John Calipari has had one of the nation's most successful, consistently competitive programs since he arrived in Lexington back in 2009.
His best teams were in 2010, 2012, and 2015. Most would agree on that.
While the Wildcats have remained among the nation's elite as a program and have been contenders since that 2015 team, today's roundtable question is ...
Will Calipari assemble another team as dominant as the 2010, 2012, or 2015 squad?
David Sisk: I have watched a ton of the 2012 and 2015 teams the past few days. If Immanuel Quickley and E.J. Montgomery decided to stay, I think next year's team could be that type of roster. But it doesn't appear that will be the case so it definitely doesn't look like 2020-21 will be that type of year. It also won't be too long afterwards that high school players will be able to go straight to the NBA, so that will make it tougher to put together an elite roster.
That brings us to the elephant in the room. Kentucky has not been to the Final Four since 2015. I know this season is a wash, but I think most of us think the draw would have had to gone well for them to make it to the last weekend. John Calipari made it to the Final Four in four of his first six seasons in Lexington. Since then it has been Round of 32, Elite Eight, Sweet 16, Elite Eight, and this season's cancellation. I believe lots of us in our weak moments (including myself) wonder if Kentucky will ever get back in the Final Four in the next few years let alone have super teams like those. I'm going to be a glass half full type of guy and say Calipari will get back to a Final Four. But I'm also going to be a Debbie Downer. I don't see him ever assembling teams like those three again.
Jeff Drummond: It's unlikely, but I don't necessarily consider that to be an indictment of Calipari. Very few coaches anywhere will ever have a team like the 2010, 2012, or 2015 Cats. In order to pull it off, Cal would need a scenario in which some talented veterans were willing to return (your Doron Lamb and Terrence Jones types) and combine them with an elite prospect like John Wall, Anthony Davis, or Karl-Anthony Towns. This past season would have been a good example of it with Ashton Hagans, Nick Richards, and Immanuel Quickley coming back, but Cal didn't have the transcendent recruit to pair with them. James Wiseman could have been that guy. Or perhaps Anthony Edwards.
Travis Graf: John Calipari will have a couple of more dominant teams at Kentucky. Calipari’s biggest issue was resolved with this past recruiting class, in which he landed two top five recruits. Now that Kentucky’s started to land the cream of the crop once again, I like Kentucky’s chances to have things fall the right way once or twice more during his tenure where he ends up with monstrous squads. For a couple of seasons, the ‘Cats were still landing number one or number two classes based on quantity over quality, but weren’t getting the elite of the elite. Kentucky’s recruiting future looks bright, with many top kids being high on the ‘Cats in 2021 and 2022, now they just need second round graded draft prospects to be more open to returning to school.
Justin Rowland: I would probably guess no but that doesn't mean I'm criticizing Calipari. It's true, the last five years have not been, on the whole, as successful as his first six. That's the product of the recruiting not being at quite the same level even as it has been great. Even if the recruiting ticks back up in a big way, it's a real stretch to see Kentucky or any school landing a series of prospects like Wall, Cousins, Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist, and others like that in such a small amount of time. In those days you were also coupling the highest level of Calipari recruiting with a couple of very fortunate "return" trends as with the 2012 team with Lamb, Jones, and Miller (tough to see UK having that level of experienced talent) and so many returning players in 2015.
It's not hard for me to see UK having classes that are between the very best early ones and the still-good but not overwhelming more recent ones. The other thing is I'm constantly amazed by how the bar has lowered for guys leaving. It would take a lot going right. But I think UK will be the most (or one of the most) competitive programs in the country as long as he's the coach.
