[Hoot Gibson]

Sometimes, great free throw shooting teams have a collective bad night. UK shoots freethrows well when they recruit good freethrow shooters. Calipari's teams have never been consistently good freethrow shooters because he does a poor job teaching fundamentals.

Coach Calipari should never be fired - not because he does not deserve to be fired, because he is deserving of that fate - but because of the contract that the UK braintrust gave him. For some baffling reason, Kentucky's braintrust decided that it was a good idea to give a mediocre coach a contract that made him the highest paid college basketball coach in the country and made his position the most secure one in college basketball.

It is amazing how some UK fans are so eager to shift the blame for very bad losses from the coach to his players with comments like the coach didn't miss any freethrows, etc. The coach's job is to earn the salary that he is paid by winning games that he should win. Losing to a 15 seed is a very, very bad loss and the buck stops with Coach Calipari. I think you can make the case that the of the worst losses in the history of UK basketball, the losses to Saint Peter's, Robert Morris, and Wisconsin are all near the top of the list and all of those games were very winnable.