Would Kentucky Really Be Better Off Firing John Calipari?

Fans are calling for Kentucky to fire John Calipari after they lost to Oakland in the first round of this year's NCAA Tournament.

John Calipari / Joe Sargent/GettyImages

The Oakland Golden Grizzlies upset the Kentucky Wildcats in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday. It marked the fifth season in a row in which Kentucky failed to make it through the first weekend of March Madness. It has now been a decade since the Wildcats have been to a Final Four and people want John Calipari fired.

The main problem, in addition to Calipari's résumé, is a massive buyout. It would cost the University of Kentucky roughly $33 million to get rid of one of the biggest names in college basketball. Then they would need to find another expensive, high-profile coach. That's a hard pill for any school to swallow, no matter how successful the athletic department is financially.

More than the money, fans are upset with the results. And even more than that, how the coach is handling them. Just a few weeks after Calipari said his team was "built for March," some feel he shifted the blame onto the players after the tournament loss. During the postgame press conference, Calipari repeatedly brought up the fact that many of his players were freshmen and these are the kinds of mistakes that happen with young players.

What Calipari has always loved about his teams is that he keeps getting older, but they stay the same age. He's always attracted five-star recruits who were destined to be one-and-done. Now, partially thanks to the COVID seasons, other teams are getting older. He is left to reckon with the fact that recruiting blue-chippers might not be the best thing for his program.

"I'll look at other ways that we can do stuff, but this thing here is a different animal," he said after the loss. "We're playing teams that, our average age is 19 and their average age is 24 and 25. So, do I change because of that? Maybe add a couple older guys to supplement it."

The obvious answer should probably be ... yes? You would think Kentucky's basketball amenities and profile would be attractive to upperclassmen as well, so it 's hard to feel bad for the guy just because he has to talk to slightly older recruits who already went elsewhere.

Even if he doesn't start recruiting through the transfer portal, hasn't he earned some patience? Since taking over at Kentucky in 2009, the Wildcats are 410-122. They've been to four Final Fours and won the 2012 national championship. They've also won six SEC regular season titles and six SEC Tournament titles.

This feels like an insanely reactive case of what have you done for me lately? In 2020, Kentucky was 25-6 headed into the 2020 NCAA Tournament before it was canceled because of COVID. The next year they went 9-16 in the weird pandemic season. Keep in mind that was Cal's first losing season since he started 10-18 at UMass — in a previous century.

Over the last three years Kentucky has won 22 or more games and finished in the top three in the SEC every season. They've been right there, but have also disappointed in March, winning just one game in the last three tournaments. Judging a team's entire season based on how they do in a very random single-elimination tournament is actually kind of nuts. It's cool that he won a title, but how much luck was involved?

Just look at UConn last year. Dan Hurley's team finished the regular season fourth in the Big East standings and lost in the Big East Tournament semifinals. But the Huskies went on the right six-game winning streak and now they're immortalized.

How many rounds would Kentucky have had to have won this year to have earned Calipari some job security? Would a win over Oakland have been the confidence booster the boosters needed? Or would they have also needed to beat a North Carolina State team that lost to Virginia during the regular season?

It's hard to believe Calipari hasn't earned the right to struggle late in his career at Kentucky. Especially when struggling means winning 20 games, competing in the SEC, and at the very worst being a team on the NCAA bubble that always gets the benefit of the doubt.

Stephen Douglas is a staff writer at The Big Lead.