Monday Quickies: Wildcats In Trouble Edition

Can the Cats climb out of the deep hole they’ve dug themselves?

By John Morgan Francis@MonJorgan Dec 21, 2020, 6:40am EST

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NCAA Basketball: North Carolina at Kentucky

No one could have predicted this would be how the Kentucky Wildcats would start their 2020-2021 season.

Granted, head coach John Calipari has had quite the roster turnover and his lone rotational player who returned from last season has been out. However, the Wildcats are off to an unimaginably bad start and a turnaround is not in the foreseeable future.

The Wildcats haven’t had this bad of a record since 1926. After their late collapse against North Carolina on Saturday, none of the active players came out for media availability. Instead, sophomore Keion Brooks (who has yet to play a game this season) was the lone Wildcat available to answer questions following the team’s fifth-straight loss.

Calipari’s young team has yet to put together a 40-minute stretch of consistent basketball. The Wildcats don’t appear to have any chemistry and their young stars haven’t figured out to move the basketball instead of hoisting low-percentage shots every other possession.

Slow starts are a trend Kentucky fans can have become used to tolerating, especially if it means Calipari can coach his young talents into playing together by March. However, it appears Calipari doesn’t have this group of players figured out.

So does that mean the talent won’t develop into tournament-caliber teams like past seasons?

Only time will tell. But for now, Kentucky is in a dark place. Their schedule will somewhat lighten up over the next few weeks, giving them a sliver of hope to pick up a few wins over that stretch.

But it looks like we’ll need to see it to believe it.

What are your thoughts on these Wildcats? Do you trust Calipari to turn things around?