Kentucky's March blues are a massive problem

Another early exit in the NCAA Tournament arrived for Kentucky basketball on Thursday night in Pittsburgh. Hall of Fame head coach John Calipari returned home and saw his team lose another postseason game in March. That has become a very disturbing trend for a program that Calipari once deemed the “gold standard” in college basketball.

After defeating Houston in the 2019 Sweet 16, Calipari owned a 31-7 NCAA Tournament record and a 23-4 SEC Tournament record. The Wildcats had made seven regional final appearances in 10 years and claimed six SEC Tournament titles in 10 seasons. But that good run came to a screeching halt in Kansas City five years ago when Kentucky blew a double-digit lead in the first half against Auburn in the Elite Eight shortly after blowing an eight-point lead with three minutes left against Tennessee in the SEC Tournament semifinal two weeks prior.

Since that moment, Kentucky’s results in March have been awful. There is no getting around that. Following the loss to No. 14 seed Oakland, the brutal run in the postseason continued.

The Wildcats are 2-8 outright in their last 10 postseason games in the SEC Tournament and NCAA Tournament. Calipari’s team has been a betting favorite in all of those games.

Kentucky was a double-digit favorite in first-round losses to Saint Peter’s (2022) and Oakland (2024). From 1985-2019, the UK basketball program had zero losses to No. 12 seeds or lower. Since then, the Wildcats have had two losses to 12 seeds or lower in the last four NCAA Tournament appearances.

The Wildcats have a massive postseason problem that needs to be fixed. Through his first decade in Lexington, John Calipari’s teams were cash in the postseason and had numerous deep postseason runs with multiple Final Four appearances. Those have disappeared since COVID-19.

Kentucky basketball is underachieving when it matters the most.