Justin Edwards (Vicky Graff Photo)
Coach John Calipari might have the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class and a proven returning scorer in Antonio Reeves but that is not enough to convince some that the Cats will really be a national championship contender next season.
The Almanac’s 2023-24 college basketball season preview was released this week and Kentucky fans probably will strongly disagree with the projections for the Cats.
Texas A&M was picked to win the Southeastern Conference regular-season championship. Tennessee was next followed by Alabama.
Where was UK? Not fourth. That was Arkansas. Not fifth. That was Mississippi State. Yes, Mississippi State was projected to finish ahead of the Cats in the 2023-24 SEC standings as the Cats came in sixth even though Justin Edwards was picked to the SEC Freshman of the Year and second-team all-SEC selection along with Reeves in an anonymous poll of coaches. The only time UK has finished lower in Calipari’s 14 years at UK came in the forgettable 9-16 2020-21 season.
Perhaps the projection is based on UK’s offseason drama with injuries to 7-footers Aaron Bradshaw and Ugonna Onyenso and mystery status of 7-foot Croatian Zvonimir Ivisic.
CBS Sports recently put out its preseason top 25 and had UK ranked 16th and fourth in the SEC behind Arkansas (11th), Tennessee (14th), and Texas A&M (15th).
“This ranking is based on the Wildcats enrolling the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class featuring four five-star high school prospects – among them Justin Edwards, DJ Wagner and Aaron Bradshaw — plus West Virginia graduate-transfer Tre Mitchell. Those newcomers will pair with Antonio Reeves and give John Calipari a decent chance to make the Final Four for the first time since 2015,” CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish wrote.
ESPN has Kentucky 17th in its current Way-Too-Early Top 25 after not having the Cats on its previous early top 25 before Reeves announced he would be back at Kentucky. This poll has UK third in the SEC behind Tennessee (8th) and Arkansas (14th).
8 Responses
That’s wishful thinking for all the whiners.
Another typical Calipari lover who is out of touch with reality.
Great motivational tool for the team.
None of that matters. All that matters now is whether UK makes the NCAA field.
Wow, it’s a sad time to be a Kentucky fan. Used to be, we could count on winning either the SEC regular season or the conference tourney, if not both. That would be followed up by at least a second weekend run in the Dance and now we talk about whether or not we will even make the field. The worst of it is Calipari couldn’t care less as he laughs his way to the bank and pimps his pets to the NBA.
An anonymous coaches poll shows how far we’ve dropped in respect. I suspect we haven’t been feared or respected for the last 3 years at least.
Since 2015’s collapse in the final four because the fraud refused to play his best players in favor of his pets, this program has been in a steady, long term slide.
No longer the gold standard, perhaps a rusty tin standard today.
This fraud cares not one bit about the success of this program.
I’m fine with this, better than an untested team being overly inflated. With that said, I think they will finish much stronger than these polls predict, but that is just my unproven opinion.