The political news had gotten too depressing, so I switched to the Tennessee at Kentucky basketball game in search of some fun.
Bad choice.
For awhile Coach John Calipari’s Wildcats played some of their best ball of this crazy season. But then they let the Vols get a 12-0 run that put them back in the game. And again they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Tennessee 82, UK 71.
The record now is 5-12 with seven regular-season games remaining. Even I can do the math. The Cats must win out to have a .500 season. But that’s highly unlikely considering that they must travel to Knoxville. They also have games against Texas A & M, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas.
Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award three times. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades and is perhaps one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby. His book “Last of a BReed” is available on Amazon.
Their last chance to make the NCAA field apparently will be the Southeastern Conference tournament March 10-14 in Nashville. But barring a miracle, they’re more likely to lose in the first round than make any serious noise.
Now I know that UK is hardly the only marque program to be having trouble in the season of Coronavirus. Duke, for example, is .500 after yesterday’s loss to resurgent North Carolina in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Still, none of the big names has slipped as badly as Kentucky. Why? Well, there are as many theories as there are championship banners hanging in the rafters of Rupp Arena.
It’s not a lack of size because UK has as many athletic bodies as anyone. It’s partly inexperience, but every Wildcat team has been inexperienced since Calipari came along and became the king of one-and-done players.
But this team simply can’t shoot. And it doesn’t have the pride to finish strongly. And it makes silly plays on both ends of the floor. And, worst of all, it hasn’t shown any improvement as the miserable season has staggered along.
Against Tennessee yesterday, the Cats shot 38 per cent from the field and 24 per cent from behind the three-point arc. They got 23 points off the bench from Keion Brooks Jr., but only four combined field goals from the normally reliable Davion Mintz, Dontaie Allen, and supposed one-and-done prince B.J. Boston.
They had a 10-point lead midway in the second half. It has become a scenario that has become all too familiar to the most entitled fan base in the nation. Some apparently are calling Calipari to be fired, apparently forgetting that he has a lifetime contract.
Nobody in the league fears UK anymore. They’ve become just another team. Whether or not they can recapture the mystique that was started by Adolph Rupp in 1930. Maybe the normal order will be restored once the virus is contained. Then again, maybe it won’t.
I’ve followed UK basketball since I was 12 years old, and the 1953-’54 team went 25-0. Overemphasis on hoops was invented in Kentucky, and there’s a good reason: Kentucky always has been such a poor state that it needed something it could feel proud about, and that turned out to be basketball, mainly at UK, but also at Louisville, Western Kentucky, and many other colleges and university.
I mean, the Commonwealth needed to be good in basketball.
I wish I could blame the whole mess on Trump, but UK has done this without anybody’s help. Maybe Calipari needs to re-evaluate his recruiting strategy and his style of play. Or maybe he just needs to start finding players to whom the prospect of wearing a jersey that says “Kentucky” on the front means something.
I think I’ll have to go back to politics to get myself cheered up.
