One week ago, I wrote that Kentucky needed to show us something against Gonzaga. Unfortunately, it did, in a bad way. The Cats’ 35-point loss to the Bulldogs was their fourth to a ranked team this year. It was a performance so abysmal that the team got booed off the floor at halftime. Ever since, BBN has been in a tailspin, uncertainty about the program’s short-and long-term future hanging over the Bluegrass like a thick fog.
Kentucky has already gotten back in the win column, beating NC Central by 36 on Tuesday night; however, the true test of whether or not the Cats have reached rock bottom is Saturday vs. Indiana. The Hoosiers are 8-2, losing to Minnesota and Louisville last week. They rebounded from the 87-78 loss to the No. 6 Cards by routing Penn State 113-72 on Tuesday, thanks in large part to 44 points from Lamar Wilkerson, who picked Indiana over Kentucky out of the transfer portal this past April.
Both Kentucky and Indiana fell out of the AP and Coaches Polls this week, hovering near each other in the group of “others receiving votes.” KenPom ranks Kentucky No. 20 and Indiana No. 21. It gives the Cats a 4-point edge in Saturday’s game, while BetMGM goes a half-point higher at 4.5.
Thank goodness this one’s at Rupp because it’s a must-win, in more ways than one.
Resume
Let’s start with the most basic: the schedule. It may feel premature to start worrying about the NCAA Tournament, but we’re 10 games in, one-third of the way through the regular season, and Kentucky still doesn’t have a good win, going 0-4 in said opportunities. The highest-ranked team the Cats have beaten so far is Valparaiso, which ranks No. 191 in the NET rankings. All of Kentucky’s wins are in Quad 4, all of its losses in Quad 1. Quad 1 losses don’t hurt you a ton, but at some point, you have to pick up some meaningful wins to offset them.
The Cats have two more chances to pick up a Quad 1 win before SEC play begins: vs. Indiana and St. John’s. Over half of Kentucky’s conference games are in Quad 1; before starting that gauntlet, we need to see that the Cats are capable of winning one. Of the two coming up, beating Indiana in Rupp feels more manageable than Mark Pope taking down his old coach, Rick Pitino, and St. John’s next weekend in Atlanta.
Lamar Wilkerson
Much has been said about Kentucky’s struggles with recruiting this week. Most of that conversation has centered around high school recruiting, not the transfer portal, but Lamar Wilkerson is one of the biggest portal targets Mark Pope missed on this past offseason. Kentucky felt so good about landing him that Mark Pope took him to the winner’s circle at Keeneland. Instead, Wilkerson went to Indiana, the Hoosiers sweetening the pot at the last minute.
On Tuesday, Wilkerson set an Indiana record with 10 three-pointers in the win over Penn State. He is averaging 18.8 points and 3.5 made threes per game this season. There were other whiffs for Pope and his staff during the offseason, but Wilkerson will take center stage at Rupp tomorrow night, at a time when Kentucky’s $22 million team is the laughing stock of college basketball.
Please don’t let him get hot.
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Fan fatigue
You don’t need me to tell you BBN is unhappy. The boos in Nashville were ugly proof of the unrest in the fanbase now. Concerns about recruiting and the school’s partnership with JMI, as outlined by Jacob Polacheck and Jack Pilgrim earlier this week, aren’t helping. Mark Pope struck a different tone on Tuesday night, using his bench to send messages to Kam Williams, Jaland Lowe, and Brandon Garrison, and biting back anger afterward as he talked about how his team continues to fall short of the standard. On the player side, Otega Oweh seemed to step up as a leader, scoring a season-high 21 points and insisting all is well in the locker room during interviews, one of which took place with his teammates surrounding him.
On Saturday, we get to see if those baby steps of progress are enough to avoid a fifth loss. Kentucky has already lost one home game this season, last week vs. North Carolina. Given all that’s happened since, there might be boos if the Cats pick up a second tomorrow night.
Fear of becoming Indiana
Indiana used to be one of Kentucky’s biggest rivals; for fans of a certain age, the Hoosiers may still be. Over the past 20 or so years, Indiana has faded to irrelevance. The Hoosiers haven’t gone to a Final Four since 2002. There’s a reason they put Christian Watford’s buzzer-beater vs. Kentucky in 2011 on a popcorn box; they haven’t had much else to celebrate.
As Kentucky fans, we’ve made our fair share of jokes about Indiana, but it’s not quite as funny now that the Cats haven’t gone to the Final Four in a decade, won an SEC regular-season championship since 2019-20, or an SEC Tournament title since 2017-18. For all our hopes that Mark Pope would be the one to turn it around, Kentucky still hasn’t won a big game this season. As Mark Story outlined in the Herald-Leader, Kentucky could be on the path to becoming the next Indiana, which makes Saturday’s game even bigger. With this being the first game in a four-year series, it could be an annual reminder if things keep trending in this direction.
So, please, Kentucky, win this basketball game. You can make it my early Christmas gift.
