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Kentucky Basketball: 3 biggest takeaways from 2020-21 disaster season

By Nathan Dillon

LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY - NOVEMBER 25: John Calipari the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats gives instructions to his team against the Morehead State Eagles at Rupp Arena on November 25, 2020 in Lexington, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY - NOVEMBER 25: John Calipari the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats gives instructions to his team against the Morehead State Eagles at Rupp Arena on November 25, 2020 in Lexington, Kentucky. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Kentucky Basketball (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Kentucky Basketball (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /

By its own standards, Kentucky Basketball was historically bad this season. In the last 100 years, Kentucky has experienced just four losing seasons. To find a Wildcats group with a record as bad as this year’s (9-16 record; 0.360 win pct.), you must go back to the 1920s. Even the 1989 probation team – with eight scholarship players and shooting guards playing center – won a greater portion of their games.

The last time Kentucky was this bad, the world was recovering from a world war and a different pandemic. The Southeastern Conference didn’t even exist. Teams had designated free throw shooters; Kentucky’s DFT was named Fred Fest. Worse yet, the United States was still in prohibition! Wildcat fans couldn’t even legally have a glass of bourbon as a consolation for bad losses.

So, I think we got the point across. This Kentucky team just couldn’t win. Let’s take a few minutes to review what we learned about this season and look forward to 2022.

It wasn’t just Kentucky

This isn’t to deflect from the fact that Kentucky struggled; it’s to put these struggles into context. Since the NBA introduced the one-year rule, Kentucky and its comparable peers (Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Michigan State) have experienced higher levels of annual roster turnover than other schools. To be ready for NCAA Tournament play, these programs need to improve drastically from the preseason to March.

It’s not a coincidence that all of these teams had below-average seasons in 2021. Restrictions and disruptions due to a global pandemic affected these programs disproportionately. Less time for a group of new teammates to build chemistry makes for a rocky start to the season. Otherwise, I’d have to argue that we had a college-coach version of Space Jam, where a bunch of MonStars sucked coaching talents away from Calipari, Coach K, Roy Williams, Bill Self, and Tom Izzo — and that seems unlikely.

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