Brown: Kentucky basketball youngsters learn hard lesson with introduction to March Madness

PITTSBURGH — No. 6 seed Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament elimination loss to Kansas State last season came, as coach Jerome Tang put it, because K-State had more dudes.  

Thursday night, third-seeded UK and its youthful bunch learned a hard lesson that it only takes one dude to cause the madness. 

Make no mistake, the Wildcats' 80-76 loss to No. 14 seed Oakland was madness. It may even qualify to be labeled insanity given UK coach John Calipari's reaction to their second first-round exit to a double-digit seed in the past three seasons.

Calipari said 2022’s early exit at the hands of No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s was largely due to UK’s injuries. The loss to the Grizzlies was more about their inexperience. But he's not about to change.

"I've done this with young teams my whole career," Calipari said. "And it's going to be hard for me to change that because we've helped so many young people and their families that I don't see myself just saying, 'OK, we're not going to recruit freshmen.'"

UK didn't have anyone — freshman or upperclassman alike — who could stop Oakland’s Jack Gohlke, who broke the record for 3-pointers allowed by the Cats in an NCAA Tournament game when he made his seventh 3 with nearly five minutes left in the first half.

UK made the 6-foot-3 graduate student, the pride of Division II Hillsdale College where he played and earned money doing DoorDash and driving Uber before transferring, a name that will forever be remembered in March. Gohlke finished with 10 3s — one shy of the tournament’s single-game record — and a game-high 32 points.

The Wildcats haven’t advanced past the first weekend since 2019, which certainly wasn’t lost on the fan yelling at UK coach John Calipari as he left the floor to “get the (expletive) out of Lexington.”  

That jeer was actually late. Before the buzzer sounded, #FireCalipari was trending on social media.

Calipari said throughout the season that the Cats were “built for March.” And they were built like a team that could have won it 10 years ago. 

But the game has moved on from highly talented young players to rosters stacked with veterans. The eligibility waiver from the COVID season just enhanced it.

“It’s changed on us, all of a sudden it's getting really old,” Calipari said. “So we're playing teams that — our average age is 19, their average age is 24 and 25. So do I change because of that?”

It should be hard not to after this.

Kentucky played six freshmen in its rotation. The Cats’ two oldest players, Tre Mitchell and Antonio Reeves, had standout performances. 

Reeves finished with a team-high 27 points that, had it not been for Gohlke’s 3s, would have garnered the most attention. Mitchell had 14 points and a game-high 13 rebounds.

The freshmen, though? They primarily played tight. And as the game wore on and the Grizzlies didn’t back down, it showed.

“I wouldn't say nervous, I'd just say anxious,” UK guard Rob Dillingham said. “They came out hitting crazy 3s. It stunned us a little bit, and then we started chasing instead of playing our game.”

There was freshman forward Justin Edwards soaring down the lane only to have his dunk blocked by the side of the rim.

There was freshman guard Reed Sheppard with UK down 61-59 leading a fast break and attempting a lob to freshman center Zvonimir Ivisic. That's not a pass you make when you're fighting to avoid an NCAA upset. The ball sailed out of bounds, and on the ensuing possession, Oakland came down and made a 3.

With UK down one with 28 seconds left, there was Dillingham slightly helping off DQ Cole in the corner. Cole nailed a 3-pointer, giving the Grizz a 78-74 lead and effectively landing the gut punch on Kentucky.

“They were freshmen that had performed on the road in hostile environments that I didn't expect some of the stuff today,” Calipari said.

He surely didn't expect a performance like Gohlke's.

The Cats threw all of their guards at him to try to shut him down.

Then their defensive ask downgraded to just try to slow him down.

Then it got to the point of try to contest his shots as best you can.

He made them all look inadequate.

"It kind of felt like no matter what, anything he threw up was going in," Sheppard said.

UK assistant coach Chin Coleman repeatedly yelled in the first half “Don’t leave him,” to Sheppard. It didn’t matter that Sheppard stayed close. It wasn’t close enough. Gohlke hit 3s on him.

D.J. Wagner got his chance on Gohlke with the same results. Gohlke seemed to like taking contested shots better than being wide open. When he drilled a 3 while on one leg, leaning left and off-balance, Wagner gave an exasperated look as if to say, "What more can I do?"

Reeves spent the most time shadowing Gohlke, and it happened to him, too. Reeves flew by on a pump fake, Gohlke took one dribble to the side and drilled the shot.

For good measure, just to add a degree of difficulty, Gohlke made his 10th shot from behind the arc after getting past Reeves, with Sheppard jumping at him.

All of the 3s and the underdog status of Oakland pulled in the N.C. State and Texas Tech fans who were awaiting their game. It wasn’t deafening noise, but feeling the arena turn against the Cats played a role in how tight they seemed.

This was no upset. Oakland was older than UK. Oakland was better than UK. And that's just madness.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter atprofile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.