Mitch Barnhart says pieces still in place for Kentucky basketball

Freshman Cason Wallace and UK have struggled in big games but athletics director Mitch Barnhart still believes the team can be a factor in March Madness. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Kentucky fans are worried about lies ahead for coach John Calipari’s team but apparently athletics director Mitch Barnhart is not.

“When you schedule like we’re going to schedule on the men’s (basketball) side, you’re going to have some speed bumps,” Barnhart said on BBN Radio Monday night after Calipari’s regular weekly show.

“I am thankful that our fans have high expectations and I’m thankful that our team has high expectations, our department. If we didn’t have that, we wouldn’t be Kentucky.

“We want to be that place that has high expectations for what we want to achieve. There’s no one that wants to win (national championship) number nine more than our fans, our team, our staff, no one. We all clearly want to make that dream reality come true. We want to make that come true.”

But can it come true for a team that scored only 53 points in a loss to UCLA Saturday and also struggled offensively against Gonzaga and Michigan State. Kentucky has not been the high scoring offensive machine that Calipari said he wanted the Cats to be this year.

Kentucky plays Florida A&M tonight but soon will start Southeastern Conference play where Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas have all been better than UK in non-conference games.

“There are growing pains and we’re going through that, nights when the ball is not going in the hole,” he said. “The game against Michigan State, stubbed our toe down the stretch, couldn’t finish that one.

“The Gonzaga game, just didn’t have a very good night that night. And then the UCLA game, obviously we just really struggled to shoot the ball. We had a lot of open looks, a lot of open looks, and just couldn’t get them to go down. That’s a little unusual for this team, they’re pretty good shooters. You’ve got some folks who can do that.”

Then Barnhart sort of turned into a coach analyzing what might need to happen.

“I do believe that the pieces of the puzzle are in place. I watched Chris Livingston come alive (against UCLA), and I believe we’ll be able to put pieces of the puzzle together as we go through the season,” Barnhart said.

“Cal’s teams generally get better as we go and as they begin to develop and spend time together in December, and we get into the heart of it.”

True but this is also a veteran team that spent time practicing and playing in August, something the team normally is not allowed to do.

Then Barnhart repeated the Calipari belief that the regular season is not that important.

“It’s all defined by what we do in March, there’s no mystery in that,” Barnhart said. “So we’ve got to build to that and make sure we find ourselves and put ourselves in a position and see what we can accomplish in March.”

However, UK has not been in the Final Four since 2015 and not won a title since 2012, so that March definition has not been all that good recently.