Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: Is too much talent too much?

Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

Perhaps it was the fact that Rick Pitino cut down the nets in Louisville that created this feeling of desperation heading into this season, but UK fans and the media fueled the hype.  And what we have is a team that is very good, but imperfect.  And no team of eighteen and nineteen years old in college sports have been perfect.  Yet that was expected this year for some insane reason.   Players that we just watch on TV are suddenly questioned for their lack of effort and just like that, all the joy is sucked out of the college basketball season.  And people accuse John Calipari of having too much talent on his team while tossing and turning at 3:40AM in the morning.   

In the end, there is no explanation or reason I can pinpoint why this team loses games.  And that we can chalk up to “That’s sports”.   Just yesterday, national stories like this were written about how this team is about to turn the corner and even Calipari’s comments suggest that a righting of the ship is eminent.

"“Why am I getting excited right now is I feel like we have a chance,” Calipari explained. “The No. 1 thing is that you have to have the talent to win it. We have the talent. Then you have to work on energy, chemistry and being a player-driven team. A coach-driven team can be good, but a player-driven team can be special, and every day we are getting closer on that. But ultimately you have to have talent. And we have the talent.” Talent was never a question for this Kentucky team coming into the season, as it entered with the highest-ranked recruiting class in the history of most ranking services. But after early losses to Michigan State, Baylor and North Carolina, the idea of a dominant UK team took a back seat to the reality of the difficulty of winning with such a young group. The grind of the year caused some to say they felt they could see the wear and tear of the struggle on their coach’s face, but Calipari says that isn’t the case. “Everyone for some reason thinks this year has been frustrating. No it hasn’t,” Calipari assures. “If we had bad kids, then it would be frustrating, but we don’t. I have had to get this group to change how they think. That is the hardest thing. Then you add in getting them in shape and defining their games and it has had to be a major turnaround quickly.”"

And that is where we are at.  To be honest, even with all the hype on this team, they really have been in every game they have lost.  And that is what I like about this team and why I still keep hope alive for a decent tournament run.  And it’s not a sleep deprived thought.  Like John Calipari, I like this team for a couple of reasons.

One is that no team in the country is going to blow Kentucky out.  Kentucky has too much talent and because of that will stay in most games.  They have taken the best shot of everyone on their schedule and been down a lot several times, but are back in the game when the clock hits 4:00.  Second, this team has been through the wars together.  In the last two games we have run the gamut of emotions, from the jubilation of the LSU game to the crushing defeat last night in which players were reportedly crying.

And finally, no other team has more room to improve than Kentucky.  Florida is as good as they will be.  And UK ‘s freshmen traded blows with them for about thirty-four minutes like a heavyweight fight.  So while it appears that time is running out, no team in the country wants to see Kentucky in their NCAA bracket, especially a one seed in a “#1 vs #4” pairing.

And in the end, John Calipari is much better at analyzing his team and figuring this out than I am.  And his record speaks for himself.  So I trust him.

Even though this team has too much talent.