Despite having a roster made up of potential NBA players, the Kentucky Wildcats suffered another humiliating March Madness exit on Thursday. This time, at the hands of the No. 14 seed Oakland Golden Grizzlies. Within the past four years, Kentucky has lost in the first round twice, lost in the second round and missed the NCAA Tournament altogether. As a result, the calls have started to grow centering around Kentucky head coach John Calipari's job security.
But despite those growing calls, it appears as if the Kentucky Wildcats will be hanging on to John Calipari for a while longer. If the program sought to buyout Calipari's contract anytime soon, they'd owe him close to $33 million dollars as per Pete Thamel of ESPN.
That's a ton of money to pay a coach to leave and although Kentucky certainly has a deeper war chest than most schools, it's extremely difficult to envision them going that route.
The last time that Kentucky made it past the second round of March Madness under Calipari was back during the 2018-19 season when they reached the Elite Eight. That team had several future NBA players on the roster including Ashton Hagans, Keldon Johnson, Nick Richards, Immanuel Quickley, Tyler Herro and P.J. Washington.
Overall, John Calipari has had strong success at Kentucky. He's amassed a record of 410-122 in 15 seasons. He's only missed the NCAA Tournament twice during that time frame and only once had a losing season in 2020-21. During his first three seasons as head coach from 2009-2012, he led Kentucky to an Elite appearance (2010), a Final Four appearance (2011) and a national championship (2012). All the while having multiple players go on to the NBA including several max contract players.
If the Wildcats continue to falter early in the NCAA Tournament though, don't expect rumors surrounding Calipari's job security to go away.
John Calipari reflects on Oakland loss in March Madness
Following the loss to Oakland, Calipari admitted via CBS Sports that this was a tough loss to swallow.
“I told them after, this one is painful,” Calipari said. “And the reason is, there are other times you lose a game and you know your team is what it is. But this team I really felt was built for this moment. Even though we were young, I knew that could catch us.”
The Wildcats were a No. 3 seed and heavily favored over the No. 14 seeded Oakland. But with the game being close down the stretch, it was Oakland who showed incredible poise and confidence in pulling off the upset.
The Wildcats got 27 points from Antonio Reeves and 14 from Tre Mitchell. Rob Dillingham had ten points off the bench. Despite the early loss, Kentucky will likely still have multiple players selected in the 2024 NBA Draft with Dillingham in the running to be a top five pick.
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