every now and then. He’s been a damn good coach and a damn good face to the program.
This year? Things just felt … different. Coaching left a lot to be desired, and it hasn’t been better on the PR side. Between in-game adjustments, rosters, substitutions and rotations in general, Calipari has looked lost and desperate time and time again through 11 games. And then, answering questions about said coaching decisions, the head coach who seems to have always had the answers over the years was left speechless.
Those struggles on and off the field reached a new high in Kentucky’s 66-59 loss to Auburn on Saturday, and they only continued after that. During the match, Calipari unsuccessfully experimented with three great formations, kept the match’s two top scorers on the bench to open the second half, and continued to force-feed the struggling players at the top of the rotation, among others. frustrating decisions.
As usual, the leash was long for struggling beginners, but short for productive bench players. Rewind, repeat.
After the game, Calipari’s hypocritical justification came under harsh (and well-deserved) criticism.
“What you’re trying to do is I’m not trying to – I want to win every game that I coach, but on the other side, I’m not trying to take anyone’s heart. either, “Calipari said when asked. to keep Dontaie Allen and Jacob Toppin – Kentucky’s top two halftime scorers – on the bench to start the second half. “We didn’t start off so badly at half-time, so we didn’t. It’s not like you’re replacing quarters. He played a bad quarterback so I’m going to play that other quarterback. You don’t train that way. What you do is submit them. “
“I’m not trying to delight anyone’s heart.”
What does that mean exactly? Because when you look at Coach Calipari and hear him talk on the floor, it certainly doesn’t apply all players. This only applies to his five-star talents at the top of the rotation and all-star transfers, not those who fight for minutes and shots on the bench.
This is the same coach who, when asked about Dontaie Allen’s one-minute allocation in Kentucky’s loss to North Carolina, told reporters: “I could have (played with him) today. , but I give to those guys who are in front of him. the part they need to be able to miss shots. … You try to give them space and encourage them to shoot.
After failing to play Allen for just one minute in the Louisville game, Calipari made up an excuse not to play guys in the second half if they didn’t play in the first, which still doesn’t make sense.
“There were two times I thought about putting him on the line, once in the first half, which I would have liked to have done because I could have played him in the second half,” Calipari said. “If I don’t play a guy in the first half and it keeps going, you know. But he’s going to have a chance; it just wasn’t tonight. And I trained the match to win. That’s all I did.
It took a sprained ankle for Terrence Clarke and six straight losses for Calipari to equalize thought about giving Allen long minutes. And when he finally did, the Red Shirt rookie dropped 23 points on 7-11, dropping three in Kentucky for a double overtime victory at Mississippi State.
And if we’re being completely honest, would Calipari have placed first-year guard BJ Boston at the end of settlement and the entire two overtime periods the same way Bruiser Flint hadn’t done? eject nine minutes from the end? 17 of Allen’s points were scored after that time.
My instinct says no.
Today alone Calipari failed to put Allen – who led the team in points at half-time with eight – in the second half to the 13:42 mark, then l ‘retired at the 10:43 mark. Come back with 7:57 to go, come back with 6:20 remaining. Come back with 5:36 a.m. to go, exit at 4 a.m. With 2:18 to go, at the last buzzer.
Never more than three minutes of continuous play in the second half, and Calipari’s reasoning was that Allen put in too many open shots.
“At the end of the day we were playing for Dontaie and he wasn’t shooting the ball,” Calipari said. “That’s why I took it out the first time. We once ran two things for him with hits and he didn’t take them.
Oh, he also pointed out Allen’s defensive failures for the umpteenth time this season.
“Dontaie looked good in the second half. He was fouled, but they attacked him defensively. We had a lot of breakdowns and could have changed the lines. At the end of the day, we were hardened.
Since when are occasional defensive breakdowns and lack of shooting attempts more damaging to a team than wide-opening misfires, poor shot selection and turnovers?
In an ideal world, they are not. In the world of Calipari, it’s a different story.
And stubbornness goes way beyond Allen. Toppin has been in the same boat throughout the season and again tonight, finishing with 10 points (3-4 FG), six rebounds and a steal in 22 minutes. With Allen, he was carrying the Wildcats at halftime, but he still didn’t see the ground until 3:27 pm because Calipari “(wasn’t trying) to take anybody’s heart.
Elsewhere, Calipari pulled Devin Askew out of the starting lineup as he went through his early season struggles. He responded well and has since joined the top five, but there has been an adjustment there. Isaiah Jackson and Lance Ware saw their minutes fluctuate with fluctuating production, as one would expect. Even Olivier Sarr, who has maintained a longer leash for the most part this season, has found himself on the bench for long stretches in a handful of games.
As for those at the top of the rotation, Boston has yet to play less than 25 minutes in a game this season, while Clarke – who has missed five straight games with an ankle injury – has played. in 31 or more minutes in the five games he was completely healthy, with 25 minutes in the North Carolina game before the injury. The top ten rookies had the freedom to work on mistakes unlike any other player on the roster, though production and efficiency didn’t keep pace.
“I am not try to take anyone’s heart, ” he said, not realizing that this unwritten rule only applied to a privileged few. Calipari is the first to tell you that he will do whatever it takes to prioritize the team – he has sent a player home to “think and do some soul searching to put his priorities in order” to reset them. locker rooms in December – but his rotations and substitutions continue to tell a different story.
“Players first”, of course, but that approach comes with an asterisk this season. And sitting at 4-8 on the year with hopes of an NCAA tournament birth slipping through the team’s fingers, it’s clear that approach just isn’t working right now.
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