In case you’ve been living under a rock, there is some drama boiling to the surface in Lexington. On a recent trip to the Bahamas where the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team rolled over the competition easily, coach Calipari had an interview with the Athletics’ Kyle Tucker & KSR’s Adam Luckett, the interview took a turn to start talking about the practice facility that Kentucky is using & Calipari says they need a new one, that’s hard to argue against as many writers that know have said Kentucky’s practice facility is as old as the tradition at Rupp Arena. Meanwhile, Kansas has some of the best in the country, the bad thing is in asking for them Calipari slipped out that Alabama & Georgia are football schools, we’re a basketball school here, and historically he isn’t wrong, when many people think of the University of Kentucky they think of the tradition of being a powerhouse on the basketball court, however, the recent success at Kentucky has taken place on the gridiron with 6 straight seasons of going to a bowl game, that was unheard of before Mark Stoops took over the program. Mark Stoops probably didn’t help the comment by retweeting it and saying I thought we played in the SEC, #4StraightPostseasonWins.

This is a shot at Kentucky basketball coming off a first-round exit of the NCAA tournament to St. Peters following a historically bad season the year before. Calipari has come out and apologized since this statement came out, but some things are better left unsaid, especially after underachieving. Mark Stoops had a press conference since then where he said were just staying in our own lane, but the Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart came out before that and held a 40 minute press conference where he blamed the media for blowing this out of proportion, as well as saying, coaches change all the time, it’s no secret that Calipari & Barnhart haven’t exactly seen eye to eye lately so I feel like that was more a comment about him, not as much Stoops, but Mitch Barnhart has been tone deaf with the fanbase for a while now, he talks about twitter like it’s a new form of communication as opposed to it being around for 15 years and leading the way in sports communication. He was behind the ball on NIL to a point where Calipari & Stoops went directly to governor Beshear to keep up with the changes & bypassing the AD altogether. I still can’t have a beer at Kroger Field like I can at almost every other SEC stadium since the rule was implemented. I don’t think Cal’s comments will run off Mark Stoops to a “football school” but it definitely doesn’t help in recruiting against those schools, trying to kill a narrative that Stoops & company have been fighting for a decade now. On top of all that, when Calipari came back from the Bahamas, the basketball team got a week off, he went to New Jersey, so he and Mark I’m assuming still haven’t spoken about it face to face, and if they do, I’m not sure who could be the moderator in that meeting. It can’t be Mitch Barnhart, can it? While I appreciate all the accomplishments the University of Kentucky have had under Mitch Barnhart, from the track & field team representing Olympic athletes, to the rifle team & volleyball team bringing national championships & the Women’s basketball team winning the SEC last year, if Barnhart can’t get a handle on the situation between the 2 highest profile coaches in the program his days as the AD at The University of Kentucky may be numbered. I will keep the big blue nation updated with information as it comes in, but for now we are a couple of weeks away from college football being back, and the basketball teams looks like they’re motivated by failure & reloaded for the new year!