With a 78-73 win against Mississippi State last Saturday, the Kentucky Wildcats improved to 2-6 on the year, ending a six game losing streak. So far, this season has been miserable for the Wildcats. It has been their worst start to a season record-wise since 1926, and they will need to change things very soon as they enter SEC play if they want to have a chance at making the NCAA Tournament. But what do they have to fix? They have one of the most talented and athletic rosters in the country, but their record is still terrible. This is a question that many college basketball fans have been asking, and the answer is not as simple as many think. Some may blame the fact that they have had a difficult schedule, and others will claim that it is because of their poor shooting in important moments of games. Though these are true, the main reason why Kentucky has struggled this season is because of a lack of upperclassmen and their leadership and experience.
This has been a problem that many of the “Blue Bloods” have been facing recently, particularly North Carolina last year and Duke (somewhat) this year, but the Wildcats have seen it the worst. To put it simply, teams filled with freshmen tend to struggle early in the season, especially in this day and age. The transition from high school and AAU ball to the college style is extremely difficult. High school and AAU games are extremely fast paced, and many players do not have as much focus on the fundamentals of the game. Through their athleticism and speed they’re able to simply out-perform their opponents. This does not work in college basketball, which puts much more of a focus on half-court sets and an overall slower pace. John Calipari and the Wildcats are the best program at recruiting these high school stars in the country, so they have had to deal with this transition beforehand. The main issue this year is that they do not have any returning upperclassmen to show their new teammates transition into college play. The two seniors in the starting lineup, Olivier Sarr and Davion Mintz, are both transfers, so they are as inexperienced with Kentucky’s system like the rest of their teammates.
The inexperience of Kentucky’s freshmen stars, such as Brandon Boston Jr. and Terrence Clarke, has been glaring so far, and it has affected the team (it is understand that they did not have as long of a time to prepare for the season thanks to COVID-19, but nobody expected them to struggle this much). As said earlier, Kentucky’s shooting has been abysmal this year (29.1% from three and 64.6% from the free throw line), but that is just the tip of the iceberg. The Wildcats have also committed an astonishing 16.1 turnovers per game, and their defense has been extremely shaky. Though the guards are able to use their athleticism to get steals and create pressure, they are constantly jumping at pump fakes, allowing the offense to get to the basket and either score or go to the foul line and put UK in foul trouble. In summary, the perfect way to describe this team is that they lack discipline. Without discipline on the court, even the most talented of teams do not stand a chance against a more fundamentally-sound team.
To put things in perspective, let’s look at the last four teams to win the national championship. The 2019 Virginia Cavaliers were led by the juniors Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome, and Mamadi Diakite. The loaded 2018 Villanova Wildcats were led by the juniors Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges. The leaders of North Carolina’s squad in 2017 were the seniors Joel Berry II and Theo Pinson along with the junior Luke Maye. Villanova in 2016 was controlled by the seniors Ryan Arcidiacono and Daniel Ochefu along with the juniors Josh Hart and Kris Jenkins. Can you see the similarity in each of these teams? Though they all had talent that was not mentioned, none of them would have won a championship without the leadership of their juniors and seniors. In an era of college basketball that will be known for the many one-and-done freshmen, the teams with upperclassmen end up being on top.
At the same time, teams that get much of their production from freshmen cannot have success. When Duke won the championship in 2015, some of their most important players were the freshmen Grayson Allen, Tyus Jones, and Jahlil Okafor. Even John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats won a championship in 2012 led by the freshmen Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Marquis Teague. Both of these teams did have some contributing upperclassmen, but their most notable players were freshmen. The problem is that the players on these teams had the maturity that most 18-19-year old kids don’t have, and this is something that the players on Kentucky this year lack. They have problems such as not having discipline on defense because these things take time.
Though there are exceptions such as the two shown above, it is rare to see young teams win championships. The last four teams to win it all had players that had played together for 3-4 years already compared to the players on the Wildcats this year that have played 8 games together. This is the main reason why we see so many upsets in the tournament such as Loyola-Chicago making the Final Four in 2018: the teams in power conferences, especially Blue Bloods like Kentucky and Duke, tend to not value experience as much as other teams. Even bigger programs such as Villanova and Gonzaga have been great lately because they often recruit players that will be there for 3-4 years, since they know that it takes time for great players to develop.
Can Kentucky right the ship and sneak into the tournament this year? Truthfully their chances are getting smaller as the season enters January, but it is still possible. However, making the NCAA Tournament or even the NIT should not be their main concern right now. The team should be looking to fix everything they are doing wrong on both offense and defense in every game to slowly improve. Most of this pressure should be put onto John Calipari. There is no doubt that Calipari is a great coach, but he needs to show his players how to integrate their skills to the college game the right way even if that means being harder on them. There should also be some responsibility put onto the players themselves. Davion Mintz has recently shown that he can be a player that the team can depend on, but some of the freshmen such as Boston, Clarke, and Isaiah Jackson might have to step up and show why there was so much hype for this team before the season began. WIthout this, even making the NIT could be difficult, and things will need to change extremely soon if they want to even have a chance at not being the first Kentucky team to miss the tournament since 2009.
In summary, the story of the 2020-21 Kentucky Wildcats should be a warning to any team that wants to follow their path. Teams with many talented and highly-recruited freshmen have the potential to be great, but they are nothing without the leadership of upperclassmen.
Comments