With all the recent upgrades across Kentucky athletics, fans (and John Calipari) started to wonder when it was the basketball program’s turn to get a facility renovation. 

Not to worry. Athletic director Mitch Barnhart has the plans on his mind. But such upgrades require money. Lots of it.

In an interview with SEC Country, Barnhart explained that while the athletic department has not forgotten about the basketball program, the upgrades that Calipari and the fanbase seeks requires a decent chunk of change. The question is on how to acquire such finances and how long it would take.

“We’re seeking some help. We’ve got to have money to do (basketball improvements),” Barnhart said. “We keep raising our hand. We’ve got to work our way through some of those finances.”

The planned upgrades include making spaces in the Joe Craft Center larger and making facility more modern in general. The Craft Center was unveiled in 2007 as a $32 million state-of-the-art practice facility the men’s and women’s basketball teams. 

Other upgrades also include adding a new dining area to the players’ Wildcat Coal Lodge living quarters, located across the parking lot of the Craft Center.

Rupp Arena, which hosts the men’s basketball games every year, had a new video board added above its center court as part of the two-year, $15 million upgrade approved for the arena last year. A $351 million renovation of Rupp Arena, along with the Lexington Convention Center that it’s attached to, was scrapped in 2014.

But changes are being planned, according to Barnhart. It’s just a matter of when they will start.