NCAA Tournament: Calipari Looks to Bring Home Title to Kentucky in First Season as Coach

The Kentucky Wildcats weren’t supposed to be this good this soon. Coach John Calipari wasn’t supposed to bring in a freshman like John Wall and then run roughshod over the rest of the SEC Conference, garner a #1 seed, and then march into the NCAA Tournament as one of the favorites to win the championship.

The Kentucky Wildcats are +350 in the sportsbook to take home the title. Only the Kansas Jayhawks are a shorter priced #1 seed than the Wildcats.

As much success as Calipari has had in college hoops, he took the Massachusetts Minutemen and the Memphis Tigers to the Final Four, a John Calipari coached team has never won an NCAA Tournament Championship.

Will he do so this year?

East: #1 Kentucky Wildcats

The Kentucky Wildcats dominated the SEC this year by beating up on Tennessee twice, keeping Vanderbilt in check and rolling over LSU, Arkansas, Alabama pretty much any other team they faced in the SEC. Kentucky took down Connecticut, Stanford and North Carolina in non-conference play. They lost two games all season long. The first was to South Carolina in huge upset as 7 points favorites 68 to 62. The second was to Tennessee as 2 ½ point favorites 74 to 65.

Offense: Kentucky’s offense begins and ends with freshman John Wall. Wall averages 17 points per game and 6.3 assists. He is as good as advertised but Wall isn’t the only player on the team who can put the ball in the basket. DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Patrick Patterson can all put the ball in the hoop. They, along with Wall, all scored in double-figures in Kentucky’s victory over Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament Championship game. Kentucky averages 79.2 points per game and shoots 47% from the field.

Defense: Calipari teaches tough team defense and the Wildcats have responded to that teaching. They give up only 65.3 points per game while allowing teams to shoot 38% from the field. They have the ability to flat out destroy teams when their defense is clicking like it did in the SEC Tournament when they held rival Tennessee to only 45 points in a 74 to 45 beat down.

Prediction: Kentucky is a solid team but they lack that one key ingredient that almost all of John Calipari’s teams seem to lack: experience. As good as Memphis and Derrick Rose was in 2008, Kentucky with John Wall almost is as good in 2010. In 2008, Kansas’ experience ended up being too much for Memphis. In 2010, Kansas’ experience might be too much for Kentucky. Also, like all of Calipari’s team, the Wildcats struggle from the free throw line shooting 67.9%.

They aren’t worth a bet at +350. The lack of experience, and the fact that after all of the press Calipari hasn’t won a championship, could doom Kentucky. They could even struggle to get to the Final Four with solid teams like Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Temple in that bracket.

Sign up now and get FULL access to all of BetUS features!