The Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team is an American college basketball team that represents the University of Kentucky. Kentucky is the most successful NCAA Division I basketball program in history in terms of both all-time wins and all-time winning percentage.
Kentucky: Basketball recruiting| Who did lose to| 247
Basketball recruiting:
John Calipari built perennial contenders at Kentucky with the very best amateur basketball players in America. He shunned experience for one-and-dones. He took in high school All-Americans and churned out NBA lottery picks.
He won championships and hundreds of games along the way. In 2021, he changed his approach, but, backed by a $20 million budget and reams of history, he built a new-look Goliath.
Who did lose to:
In 2022, though, on Thursday in Indianapolis, it fell to a tiny Jesuit school with a men’s basketball budget that couldn’t even pay a quarter of Calipari’s salary.
Kentucky — big, bad Kentucky — succumbed to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s in an opening-round men’s NCAA tournament game that few thought would even be worth watching.
247:
With Grady misfiring and other perimeter players hesitant, Kentucky went to Tshiebwe, the Congolese rebounding machine, again and again. Saint Peter’s had no direct rebuttal for the junior transfer from West Virginia.
But the Peacocks had indirect answers — unlikely answers, including nine 3-pointers. They hadn’t scored 85 points all season against a Division I team and ranked outside the nation’s top 250 in offensive efficiency, but Calipari knew they had shooters.
The Peacocks, led by a coach making less than four Kentucky assistants, stunned one of college basketball’s bluest blue bloods in overtime, 85-79. Instead, it was the 15th-seeded champs of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference who rose to the occasion. They took after their coach, Holloway, a fearless 45-year-old from Queens who led Seton Hall to the Sweet 16 as a player. He’d never been to this stage as a head coach, but throughout the week and the night, he was calm as could be.
