regardless of the new crop of newcomers that comes into Big Blue Country . In Cal We Trust . Whether it ’ s after the oodles of victories or the small handful of defeats , Cal will usually mention the seemingly few flaws of his team . They ’ re usually mental flaws that he hopes will get corrected by the time the NCAA Tournament rolls around .
More often than not , Cal blames these flaws on his team ’ s never-ending youth . As expected as death and taxes .
But this season has been different . The Cats are taking unusual losses – unusual for Big Blue Nation , at least . It ’ s not like they ’ re going to miss the tournament or anything .
But the usual Cal quotes have been modified . This is a rarity .
Consider : Earlier in the season , after a 29-point shellacking of rival Louisville , the UK coach did the unthinkable . He was going to stop referring to that youth .
“ I said today before the game , we ’ re no longer freshmen ,” Calipari said after another victory in the rivalry back in December . “ I ’ m not saying it anymore – we ’ re not freshmen now . We ’ re 10 games in , 11 games in , we are not freshmen .”
Then , in a mid-January loss at home against lowly South Carolina , Calipari went back to his old , youth-based excuses for his team ’ s inability to play at the level commensurate to the Kentucky head coach ’ s expectations had returned .
“ This looked like a bunch of freshmen playing ,” Calipari said after his team ’ s 76-68 collapse at South Carolina .
“ The first half , you would look and say , ‘ Ah , they got a nice team and da da da da .’ They ’ re all freshmen . In the second half , you looked at us and we looked like a bunch of freshmen playing like freshmen would play .”
Cal used the word “ freshmen ” three times before he took one breath .
Perhaps the players aren ’ t the only ones reverting to old childlike habits .
The surprise isn ’ t that the excuses had returned , it ’ s that Cal tried to make those disappear in the first place . Weird . And then on top of that has been the cryptic way in which he ’ s talked about one of his six ( SIX !) five-star freshmen recruits .
Jarred Vanderbilt injured his foot early in the preseason and hadn ’ t played a game up until the aforementioned loss to South Carolina . It had been Vanderbilt ’ s third injury to the same foot . That is a true worry for a player seemingly-destined to be less than a calendar year away from having a seven-annual income .
Kentucky had needed him . And people had seen reports of him continuously practicing and dressing for games .
But Vanderbilt still wasn ’ t seeing the court , and Calipari was being uncharacteristically and mostlyindirectly criticizing Vanderbilt ’ s inability to play .
“ I ’ d like for him to give me more than what I would ’ ve gotten today because I didn ’ t see him all day ,” Calipari said .
It was like there was more to the story . Who knows ?
“ The problem with being injured when you ’ re on my teams , I really spend no time with you ,” Calipari said . “ Sometimes I forget names . Like I forget who ( Vanderbilt ) is . Because I ’ ve gotta focus on the guys I ’ m coaching right now . They ’ ve gotta get healthy and be ready to come back and be ready to go . Jarred is the same .” He forgets his players ’ names ? Come on . Calipari is always a master of the media . His press conferences are always entertaining . But this year , it ’ s just been different . Different than in any other season . It ’ s been over the top .
THE CURIOUS CASE OF DAVID PADGETT
The most curious case of all has been David Padgett . The poor guy got thrown into an absolute grease fire .
So , of course , his team floundered around for awhile while the players acclimated to a coaching style that is , by many accounts , far more relaxed than the style of their coaching predecessor , Rick Pitino .
The feeling I got from Pitino before his firing was that if Donovan Mitchell , currently one of the NBA ’ s best rookies , left for the pros after last season , it was going to be an uphill climb for this season ’ s championship hopes .
No surprise there . Mitchell is a star . Any team would hurt if they lost a kid like Mitchell .
Obviously , this was before Pitino got gifted Brian Bowen , the highly-touted recruit whose family member , we later learned , allegedly agreed to receive money to come to Louisville , which , in part , may have ended up being the final nail in Pitino ’ s Cardinal Coffin .
Since then , Padgett has had to do a dance of trying to be himself to his team , while still trying to cling to many Pitino ’ s championship principles .
Now , many Pitino loyalists , who are still bitter about the way “ Slick Rick ” was dismissed are taking out the team ’ s struggles on Padgett . “ The players aren ’ t listening to him .” “ Padgett ’ s lost this team . This would ’ ve never
( have ) happened to Rick .” We got it , Rick-backers , winning trumps all , even multiple NCAA violations . Duly noted . But , for the rest of us that think Pitino ’ s firing was justified , even if we admired his coaching ability ( I know I did ), there was really no other way to bring on a brand-new coach that had any sort of resume .
UofL had two weeks to figure this out , for crying out loud . What were they supposed to do ?
Had Louisville brought on a seasoned , but recently-fired coach , that coach isn ’ t going to just agree to a one-year deal . And even if they do , what if they had success ? Then , Louisville would ’ ve had to stick with the guy , a guy they had all but a handful of days to truly vet . The timing was terrible . Still , Padgett is taking a team that likely wasn ’ t destined for the Final Four and , as of this writing , has gone the whole season with just a handful of losses – none of them to teams outside the AP Top 25 .
It ’ s been a fascinating watch .
HERE ’ S A CURIOUS BONUS
And , alone at the top , probably sipping on a Mai Tai and cackling at all the other nonsense going on south of West Lafayette , is Matt-freaking-Painter . Who knew he ’ d be the one with the stress meter , relatively speaking , at zero ?
What an unusual college hoops landscape , indeed .
49