After the Friday night exit from the Quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament, I found myself reflecting a bunch on what's to come. I've found myself sort of feeling normal after a postseason loss and that's when I knew something was wrong. This is not how it should be.
For the fifth time in the last 6 seasons, Kentucky has been booted out the conference tournament after only one game and they used to run the tables in this building. Just 12 months ago, Kentucky set a 1-4 record through 5 straight SEC Tournament games which was the worst stretch in school history at that time, then they follow it up this year with a one day show in Nashville. Their one win in 2022 was a grind-it-out fight after barely surviving the game before, so it's been an ugly performance as of late.
Kentucky used to run this event, and with ease. If you can't tell that something has changed then I'm not sure what to tell you. I don't know all of the answers, but we have to find a way to get back to how it once was. Especially when you have a coach who puts so much emphasis on waiting "until March", well, it's March now. What's the excuse? Not enough talent? Kentucky has an immense amount of more talent on its roster. Road game environment? This gym had 85% blue or greater and it felt more like a home game than Rupp Arena ever has. Players not buying in? I was feet from them as they walked off the floor after the loss. Trust me, they care, a bunch. You could see it on their faces that they were emotional and hanging their heads on the way out the tunnel. They wanted this one too.
Continuing the ugly statistics of this tournament, Kentucky started off 23-3 under Calipari in his first 26 appearances. Now, they're 1-5 in the last 6 appearances dating back to 2019.
The numbers are endless and when you sit and think about how many head-scratching facts like these we've seen over the last few seasons, it's clear that this isn't the level that Kentucky Basketball should be performing at. We have a HOF Head Coach and multiple NBA-talented athletes against a team who is just barely going to make the NCAA Tournament. There's not much excuse for that one. Losing their only game in the conference tournament is not acceptable, I don't care what anyones says. That's not even factoring in the fact that they were a 2-seed playing a 7-seed. You had a good draw for this event.
These postseason moments are starting to pile up for this basketball program. It's hard to truly compare the last few seasons because none of them have had the same players, but when covering this team we must talk about the postseason failures that have come year after year, because they are happening. We can't just look past them no matter how much we'd like to. In Kentucky's last 9 postseason games, they've lost 7 of them. I can remember a stretch with the same coach where we went to four Final Fours in five years. I know that's extreme success, and likely no coach will ever repeat that kind of run, but I think we can all agree that these past 9 postseason games aren't the standard here and we will now just have to add them to the multiple tournament exits consisting of the first round.
There's no doubt in my mind that Kentucky has the talent to do damage in March, they average the most points across any team in the country. No one can out shoot this team when they get rolling, but they just allow their opponents to name their point totals when playing us. The Aggies have only scored 90-plus points in two games this year, can you guess who they were against? I'd bet if someone did the research for how all of their other opponents did this year, their points scored versus Kentucky were higher than their season average up to that point. Listen, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but being this bad at defense less than 48 hours from Selection Sunday, who can be confident they are going to pull it together for those games? I'm not.
What also really bothers me is all of the fans who make this their yearly vacation. Seriously, Kentucky fans who don't live in the state center around their family trips for this event. Some seats here can be more affordable than Rupp Arena, they can attempt to get multiple games out of it, and it's often closer to their homes for the out-of-staters. Now they're stuck in Nashville with a cleared schedule that was centered around this team all weekend left to either go back home and lose all the money they've spent or stay and watch the other teams continue their postseason run. It's a shame because they flooded this city with a lot of passion and support and this is what they've gotten left with. I hate it for them. Kentucky fans deserve better.
To further soak in the loss like most fans have, you can watch John Calipari reflect on the game and attempt to provide answers for the ones like myself who are concerned.