There is something to be said about the fight this Kentucky team showed throughout an entire year of misfortune.
The final result was the furthest from what anyone would have predicted back in the fall, but it would be tough to argue that the Wildcats didn’t put everything they had into this season of unpredictability. In the end, it came down to overall talent–and Kentucky simply didn’t stack up in comparison to the competition.
From COVID-19 restrictions to schedule changes and cancellations to key injuries and whatever other crutch you would like to throw out there, Kentucky was put through the wringer from start to finish. A 9-16 record to close out the year is symbolic of everything that happened this season. Outside of Dontaie Allen’s potential game-winning 3-pointer not finding the bottom of the net on Thursday afternoon, everything that the fanbase excepted to happen this season, didn’t.
But despite blowout losses to the likes of Georgia Tech and Alabama along with soul-crushing defeats to Notre Dame, Louisville, and the majority of the intra-conference schedule, head coach John Calipari never witnessed his team give up. In what has been the toughest year in recent memory off the court, Kentucky never stopped playing on it.
“My teams historically played like if they lost, they were going to the electric chair,” Calipari said after the loss to Mississippi State. “This team did not. [At] Times we did. But maybe physically we weren’t capable of that. But you know what, here is what I would say. For them to play how they started that game, then to play the second half the way they played, says something about them. They never quit on anything. They didn’t quit one time this year.”
It would have been easy to quit, too, considering the circumstances. It’s been said endlessly already, but this edition of the Kentucky Wildcats was robbed of the true experience of what it means to play for the blue-and-white. They didn’t get the cheers of 20,000-plus people supporting them from the stands or the typical college lifestyle. While that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have played better on the floor, it was a smaller symptom of the larger issue: they weren’t experienced enough to beat teams down the stretch.
“This experience for them, they’ve been cheated,” Calipari added. “But you know what, I’ll say this, they could have taken better advantage of the opportunity that was here playing-wise. I wish I could have helped them more. I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have thought of different things.”
Calipari will have plenty of time to think those things over. The season has come to an unfortunate, but relieving end, without a bid for the upcoming NCAA Tournament. Looking ahead to the 2021-22 season, the staff will have to do more if they want to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
