I’m sure many in BBN thought next season could be tough when John Calipari announced he was heading to Arkansas. But behind former BYU head coach Mark Pope, the Kentucky Wildcats finished out the roster rather nicely for the next year.

Pope, who as a player won an NCAA Championship with the Cats, has a bunch that is incredibly skilled and undoubtedly seasoned. Most of the new players to Kentucky’s squad are transfers.

Among them is former Dayton great Koby Brea, who has high expectations for this club and claims they are aiming for No. 9. This occurs just hours after former Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year Jaxson Robinson announced his switch to Kentucky and withdrew from the NBA Draft.

As for Brea, he played all four of his collegiate seasons at Dayton, averaging 6.1 3-point attempts last season and knocking down 49.8% of those. He’s a sniper and should be a tremendous asset to Pope’s arsenal.

With a slew of top transfers joining the roster, many of which are defensively sound and can shoot from deep, expect big things from Kentucky in its first season under Pope’s lead.

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BOZICH | While John Calipari carries on, an amazing Kentucky basketball streak primed to end

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — John Calipari stopped taking the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team to the Final Four after 2015 and to the Sweet Sixteen after 2019. He won his only national title in 2012.

That is why Calipari’s zip code flipped from 40508 to 72701 last month.

But there was one streak Calipari maintained over all 15 seasons he coached the Wildcats: Kentucky’s streak of being ranked in the preseason Associated Press college basketball poll.

Starting with a preseason ranking of No. 4 when John Wall, Demarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe joined Calipari for his first season in 2009-10 and ending with Cal’s worst preseason ranking of No. 16 last November, the Wildcats were a top 25 fixture for a decade and a half.

Don’t look for Kentucky (or Louisville) in the preseason Top 25 next November.

A check of the latest preseason forecasts for next season from five sources shows the Wildcats (and Cardinals) will be missing in action.

Calipari, however, does project to begin next season in the Top 25 at Arkansas. Of course, starting strong was not the problem at UK the last five seasons. Finishing strong? That, we can discuss.

For Kentucky, that will be the case for the first time since 2008-09, Billy Gillispie’s farewell season, and only the second time since 1992.

Whoa. Wow.

Things can change. Mark Pope, UK’s new coach, has space to add a player or two to his first roster. Analysts have time to give the Wildcats a second or third look.

But I checked the latest forecasts from one computer formula (Bart Torvik) and four human polls (CBS Sports; ESPN; On3 Sports and Fox Sports).

Kentucky does not project as a Top-25 squad to begin next season, which does not qualify as Shock The World news considering that every player from Calipari’s final squad (that lost to Oakland and stirred his departure) is going, going, gone.

However, seven Southeastern Conference teams do project as preseason Top-25 teams, including the one that Calipari has quickly assembled with a group of former UK parts in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

I averaged the numbers from the four human and one computer projections. The likely ranked teams from the SEC features this group:

• No. 4: Alabama
• No. 10: Auburn
• No. 14: Tennessee
• No. 17: Texas A&M
• No. 18: Florida
• No. 20: Texas
• No. 22: Arkansas

Calipari’s team is ranked as high as 15th by Gary Parrish at CBS Sports, especially after the news this week that former Florida Atlantic star Johnell Davis has removed himself from consideration for the NBA Draft next month and will play for the Razorbacks.

Local basketball fans had to laugh Wednesday at the message Calipari shared at the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Florida. He was asked what lessons he learned from his post-season struggles in Lexington.

“The lesson was you can’t do this now with seven freshmen,” he said. “You just can’t.

“You’re going to hit a team that’s 25 years old on average — one was 26 — and that team is physically going to get you. And so now we have a couple transfers that are older, some kids that transferred from Kentucky that went through it, and they’re a year older, and some freshmen.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe Jay Wright proved going old was the way to get the job done in 2016 and again in 2018 at Villanova. Tony Bennett followed that path at Virginia in 2019.

Apparently, Calipari truly did not read what people wrote about what ailed the Wildcats or listen to what folks said on talk radio. I heard it was a thing.

On to Louisville. With an entire new roster, a new head coach (Pat Kelsey) and a dismal three-season stretch of losing, the Cardinals will not project as a Top-25 squad in November.

Here are the Atlantic Coast Conference teams that will draw love:

• North Carolina No. 7
• Duke No. 8

That’s the list.

The Cardinals should take heart from that news. With just two ACC teams registered as national powers, contending in the SEC, Big 10, or Big 12 should not be as difficult as grinding it out to the top of the conference.

The only local team to make it into my general Top 25 was Indiana’s fourth-place team under Mike Woodson. Third in the Big Ten behind Purdue (No. 11) and UCLA (No. 16), the Hoosiers had an average of No. 19.

With five players acquired through the transfer site, Woodson is adamant about changing IU’s offensive strategy away from its reliance on domination in the low post.

Lastly, the full consensus rankings derived from all five polls are presented here:

1. Kansas
2. Houston
3. Iowa State
4. Alabama
5. UConn
6. Gonzaga
7. North Carolina
8. Duke
9. Baylor
10. Auburn
11. Purdue
12. Arizona
13. Creighton
14. Tennessee
15. Marquette
16. UCLA
17. Texas A&M
18. Florida
19. Indiana
20. Texas
21. Ohio State
22. Arkansas
23. Xavier
24. Rutgers
25. St. John’s