Kentucky exited the NCAA Tournament early for the third year in a row on Thursday night.
Kentucky came into the tournament as a No. 3 seed and lost to 14-seed Oakland after it couldn’t do enough offensively.
The loss has a lot of people pointing the finger at head coach John Calipari but Jay Bilas isn’t one of them.
“This wasn’t about being freshmen or the construction of the Kentucky roster,” Bilas said. “It’s about a team that did not play well and that did not execute in a first-round game against a very good team.”
Calipari has gotten a lot of criticism for how he builds his roster since there are not a lot of experienced players on his team. It’s led to Kentucky losing in the first round of the tournament in two of the last three years.
This is a program that hasn’t even gotten to a Sweet 16, let alone an Elite Eight, since the 2018-19 season. Kentucky has also not won a national title since 2012.
Calipari will have to change some things up for the next season if Kentucky wants to make a deep run at the tournament.