GREENSBORO, N.C. — Oscar Tshiebwe turned the chair around to face his locker and sat there with his eyes closed and his back to the room for several minutes Sunday evening, even as a small army of reporters steadily filed in and piled up behind him. Tshiebwe’s No. 34 Kentucky jersey was at his feet, most likely removed for the final time, and everyone wanted to be respectful of how devastating that must’ve felt. So no one said a word for a long, awkward time, until teammate Ugonna Onyenso leaned in close and whispered in his ear: These people want to talk to you. Tshiebwe, having emptied his tank in another early NCAA Tournament loss, turned around and tried.
“I don’t know what to say,” he shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain. It’s hard, because I don’t even know what to talk about.”
But that image and those utterly befuddled words said it all. This is the staggering, unthinkable reality: Tshiebwe, a two-time All-American and last year’s national player of the year, averaged 21 points and almost 20 rebounds in three career tournament games — and Kentucky lost two of them. Just as he did when a 30-and-16 game wasn’t enough in the first round last year against Saint Peter’s, Tshiebwe tried to drag the sixth-seeded Wildcats past No. 3 seed Kansas State in the second round here Sunday. He had 25 points and 18 boards, attempted to rip the rim off every chance he got, staked UK to a number of leads along the way, and still watched somebody else celebrate the 75-69 victory and dance on to the Sweet 16.
“This day, it was crazy,” Tshiebwe said. “I thought we were going to win the game.”
Oscar Tshiebwe and Lance Ware facing away from gathered reporters, sitting in silence. pic.twitter.com/yw4Wv39ECH
— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) March 19, 2023
In the end, it went about like most of the Wildcats’ recent NCAA Tournament losses: an ice-cold outside shooting performance dooming them to defeat in a game that seemed entirely winnable. This time, it was a 4-of-20 performance from 3-point range that killed them. Against Saint Peter’s last season, 4 of 15. In 2019 against Auburn, 5 of 21. In 2018 against Kansas State, 3 of 12. There was also 2021, when Kentucky ranked 172nd in 3-point percentage and 266th in percentage of points from 3-pointers and the Cats missed the tournament altogether.
That’s how a blue blood with an endless parade of five-star recruits can go three straight years without making the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, eight and counting now without reaching a Final Four.
“I have empathy,” coach John Calipari said when asked about his frustrated fan base. “I understand what this program is about. That’s what makes it what it is — and that’s why I tell players this isn’t for everybody — because the expectations are so high.”
The larger question, though, is whether he still knows how to meet those expectations. If the loss Sunday happened in a vacuum, it’s just one bitter pill to swallow and not another referendum on the 64-year-old Hall of Fame coach. But it didn’t happen in a vacuum. It added to a miserable run of March misery for Calipari and Kentucky. And it followed such a familiar, predictable pattern.
On its own, this was mostly just a thrilling tournament game between two good teams, each with All-Americans leading the way, that went right down to the wire. Kentucky erased a halftime deficit with a 13-0 run and looked like it might break the thing wide open. Tshiebwe had help from the team’s two five-star freshmen, point guard Cason Wallace (21 points, nine rebounds, four assists) and forward Chris Livingston (11 points, seven boards), whose all-out pursuit of victory turned Greensboro Coliseum into a thunderous approximation of Rupp Arena.
“I did anything I could to win,” said Wallace, who looked like a budding star Sunday, just in time to likely leave for the NBA Draft.
The big problem this time, though, was that seniors Jacob Toppin and Antonio Reeves, who had become the team’s most reliable perimeter scorers over the last two months, could not buy a bucket. They combined for 40 points in the first-round win over Providence, just seven on Sunday. Between them, they made 2 of 22 shots, 1 of 12 from deep, against Kansas State.
Calipari repeated a tired old line after: “You don’t have to make them all, but you can’t miss them all.” That one might’ve ascended to No. 1 most-hated Cal-ism among fans. This is more about philosophy and style than “buzzard luck,” as he calls it. Calipari built a roster that ultimately came to count on Toppin and Reeves, transfers from Rhode Island and Illinois State who would ideally be role players on a title contender, as its biggest bucket-getters. Calipari, who consistently scoffs at the 3-point revolution and insists on an approach that leans heavily on mid-range shots and dump-downs to a big man, built a roster with too few offensive creators.
In a world where Alabama, with its 3s-and-layups doctrine, is the favorite to win this year’s national title, Calipari built everything around an old-school, back-to-the-basket center. An elite one, mind you. A historically great rebounder, to be clear. A guy who deserves to see his name raised to the rafters at Rupp and certainly deserved a better ending. This isn’t a Tshiebwe issue, rather a planning problem.
If you can’t consistently beat good teams even on nights he’s great, then maybe the roster around him is poorly conceived and deployed. Kentucky is really good at one big thing, but maybe it’s the wrong thing. The Cats outrebounded Kansas State by 19 on Sunday and led by four with under four minutes to go — then got buried by a hail of 3s. To be fair, the purple-clad Wildcats had also made just 1 of 15 to start the game, but then they made four of their final six. All-Americans Markquis Nowell and Keyontae Johnson finally did what they normally do and hit big, tough, clutch shots. Nowell scored 11 of his 27 points in the final 3:35.
It all happened so fast, UK’s players still looked in the locker room like they weren’t sure what just hit them.
“My mind was just running, running,” Tshiebwe said. “I just didn’t understand.”
Most of the Wildcats wanted to focus on the fight it took to even get this far. After falling from a preseason top-five ranking to a 10-6 record at the halfway point, then a series of fits and starts that kept their postseason prospects in doubt until the final few weeks of the regular season, it was an achievement to make the field and win a tournament game for the first time since 2019.
“We never gave up,” guard CJ Fredrick said with tears in his eyes. “They were telling us we were going to be in the NIT. Every time we hit rock bottom, we responded.”
“We never backed down,” Toppin said. “We’ve been counted out. We’ve been in a lot of mud. For us to just battle through all the adversity that we did just shows who we are as a team and as individuals. The growth we all got from this experience is bigger than basketball.”
Kentucky played most of the season with one or more players injured. Only two of their key guys played in every game. Point guard Sahvir Wheeler’s recent return to practice proved to be fool’s gold; he missed the final 11 games. The Cats could’ve used him Sunday. Given all that, and considering how many players talked openly about the mental toll of this season’s struggles, Calipari should get real credit for keeping this team from completely crashing and burning.
“They stayed together. They loved each other. They covered for each other,” Calipari said. “And they worked their butts off for us as a staff and me as a head coach and each other.”
He had to reinvent himself in some ways to make that happen. He had to soften his approach with some guys. He spent the days leading up to a pressure-packed tournament opener trying to lighten the load and let his team play loose. It worked for a game. Almost worked for two. That doesn’t change the fact that nobody in their right mind ever thought Kentucky was a threat to win the whole darn thing, which is the standard at a place with eight NCAA championship banners. Calipari helped hang one of those, in 2012, but the question now is what else must change for the Cats to truly contend again?
He does have the No. 1 recruiting class coming in, but he’s likely to lose at least Wallace, Tshiebwe and Toppin from this team — probably a lot more. Livingston might’ve played his way out of a second season in Lexington, although Calipari should be begging him to return, and the coach said Sunday night he expects all six of his seniors to leave. None of the players were ready to share their plans in the postgame locker room. But with what figures to be a nearly blank slate, including at least one opening already on the coaching staff, there is every opportunity for Calipari to build exactly what he wants. The lure of UK’s name, image and likeness opportunities and a vast pool of free agents in the transfer portal mean he can fix most problems in a hurry, assuming he can spot them.
Onyenso, the former five-star center who enrolled early and served this season as Tshiebwe’s apprentice, spotted a big problem Sunday. It was slumped in a locker-facing chair. Kentucky somehow got two seasons out of the sport’s best rebounder in 40 years, and there’s just one NCAA Tournament win to show for it.
“I understand what Oscar is going through,” Onyenso said. “He came back to win a national title, but unfortunately it didn’t go as planned. He has a right to feel how he’s feeling now. I just tell him, ‘The game is over. We lost. It happened. Nothing’s going to change. You gotta start thinking about your future. You tried to help this school, but unfortunately it didn’t happen.’ Now I’ve got to go back and start getting ready for next year. The things they didn’t achieve, now I’m working on achieving it for them — doing it for them.”
(Top photo of Lance Ware, left, and Jacob Toppin: Grant Halverson / NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
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