NCAA Basketball: 12 teams with most pressure to win in 2023-24 season

12. Kentucky Wildcats

A case can be made that all of the “blue blood” NCAA Basketball programs have a lot of pressure on them to succeed each season. But considering that they’re always contenders, some of said “pressure” is lifted a bit. But like with Michigan State, I have a good reason why I’m adding Kentucky.

It’s mainly for head coach John Calipari, who had an extremely stressful offseason. Outside of the No. 1 overall freshmen class, the Wildcats struggled to get any transfers to join them in the first couple of months. It took West Virginia imploding late in the offseason to give them Tre Mitchell, a good starting forward, and another veteran to pair with Antonio Reeves.

As young as the roster is, there’s still plenty of talent for Kentucky to succeed with. But in the opposite of the Spartans, Coach Calipari is going to have to prove that a young roster can still win with so many older teams around, especially with the extra year of covid eligibility via covid still around.

And of course, Kentucky has Final Four expectations each year and after struggling last season, there was some talk about Calipari and the program possibility parting ways to starting new elsewhere. If they don’t at least look like a contender at points this year, that talk could return.