John Calipari's Abysmal Failure Should Be the End of the 'One & Done' Era of Trying to Win With Freshmen

John Calipari, who built his success on playing freshmen, complaining about losing because of all his freshmen? It's like rain on your wedding day.

Let me say from the outset that I like Calipari. I once emceed a reunion of his UMass Final Four team that no longer counts as a Final Four team and found him to be a personable, convivial guy. More over, I couldn't take five steps through the banquet room without on the Minutemen alums, parents and boosters in attendance pulling me aside to tell some personal tale of how much of a positive impact he had on the program or some time he went out of his way to help someone in need. 

So I do root for the man and his program. I mean, watching them end up at the pointy end of the pitchfork on what will probably be the biggest upset of the whole tournament didn't bother me nearly as much as it did my coworker Reags:

But I wasn't pleased, either. 

I think though the real reason I've respected Calipari - long before I got paid to work the mic of an event where he was the main guest of honor - is the way he leaned into the way the NCAA operates and made it work to his advantage. And exposed the whole rotten system and its blatant hypocrisy. Think of him what you will, but Calipari has never condescended to you with the kind of self-righteous grandiosity of say, a Rick Pitino or a Coach K, pretending college basketball is really all about touching lives and inspiring young people to become well-rounded members of the community or some such pretentious nonsense. He simply recruited the best talents and told them if they played their best basketball for him, he had no expectations they'd be "student athletes" or any of that claptrap. 

He's just tried to win like it's his job. Because it is. And frankly it was hilarious to see the same rival coaches who used to act like they were morally offended by the "one and done" approach start employing the exact same method. Trying to beat Calipari at his own game. 

But if anything, last night's loss to Oakland and Kentucky's failures over the last five or so years seem to prove Calipari's own game just doesn't work any more. There's been a paradigm shift. Probably owing to the fact that with NILs, athletes can afford to play longer. Or maybe it's just simply human physiology. But there's definitely a pattern here of teams with experience being more successful than ones depending on freshmen like Kentucky. 

Consider the case made by former Villanova coach Jay Wright after the game:

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"The era of taking these young freshmen and trying to play against older players is over. I think he did a phenomenal job with these guys all year getting them to be as successful as they were. You can see they're playing against grown men. 

"The guys on Kentucky will be far better pros than any of these guys on Oakland or any of these guys in the tournament. But they're not as good college basketball players. At this point in their career, they're not as disciplined yet as the guys from Oakland. 

"It's not Cal's fault. It's they're 18 years old, and they're in this era where everyone's telling them how great they are. 'Just show up in college and you're gonna win.' It doesn't happen that way. And the more the guys stay in college because of NIL, it's gonna be tougher for young teams like this to be successful."

Spot the flaw in his logic. Because I can't find any. Who was the one Wildcat who showed up? Antonio Reeves, who's 23. Who from Oakland was most responsible for sticking the knife into Calipari's gut? 

This past December, Gohlke turned 24. And I'll be stunned if this isn't the direction the college game is headed, because it's fast becoming a full blown trend. In fact, we may already be there. 

I'm not arguing one system is better than the other. I think in general fans prefer a system where you get a few years to get familiar with the guys on your roster and watch them develop, the way you do in CFB. To me it's just fascinating to watch the game evolve back to the way it was 30 years ago or so. Especially since the very factor that's making revert back to the old system is the NIL factor, since it's the very thing the people in power never wanted, fought against, and had to be dragged into court to accept it. Now they're benefiting from the very thing they were vehemently opposed to. More importantly, the top athletes have the freedom to stay or go as they please, which is what they deserved all along. 

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out for the rest of this tournament and all the years to come. But in the here and now, it's remarkable to see the coach who took full advantage of the old system get taken advantage of by the new system. Lord help me, I love this time of year.