When Will Calipari Hit The Magic Number 500?

Since UK has made Calipari’s 500th victory officially unofficial, we now get to wait for Coach Cal to make it to win number 500 again.  Or, more appropriately, wait until the NCAA decides to recognize Calipari’s 500th victory.  Needless to say, what was a rather mundane and after the fact celebration last year, the road to Cal’s 500th will receive much more fan and media attention this year after all the fuss.  Depending on how the season goes, the celebration may not even happen next year – but there are better odds that it does than it doesn’t.

Calipari has 467 official victories in the eyes of the NCAA.  This means he will need 33 more to celebrate Half a K – so at what point in the season will that happen?

While we don’t know the full schedule at this point, we do know there will be 16 regular season SEC games.  As far as out of conference, we don’t know the official number of games yet but generally there is somewhere between 13 and 15 prior to conference play – and usually around 14. Assuming that 14 is the number of OOC games UK plays, this will give them 30 chances at a victory prior to post season play.

Best case scenario (Kentucky goes undefeated in the regular season,) UK has a bye going into the SEC tournament and will play for their 33rd victory and coach Cal’s 500th in the SEC title game.

Of course, for each loss that postpones the 500th victory one game.  If Kentucky goes in to the NCAA’s with 4 losses – they are playing for a Final Four berth at the same time Cal is trying to hit the 500 mark.  With 6 losses?  We’re looking at the championship game.

Interesting to think about at least.