After losing to Florida, Kentucky's return to elite status looks at least a season away

At halftime on Saturday night, after his Kentucky players had outplayed Florida for most of the past 20 minutes yet still found themselves down two points, Wildcats coach John Calipari was asked for his assessment.

"The foul trouble kind of got us out of whack," Calipari told the sideline reporter. "But we're gonna be all right."

The question now is this: Will Kentucky – after losing to Florida, it is 14-5 overall, 4-3 in the SEC and with only two wins over teams ranked in the top 50 on KenPom – "be all right" come March?

And what about next March?

Kentucky is not a pretty team this year. The Wildcats have the potential with their massive size and length to be an elite defensive team, but that potential only comes out in spurts. They're young – this is Calipari's youngest team, ranking 351 out of the 351 teams in college basketball in experience, perhaps the youngest team in modern college basketball history – but the bigger problem is they play young. On Saturday night, desperately in need of a basket trailing with under a minute left, point guard Quade Green clanged a corner 3-pointer off the side of the backboard. You could feel Calipari's blood boiling. They don't move the ball well. They turn the ball over too much. They shoot fewer 3-pointers than all but three teams in college basketball. Their only strength on the offensive end seems to be when they work smaller teams over in the paint.

They're ranked 33rd in KenPom, which is sure to decline after their 66-64 loss Saturday. Ranked No. 18 in the AP Top 25, they'll likely drop out of the rankings after a two-loss week, including one loss to a rebuilding South Carolina team. I thought going into the season they'd be a middling NCAA Tournament seed this year – like a No. 4 seed or a No. 5 seed – but they're trending perilously close to bubble territory. (Jerry Palm's latest bracket had Kentucky as a No. 6 seed.)