JUSTIN ROWLAND:

Just a brutal and gutting loss for both John Calipari and the Kentucky basketball program. I feel for the fan base. One tournament win in six years. First round losses to St. Peter's and Oakland. The 9-16 season. You have to be honest, just on those facts alone, you have to really wonder about the case for moving forward. They looked timid tonight. This was a very inconsistent, unpredictable team and you knew they were high floor, low ceiling going into this thing. In hindsight, it's not all that surprising they lost a game like this. Oakland hit some big-time shots but a team that has been this up and down all season is tough to trust in March.

JEFF DRUMMOND:

This feels a bit like deja vu with the Saint Peters loss two years ago, but a major difference tonight is Big Blue Nation is not all that surprised. Just replace Doug Edert with Jack Gohlke, who achieved small school folk hero status with a 10 3-pointer night that fell one shy of the NCAA Tournament record. One has to wonder if Kentucky and its head coach are "Built for March" anymore. This is three straight first-weekend exits, and the program hasn't reached the Sweet 16 since 2019. All the losses have similar themes, the biggest being coming out tight and playing scared to lose. Tonight, it felt like John Calipari may have gotten duped by his coaching friend Greg Kampe with his comments about the Cats being a good matchup for the Grizzlies because they can't score inside. Cal responded by playing two bigs almost all night long, and his shooters never got into a rhythm. Remarkably, the No. 1 3-point shooting team in the nation was outscored by 18 from the arc.

TRAVIS GRAF:

It’s now officially been half a decade since Kentucky has had a season that the fan base would consider the “gold standard”, and even in that season they royally blew a chance to go to the Final Four. The freshmen played like freshmen and you’re not going to win against hardly anyone whenever Sheppard, Dillingham, and Wagner give you nothing. Golhke put on a performance for the ages, and Kentucky didn’t seem prepared to attack a zone they had a few days to ready themselves for. There’s going to be hard conversations in Lexington, I’d say. Oakland wasn’t scared of Kentucky and talked the talk then walked the walk.

DAVID SISK:

John Calipari is 1-5 the last six games in the SEC Tournament. They have won one NCAA Tournament game since 2019. The two go hand in hand. At best, Big Blue Nation has hoped their beloved Wildcats could flip the switch, but that hasn’t happened, and it didn’t again tonight. A three seed losing to a 14-seed is memorable, but it’s about more than that. This program has been in neutral since Auburn eliminated them in the 2019 Elite Eight, and it has really never recovered from the Final Four loss to Wisconsin. But why should we be surprised after Saint Peters and Kansas State, and the 2020 season that was the worst in program history in the last century? We said after the SEC Tournament that questions would need to be asked if things didn’t fare differently in the Big Dance. They didn’t, but there is an obvious answer for any question put forward. It is time for the John Calipari era at Kentucky to come to an end.