For UK basketball, Providence in the NCAA tourney round of 64 feels like a huge moment

The Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball program has won eight national titles, played in 17 Final Fours and won 129 games in the NCAA Tournament alone. So this seems funny to type, but UK’s 2023 NCAA Tournament opener against Providence feels like an unusually consequential moment for the Wildcats.

John Calipari is not, as a disenchanted segment of the Big Blue Nation seems to wish, coaching for his job when the East Region No. 6 Wildcats and No. 11 Friars tip off at 7:10 p.m. Friday at the Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina.

According to the 10-year contract that UK signed with its head coach after the 2018-19 season, it would cost the university just under $40 million to remove Calipari without cause after this season. That would drop to just under $34 million after the 2023-24 campaign and to around $27 million after two more seasons.

Those numbers are why, unless Calipari wants to leave Lexington, he’s going to be the Kentucky Wildcats coach for the foreseeable future.

Still, Calipari can make his coaching life a whole lot easier by leading Kentucky on some kind of run in the 2023 edition of March Madness — starting with a win over Providence.

Through his first five NCAA Tournaments as top Cat, Calipari made March Madness look easy. Kentucky went 22-4, advanced to five Elite Eights, four Final Fours and won the 2012 national championship.

Over Kentucky’s past five NCAA tourneys, however, the Cats are 9-5 with two Elite Eights. Last season, UK exited March Madness after only one game, shockingly falling 85-79 in overtime to No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s.

Among the many program positives that would come from beating Providence, it would make obsolete the oft-repeated — and factually accurate — statement that UK has not won an NCAA Tournament game since March 29, 2019.

It would ensure that Oscar Tshiebwe, a Kentucky program cornerstone in his two All-America seasons in UK blue, does not end up with no NCAA tourney wins to show for his time as a Wildcat.

A win over Providence could launch Kentucky toward, as a minimum aspiration, making the round of 16. That might at least leave fans with a slightly better taste about the roller-coaster ride the Wildcats (21-11) have taken them on so far in 2022-23.

At least two March Madness wins would also allow Kentucky to move back into a tie with North Carolina (131) for the most NCAA tourney victories all time. That, too would probably improve the mood of at least some Cats backers.

If seeing how UK handles the pressure in its first NCAA Tournament round-of-64 appearance since the Saint Peter’s upset doesn’t gin up enough drama to suit you, you also have a compelling alternate narrative. By this point, you may have realized that the star player for Providence (21-11) was on the Kentucky roster — mostly on the UK bench — just last season.

Bryce Hopkins has gone from scoring 2.1 points a game and playing 6.5 minutes per contest last year for UK to averaging 16.1 points and 8.5 rebounds and becoming a finalist for the Karl Malone Award signifying the best power forward in men’s college hoops in one year under Ed Cooley at Providence.

The giant “X factor” hanging over Friday’s game is how the emotions of facing his former team will impact Hopkins.

Of playing against Kentucky, “I can’t wait,” Hopkins told the media gathered for Providence’s Selection Sunday watch party. “It’s a lot of emotions going to be in that game. A lot is going to be going through my head.”

A reporter asked Hopkins, a 6-foot-7, 220-pound product of Oak Park, Ill., what he will say when he runs into Calipari in Greensboro. “I’ll say hello after the game,” Hopkins said. “Before the game, I am going to be locked in.”

Given the passions involved in facing his former team, my guess is there will be no “in between” on how Hopkins performs vs. Kentucky. He’ll either go for 30 points or shoot 3-of-13.

“I’m gonna try to let my game speak for itself,” Hopkins said. “I’m not gonna try to get too high or too low, just stay level-headed, narrow-minded and focus on the big goal, winning the game.”

For Kentucky, a win over Providence would keep Calipari from becoming the first UK coach to go back-to-back with losses in the Wildcats’ first NCAA tourney games since Joe B. Hall in 1981 (69-62 to UAB) and 1982 (50-44 to Middle Tennessee State).

Yet after those consecutive “bad” NCAA tourney defeats, Hall rallied his program and Kentucky reached the round of eight in 1983, the Final Four in 1984 and made it to the sweet 16 as a No. 12 seed in 1985.

With the Calipari coaching era having also hit a competitive lull, can the current UK coach preside over a similar “bounce-back”?

For Calipari and Kentucky, a victory over Providence would be an opportune time for that bounce to commence.

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