LEXINGTON, Ky. — To a degree that would have been unthinkable five years ago, the John Calipari coaching era at Kentucky has begun to feel like the end days of Tubby Smith’s UK coaching regime and the final seasons of Denny Crum’s coaching tenure at Louisville.
There is something especially wrenching when the performance of a championship-level coach stops meeting the exacting standard that is excellence.
In the cases of Smith and Crum, we all know how the latter two coaching runs ended.
Smith went 44-25 in his final two seasons (2005-06 and 2006-07) at Kentucky. After a reported dispute with UK Athletics administration over the composition of his coaching staff, Tubby shocked the hoops world by taking an exit ramp out of the Big Blue Nation to the head coaching job at Minnesota.
Crum went 62-62 in his final four seasons (1997-2001) as Louisville head man. After a bitter battle with then-U of L Athletics Director Tom Jurich over the direction of the Cardinals program — one that left scars that still have not healed — Louisville’s greatest all-time coach was forced into retirement.
Going into Kentucky’s game Saturday at No. 5 Tennessee, UK and Calipari are 45-30 over the past three seasons.
Dating back to the final week of the 2019-20 season, UK is 29-29 against major-conference (the football Power Five plus the Big East) opponents.
Over the past five seasons, Kentucky has won one SEC regular-season title (2019-20). In the past five years, UK has cut down the nets at the SEC tournament once (2017-18).
In the past three seasons, Kentucky is 4-14 against ranked teams and has lost its last five such games, including all three this season.
Just last season, UK also surrendered the all-time men’s college hoops wins lead to Kansas (now plus-nine victories for the Jayhawks, 2,372-to-2,363) and the mark for all-time NCAA tourney wins to North Carolina (131 to 129).
All of that is why UK backers have grown impatient with their longtime head coach.
So are Calipari and Kentucky fans just stuck in an increasingly unhappy marriage? Let’s examine the realistic options available moving forward.
— Option one. Kentucky could fire Calipari “without cause” — in other words, for not winning enough — after this season. Based on the 10-year contract UK signed Calipari to in 2019 as he entertained entreaties from UCLA, the university would owe Calipari around $40 million if it axed the coach after the 2022-23 campaign ends.
This outcome is a no-go. Simply put, there’s no way to justify paying that large a buyout to someone “not to coach.”
— Option two. UK can hope Calipari, as Smith did in 2007, finds his own exit strategy by taking another job.
Since Texas fired Chris Beard, there obviously has been ample speculation linking Calipari to the Longhorns. Texas does not have overwhelming basketball tradition, but it is, nevertheless, a top-10 overall men’s college hoops coaching job because of a fertile in-state recruiting base and a level of resources that would make Jeff Bezos envious.
As UK coach, Calipari’s recruiting focus has been the state of Texas. Julius Randle (Dallas), Aaron and Andrew Harrison (Richmond), DeAaron Fox (Katy), PJ Washington (Frisco), Jarred Vanderbilt (Missouri City), Tyrese Maxey (Garland), Sahvir Wheeler (Houston), Daimion Collins (Atlanta) and Cason Wallace (Richardson) have all come to Lexington from the Lone Star.
A coach who could lock down the talent-rich state of Texas could make the Longhorns program a college hoops titan. However, unless the current Kentucky season takes a dramatic turn upward, it’s not clear that Texas could “sell” hiring Calipari off his recent record.
— Option three. Even with the present unrest and feeling of uncertainty surrounding Kentucky basketball, the most-likely scenario is that the UK head men’s basketball coach in 2023-24 will be John Calipari.
The history of coaches surviving long term once they have “lost their fan base” is not great. Still, the big difference between Calipari now and Smith and Crum at the end of their coaching tenures in our state is recruiting.
According to the 24/7 Sports Composite Rankings, Calipari has signed the players ranked No. 1 (DJ Wagner), No. 2 (Justin Edwards), No. 6 (Aaron Bradshaw), No. 9 (Robert Dillingham) and No. 28 (Reed Sheppard) in the class of 2023.
Even acknowledging that many Kentucky backers have become jaded by Calipari-era, highly touted recruiting classes not leading to the desired-level of team success, that is an intriguing core around which to build a team.
There may be no love lost between Calipari and the UK Athletics administration but both have a shared interest in the lucrative but mislabeled “lifetime contract” that Kentucky gave the coach in 2019 not ending up looking like an epic blunder.
This is a novel thought, but maybe this offseason, Calipari and his UK superiors could try pulling in the same direction. Work together to put in place the right support personnel — maybe more X’s and O’s acumen on the Wildcats coaching staff; an NBA-style personnel director to navigate the transfer portal — that could help Calipari get back to succeeding.
When there is not an obvious way “out” of an unhappy marriage, sometimes the best option is to figure out how to make the union function again.
