2012-13 Kentucky Wildcats Basketball Season Review: The Dark Side of “One and Done”?

Jan 12, 2013; Lexington, KY, USA; Texas A

The dark side of the one and done system

Despite the problems surfacing after the Louisville game, there was still time to save the season. Kentucky had a very manageable January ahead with no ranked teams on the schedule except for Ole Miss and a very really chance to go 8-0 and get back into the national rankings and set the stage for a solid NCAA seeding. All cylinders seemed to be clicking during a 90-38 win over Eastern Michigan, but old problems resurfaced in the SEC opener, a road trip to Vanderbilt.

This was not the usual Vanderbilt team as they came into the game at 5-6 and even on the road, this should be an easy win. Kentucky jumped on the Commodores 13-4 and took a 26-12 lead in the first half. Kentucky had a 16 point lead with 13:17 left and inexplicably let the Commodores back into the game. Kentucky allowed a 18-0 Vandy run and surrendered the lead to the Commodores. Ryan Harrow led Kentucky in scoring and nailed a three pointer for UK’s first FG in nearly 9:00 to give UK the lead back at 61-59 and it took a disputed Nerlens Noel jumper with :18 remaining to secure the 60-58 win over the Commodores 60-58. Kentucky allowed themselves to be outrebounded by the Commodores. It was supposed to be a homecoming of sorts for Alex Poythress but he fouled out in just 23 minutes and took just three shots.

If eyes were not opened after Vandy, they were against Texas A&M. John Calipari put Alex Poythress to the task of covering Elston Turner and said later that it was a mistake. Elston torched Poythress for nine points in the first six minutes of the game but Turner had his way with pretty much every defender and racked up 40 points en route to a 83-71 upset over the Cats at Rupp, which was Kentucky’s second home loss.

The most disturbing thing about this loss is that Kentucky was still making the same mistakes over and over again. John Calipari noted how frustrating it was to coach a team that had yet to buy into his system this late in the season:

"They only thing that brings about a change is crisis. I’m hoping it’s Texas A&M, but it may not be. We may need to get hit on the chin three or four more times before they look at each other and say, ‘It’s not working this way.’ You can tell a young man, ‘This is how you have to play for us to win,’ and he may look at that and say ‘It’s not how I want to play.’ But he’ll nod yes, ‘OK, I’ll do it, I’ll do it,’ but in the crunch of the game he doesn’t do it, which is…It costs you. There’s no one here — I’ve got great kids. They want to please me, and they are looking for affirmation. There’s no question, but it’s the point of totally buying in to how you have to play."

At this point the various pundits were not only discussing the chances of UK missing the NCAA Tournament, but that this was the darkside of the “one and done” system.  Most NBA draft scenarios still had Nerlens Noel, Alex Poythress, and Archie Goodwin as lottery picks in the 2013 draft.  This affirmed the views of some that were critical of Calipari in that the players that he recruited were just there to spend a year in Lexington and achieve nothing by the NBA minimum age limit and leave behind nothing but an underachieving team to show for it.  After the Texas A&M loss, it was looking like that was what this team was destined for.

Kentucky bounced back with a lackluster win over Tennessee and Nerlens Noel willed Kentucky to a closer than the score indicated 75-53 win over Auburn.  The one bright part of the season was the dominating play of Noel.  He had 10 points, 9 boards, and 7 blocks versus the Tigers.  Any progress Kentucky made was squandered in a trip to Alabama to face the Crimson Tide.  In a gut check type of game, Kentucky was gutless and it seemed like the inconsistency of Poythress had spread to Ryan Harrow.

After his return, Harrow had been solid, but the Alabama game was his worst in quite a while.  Harrow was 3-12 from the field and saw considerable time on the bench in favor of Jarrod Polson.  Alex Poythress took just three shots and fouled out in just 15 minutes.  This game showed a clear divide on this team.  Even the 13 rebounds by Nerlens Noel and four three pointers by Julius Mays could offset a team that still did not “get it” .

"They ran and got good shots and got second shots that we didn’t. They had nine offensive rebounds, but three were very late, tip-in plays that killed us. You stop them, and they miss it, but they tip it in. Tough game, but we still haven’t totally bought in – individual players haven’t. Obviously late in the game, we took chances, we left our feet, we fouled and we let them get offensive rebounds. It’s all that we talked about late in the game – give them one tough shot , do not foul, do not leave your feet and if they beat us that way, we will go home and say, ‘hey, they just haven’t bought in and that is what we are doing.’ This is a team that is growing and getting better, we showed signs of that and now we took a step back – this is a hard place to play.”"