Pictured above: Coach Calipari (left, in suit) holding the 2012 National Championship trophy (picture from Sports Illustrated)

Kentucky’s longtime head coach and revolutionary to the sport, John Calipari, has signed a five-year contract to Arkansas, departing from Kentucky and leaving the Wildcats’ coaching window wide open to the masses. The stunning news of the contract’s finalization came on April 7, the eve of the National Championship matchup between Purdue and UConn. Calipari’s departure follows a meeting with Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart resulting in Barnhart claiming Calipari would remain as the head coach for the following season.

There is no doubt that Coach Cal was a successful coach for the Wildcats. In fact, he was one of the best coaches in college basketball for his fifteen seasons in the program. His overall record in Lexington was 410-123, leading the ‘Cats to four Final Four appearances in 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015, respectively. In 2012, he would win a National Championship with a powerhouse team led by future NBA players Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Terrence Jones, Marquis Teague, Doron Lamb, and Darius Miller. That’s one thing the Kentucky basketball program frequently had under Calipari: excellent recruiting. Kentucky was often able to bring in numerous five-star players using Cal’s recruitment system, and Calipari would revolutionize the “new age” of college basketball with the “one-and-done” system. Kentucky would bring in a number of high-ranked freshmen, banking on the idea that their pure talent together would bring postseason success and that they would quickly be drafted to the NBA and earn their contract money. This system worked for the first few years of Calipari’s contract, leading Kentucky to two Elite Eights and one Sweet Sixteen after the last 2015 Final Four. 

It is to be noted, however, that the last time Kentucky made the Elite Eight was 2019. Since then, Kentucky has either failed to make the tournament (2021), lost in the first round (2022, 2024), or failed to move past the second round (2023). All of these failures come in the wake of having a borderline top-ten roster every year based on their high-level recruits. What’s happened to the once successful “one and done” system that genuinely brought in Final Four appearances nearly every year, and once led Kentucky to be the most fearful program in the college basketball landscape?

Pictured above: Camden teammates DJ Wagner (left) and Aaron Bradshaw (right), both 5-star commitments to Kentucky in 2023 (picture from the Courier-Journal)

Let’s look no further than the 2023-24 season for the Wildcats. Kentucky would lose prominent players like Jacob Toppin, Savhir Wheeler, Cason Wallace, Chris Livingston, and 2022 Naismith Player of the Year winner Oscar Tshibwe to the 2023 NBA Draft or the transfer portal. In their place, Calipari had no issue bringing in four 5-star recruits in guards DJ Wagner and Rob Dillingham, forward Justin Edwards, and center Aaron Bradshaw. He would also take in four-stars Reed Sheppard and Ugonna Kingsley to add to the already-loaded recruitment class. They would be ranked 16th in the preseason AP Poll. Graduate Antonio Reeves, Rob Dillingham, and Reed Sheppard would help lead the team through the season. Yet, names like five-stars DJ Wagner, Justin Edwards, and Aaron Bradshaw went silent. Bradshaw found himself out of the starting lineup by February, while Wagner did not reach his expected productivity within his 29 games played. The team was primarily made up of underclassmen, with four seniors on the roster, and only two of which getting any significant playing time. All of this culminated in an 80-76 loss to no. 14 Oakland in the first round of the tournament, leading Kentucky to go 1-3 in the last three tournament years. 

Kentucky went first-round exit, second-round exit, back to first-round exit in 2024. What happened against Oakland? The end of the Calipari system that won a championship and led the Wildcats to further solidify their “blue-blood” status, that’s what happened. Barring a historic shooting night by Oakland redshirt graduate Jack Gohlke, where the guard went ten of twenty from three, scoring 32 as he purely made field goals from beyond the arc, the Wildcat freshmen simply looked terrible. Wagner did not score, going 0-5 in field goals, Dillingham went 2-9 with only 10 points, and Edwards also had 10 but missed easy shots in crunch time. Furthermore, the 2024 SEC Freshman of the Year in Reed Sheppard missed everything, finishing the game with 3 points on 1-5 shooting. The truth relies on the class: Oakland was led primarily by juniors and seniors, only having four underclassmen on the roster and one of which (Isaiah Jones) who actually had consistent minutes throughout the season. Kentucky had the biggest names in college basketball going into the season, just to be beaten by “no-names.” It’s true that you’ll most likely never see Gohlke in an NBA jersey while you might see Sheppard in one, Sheppard was the one that got outmatched in the end.

Pictured above: A screenshot of John Calipari’s goodbye video to Kentucky (picture from the New York Post)

Calipari stated in a social media video on April 9 that Kentucky simply needs to “hear another voice.” Cal says it best, Kentucky would have been stuck in his system for eternity if Calipari continued to lead the Wildcats. There’s never a doubt that Calipari built the program to sign with to have an easy NBA path, as he helped 14 players be named to the first round of the NBA draft in his 15 seasons, as well as there currently being 28 Kentucky players in the NBA or its G-League in the 2023-24 season. Yes, Cal helped a number of young players allow their names to be heard and have a quick transition from high school stardom to an NBA roster spot, a quick transition from hustling to making money.

Enter the NIL. Name-Image-Likeness. The NIL is a recent implementation of allowance for student-athletes to earn money in advertisements off of their name, as well as to earn money from the colleges they play for. The NIL practically is a free agency and contract system for college sports. Instead of having to work extra hard and grind further to ensure your family will get that NBA money, college students can now attain that money sooner. The NIL is a great thing, as it legalizes payment for college athletes, a widely-debated topic, and allows these athletes to earn for their successes and hard work. However, within the largest sports like football and basketball, the NIL has turned the offseason into free agency, akin to the NFL or NBA. More than ever, you can watch players dip their names into the transfer portal and leave one virtual contract to another. An example would be Skyy Clark, an incoming junior guard who just recently transferred to UCLA, after playing his sophomore year at Louisville, where he had transferred previously from Illinois. The NIL brings college basketball to nearly be robotic, and the emphasis on bringing in multitudes of high-level recruits has diminished quickly. 

The NIL has also placed an emphasis on returning to the need for experienced upperclassmen. Case in point, Kentucky’s loss to Oakland. It doesn’t matter how many 5-stars you have if they simply ride the bench. The players at the top of the depth charts are once again juniors and seniors. Ultimately, that’s who is actually leading tournament victories. Look at those hungrier, lower-seeded teams filled with juniors and seniors leading the group, either upsetting freshmen-filled high-ranked teams or playing them extremely close. Also, the 2024 NBA draft class is unsurprisingly filled with foreign players at the top of draft boards and fewer college stars, as the NIL does not make a college player’s drive to make the NBA quick for earnings apparent anymore. This is what Calipari excelled at, helping these players reach the top of the draft boards after freshman year and getting their rookie contracts as soon as possible. More stars will stay in college longer to max out their NIL endorsements, reaching the NBA already millionaires. The one-and-done system is virtually over now, but you will still obviously see NBA-ready talent like Class of 2024 five-star recruit Cooper Flagg leave Duke after one year to be a lottery pick.

Arkansas’ former coach Eric Musselman helped propel the Razorbacks back to national prominence with two Elite Eight appearances back-to-back in 2021 and 2022, and a Sweet Sixteen appearance in 2023. Musselman left the Razorbacks’ coaching role vacant after taking a job at USC on April 4, leading the way for Calipari to enter the fray. The question remains if Calipari will still keep Musselman’s drive in the program alive, and whether or not he will take the new opportunity and job as motivation to utilize the transfer portal and balance the NIL with his extreme recruiting success. In the meantime, Kentucky hired BYU coach and former Kentucky player Mark Pope to the Wildcats’ sideline. Pope went 110-52 in the last five seasons with BYU, with two tournament appearances. The 2023-24 BYU team, who seeded 6 in the tournament, was a top-15 offense in college basketball. The future of Kentucky looks strange, but slightly promising, with Pope at the helm.