Why Kentucky should stick with John Calipari. Why it shouldn't. And candidates for Cats.

LEXINGTON — Seated at a table above assembled media members following his team's 80-76 loss to Oakland last week, Kentucky coach John Calipari didn't sound like a man planning to walk away from the program. Instead, while lamenting the season-capping setback, he already had begun looking toward the 2024-25 campaign.

"We've gotta figure out who's coming back and who's not," Calipari said. "We got this transfer stuff going on. We may not need it. We have an unbelievable group coming in that I feel really good about."

Whether Calipari will be back for his 16th season guiding the Wildcats remains a question mark. And whether it's entirely up to him is equally unknown. UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart has been silent on Calipari's future since the first-round flameout. Many impassioned Kentucky fans already have made it known on social media their hope Calipari has coached his final game for their beloved blue-and-white team.

If UK goes in that direction, it will owe Calipari a record-setting buyout.

Regardless of the financial ramifications, would that be in the best interest for both parties?

Here's are two reasons why the Calipari era should continue, two reasons it shouldn't — and two candidates if the position comes on the market.

Why John Calipari should remain as Kentucky basketball coach

He still gives the Wildcats their best chance to win next season — and beyond.

Calipari didn't become the second-winningest coach in program history (and only the fourth in the SEC with 400-plus victories at one school) by happenstance. He's advanced to four Final Fours, two national championship games and has a national title with the Wildcats. Beyond that, he has seven Elite Eight appearances, eight Sweet 16 berths and 12 SEC crowns, split evenly (six regular-season titles, six SEC Tournament championships).

Later this year, another star-studded recruiting class is set to arrive on campus. They could be joined by holdovers from this season's team, a group that could include home-bred superstar Reed Sheppard, rising junior Adou Thiero, rising sophomore D.J. Wagner and any mixture of the three 7-footers (Aaron Bradshaw, Zvonimir Ivišić and Ugonna Onyenso) on the 2023-24 roster. And the Wildcats already have started contacting possible transfer additions, reaching out to former Rutgers center Clifford Omoruyi over the weekend.

If Calipari is ousted, it's a near certainty every player from this past season will depart.

Sheppard undoubtedly will head to the NBA, while the others will decide between a pro career or the transfer portal.

Even amid the current landscape of college athletics — with the ability of a new coach to entirely transform a roster in one offseason thanks to the transfer portal and name, image and likeness (NIL) deals — it's unlikely Calipari's successor would be able to put together a better team next season than the man he just replaced.

A deep run in the Big Dance next year, and Calipari (and the program as a whole) would be back on the right track after three straight March Madness appearances that ended in the opening weekend.

He's already shown a willingness to adjust. He'll do so again.

After joining Kentucky as a transfer from West Virginia, Oscar Tshiebwe authored two seasons of record-setting performances, especially on the boards. But what the Wildcat clubs of 2021-22 and 2022-23 were not? Offensive powerhouses.

The Wildcats averaged 74.1 points per game in 2022-23, down more than five points per outing from 2021-22 (79.4 ppg).

Compare that to this past season, when Kentucky put up points like they were going out of style.

UK set a Calipari-era record for points per game at 89.0 — the highest-scoring team in Lexington since the 1995-96 national championship squad averaged 91.4. With Tshiebwe gone, the Wildcats supercharged their offense, ranking second among SEC teams in adjusted tempo in 2023-24, per KenPom. And they also let 3s fly at a rate unseen during Calipari's tenure, attempting 800 triples.

The about-face philosophy offensively has been credited to the hire of assistant coach John Welch, who brought in the pace-and-space, 3-point-heavy concepts he learned after spending more than two decades in the NBA.

While UK's offense soared, its defense faltered. The Wildcats were a sieve defensively, allowing 79.7 points per game, the most ever permitted under Calipari and the worst since the sanction-riddled team of 1989-90 gave up 87.9.

Using Welch's influence on the offense as a guide, Calipari likely will look to add a defensive specialist to his coaching staff this offseason. (Even if that means shaking up his current staff.)

Kentucky's 2023-24 season reinforced that no matter how awe-inspiring a team's offense is, if it can't consistently show up on defense, its stay in the Big Dance will be brief.

Why John Calipari shouldn't remain as Kentucky basketball coach

The situation simply has become untenable.

There is a portion of the UK fan base — an impossible-to-pin-down percentage, but a vocal faction, if nothing else — that is intractable.

It doesn't care what Calipari says. What he did earlier in his tenure. Or what he might do in the future.

The only outcome that will satisfy them is Calipari's removal as coach.

That's a tough spot for anyone to be in, particularly a coach who once was universally adored by Kentucky supporters.

Does Calipari, who would have offers to coach elsewhere, truly want to stay and deal with a fan base that no longer is head over heels for him? And if the split between himself and the university becomes too ugly, would he still want to become an ambassador for the athletics deparment, an option laid out in his contract if he decides to retire?

Those are questions only Calipari himself can answer.

Diminishing returns show it's time for a new voice.

When Calipari agreed to his newest contract in 2019, he had just completed his 10th season with the program. It was a decade of immense success, with the aforementioned national title, quartet of Final Fours and seven Elite Eights.

Since then, little has gone right.

Though Kentucky finished first in the conference during the 2019-20 regular season, it never had a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament, as the event was canceled that year because of the coronavirus pandemic. What followed was the worst season (9-16 in 2020-21) in the program's modern history. Then the loss to 15-seed Saint Peter's to cap the 2021-22 campaign. And at one point during the 2022-23 season, UK wasn't even projected to make March Madness until it rallied to earn a 6-seed, bowing out in the second round to 3-seed Kansas State.

The Wildcats entered this year's NCAA Tournament with high hopes and were a trendy pick to win the national title. That came crashing down in just one game, felled by the 3-point barrage of Oakland sharpshooter Jack Gohlke.

Calipari once said he didn't think he'd coach beyond 10 seasons at Kentucky. And during the program's Big Blue Madness event in 2018, he told the Rupp Arena crowd another former UK coach, Joe B. Hall, once shared "it's a 10-year job, and I believed him."

Now, five seasons beyond Year 10, it's time for Calipari to heed Hall's (and his own) words and seek a new challenge.

Two Kentucky basketball coaching candidates if John Calipari's tenure ends

Scott Drew, Baylor head coach

It's an open secret that Drew, who built Baylor's program from the ashes following one of the most sordid scandals in NCAA history, is at the top of Barnhart's list of potential replacements for Calipari. Drew would be the first coach UK ever hired to already have a national championship on his résumé, as he led Baylor to the title in 2021. He is 446-244 (.646) in 21 seasons with the Bears; prior to taking over at Baylor ahead of the 2003-04 campaign, Drew spent one season (2002-03) as Valparaiso's head coach, going 20-11 overall and winning the Mid-Continent Conference regular-season title with a 12-2 mark.

Tommy Lloyd, Arizona head coach

After spending 22 seasons as Mark Few's right-hand man at Gonzaga, Lloyd took over as Arizona's coach in April 2021. He's been a rousing success so far, setting an NCAA record for most wins by a head coach in his first two seasons (61) and three seasons (88). Lloyd, who has won 82.2% (88-19) of his games with the Wildcats, boasts a pair of Pac-12 regular-season titles as well as two conference tournament championships. Now, he has Arizona gearing up for a Sweet 16 matchup versus Clemson on Thursday.

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.