John Calipari’s disconnect with others is crippling Kentucky Basketball

The Kentucky Wildcats are just 34 days away from their trip to Canada to play in the GLOBL Jam event in Toronto, but the roster still needs a lot of work.

It is looking like the Cats could add three more freshmen to the 2023 class, including center Somto Cyril, guard Joey Hart, and forward Jordan Burks.

The one decision left to be made from last season’s roster is Antonio Reeves, but it is looking more likely that Reeves will not be in Lexington next season.

Kentucky’s offseason has been head-scratching, to say the least, with the lack of action in the transfer portal, and the few players (Hunter Dickinson and Keshad Johnson) that Kentucky wanted to land going elsewhere.

On Thursday’s episode of Kentucky Sports Radio, host Matt Jones shared what he has been hearing about the state of the program, and the outlook is bleak.

“But this is a fact: this program in the last few months, has been in complete disarray. Nobody knows what’s going to happen next, including the coaches. It has been in disarray and anybody that says otherwise it’s just wrong.”

The biggest topic in college athletics right now is NIL, as it is playing a massive role in where players are deciding to transfer to.

Jones said that John Calipari does not have a relationship with the program’s biggest boosters and that is causing the program to fall behind.

“Players come and go; that worries me less than the other stuff. And again, if people don’t want to believe this, they don’t have to but this is the truth: Calipari has no connection with the main boosters of this program, specifically the main couple and it’s killing us. It just is. The people around the program can’t talk to him; they don’t know what to say to him. And he is completely isolated from everybody.”

On Wednesday, Calipari and Kentucky’s athletics director Mitch Barnhart made a trip to Washington D.C. to push for NIL legislation. Jones noted that this was a step in the right direction.

“I was happy to see the picture of him and Mitch in Washington. I’m glad that happened. Maybe that’s the start of things getting better there. But it is not a secret to anybody that he has not had a relationship with Mitch. He does not have a relationship with the boosters. He does not have a relationship with the media. And a lot of the folks that have worked there in the last year or two have either gone or are about to go.”

Jones continued, “The program has been in disarray. I have people — and this has happened three times in the last four days — people who genuinely like and care about Kentucky basketball but also genuinely like and care about Cal say to me, ‘Matt, what is going on?’ And the tough part is I don’t think there’s an easy answer to that.”

All of the current issues with Kentucky’s program are fixable, but the issues are going to need to be fixed sooner rather than later as Kentucky continues to fall behind.

You can listen to the full conversation from today’s episode here.