Kentucky Wildcats could still have one of nations most talented rosters next year

Kentucky Wildcats

It’s still tough to believe that it is over.  That is the reality and the finality of March Madness and the NCAA Tournament.  I’ve long maintained that winning the NCAA Tournament is the toughest feat in sports and that sometimes the best team going into the tournament is not always the winner.  All it takes is one bad game to send you home.  One bad call.  Even a lapse of five minutes is enough to wreck your entire season.  Regardless, the Kentucky Wildcats season is over and while we appreciate this team and all they have done, it’s time to look forward.  There will be departures and hopefully some of these guys will stay around another year.  If not, it’s not unreasonable to expect that the Kentucky Wildcats will still be one of the more talented teams in the nation.  And that Kentucky will be back.  And so will John Calipari. 

"Either way, know this: He’ll be back … possibly as soon as next season. It remains undetermined exactly who will and won’t return for Kentucky. But you can reasonably expect the Wildcats to lose their top seven players — specifically Devin Booker, Willie Cauley-Stein, Aaron Harrison, Andrew Harrison, Dakari Johnson, Trey Lyles and Karl-Anthony Towns. On the other hand, at this time last year, most assumed both Harrisons would turn pro, and they didn’t. So who knows? But even if the top seven all enter the NBA Draft, Kentucky will still have a core of Tyler Ulis, Alex Poythress and Marcus Lee, and a recruiting class featuring Skal Labissiere, Isaiah Briscoe and Charles Matthews. Calipari could theoretically add Malik Newman to that roster. Then he could use a lineup that looks like this: G: Tyler Ulis G: Isaiah Briscoe G: Malik Newman F: Alex Poythress F: Skal Labissiere That’s just a random projection, by the way. Again, the Wildcats could actually return more than Ulis, Poythress and Lee. And they might miss on Malik Newman but get Cheick Diallo and Stephen Zimmerman. It’s all guess-work, at this point. But the central point remains the same — that John Calipari will, one way or another, open next season with one of the sport’s most talented rosters, if not the sport’s most talented roster, per usual."

Mandatory Credit: Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports

In the end, Saturday’s loss is still going to leave a bad taste in many Kentucky Wildcats fans mouths.  For a long time.  Like the Memphis game versus Kansas, you get the lingering feel that John Calipari let this game get away.  I know that I am going to be haunted by the three straight shot clock violations that Kentucky had when up 60-56.  And I know that even on the day that he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame, John Calipari will take a lot of heat.  But in the end, if you go by the numbers, it appears that Calipari’s decision to slow the game down may have been right.  The execution was all wrong, but the decision may have been right.

"This will involve more math than the usual “hot take,” so hang tight while we take a tour of probabilities. We’re most interested in one big question: Did Kentucky increase its chance to win by slowing its pace, thereby giving each team fewer possessions? At first blush, it seems like Kentucky was better off slowing the game down. The Las Vegas point spread and over-under line projected a final score of roughly Kentucky 67, Wisconsin 62 before the game. (FiveThirtyEight’s model had a similar projection, favoring Kentucky by 4.5 points.) In a game of 60 possessions per team, that translates into 1.12 points per possession for Kentucky and 1.04 per possession for Wisconsin. I simulated the final six minutes of the game 100,000 times using these offensive efficiency figures and a few guesstimations.1 Up by 4 in a game with 12 more possessions per team2 Kentucky won 81.9 percent of the time. That winning percentage increased to 83.3 percent in a game with 10 possessions per team instead.3"

Mandatory Credit: Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

In the end, this was an amazing season.  It provided us with far more joy and reason to be proud than heartbreak.  And this was a great bunch of kids.  And there is still no other coach I would rather having coaching the Kentucky Wildcats than John Calipari.  Coach Cal took to twitter one last time yesterday to provide a proper sendoff for this team.  And this is why kids want to play for this coach is because you get the genuine feel of family.