College basketball is back and Kentucky has the best recruiting class in the sport once again.

Expectations are high for the team with many people calling it “championship or bust.” In fact, Kentucky has the fourth-best odds to win it all only behind  Kansas, Duke and Purdue. 

One question that isn’t being asked enough, however, is whether or not this be the expectation at all.

Kentucky has struggled in the past three years, especially in the non-conference. The Cats are 4-11 in the last three years versus out-of-conference power-six teams with a record of 1-8 versus AP Top 25 out-of-conference power-six teams.

Kentucky also hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 since 2019, with a big part of this being because the Cats are always one of the youngest teams in the nation, consistently featuring freshmen playing a big role on their teams. 

This year is no different as Kentucky is projected to start three freshmen in point guard D.J. Wagner, forward Justin Edwards and center Aaron Bradshaw.

To make matters worse, in just Kentucky’s third game of the season it is set to go up to Chicago to play No. 1 Kansas in the Champions’ Classic, an event in which the Wildcats haven’t won in three years.

Kentucky also plays No. 13 Miami and No. 11 Gonzaga at Rupp Arena and No. 19 North Carolina in Atlanta before moving into its conference slate.

Beyond that, the teams that have found recent success in college basketball are those who have been older and more mature, especially in the guard department.

Kentucky’s two point guards projected to play this year are both freshmen in Wagner and Rob Dillingham.

If that isn’t enough on its own, Kentucky only has two players on the 2023-24 roster who played more than ten minutes per game in fifth year seniors Tre Mitchell, a West Virginia transfer, and Antonio Reeves. 

In summary, the team is very talented but has little experience.

Taking a look at the recent national champions, all have the thing this Kentucky team doesn’t have: that experience.

UConn, which won the 2023 National Championship had stars return in the forms of Jordan Hawkins and senior point guard Tristen Newton. The 2022 National Champion, Kansas, was led by star senior point guard Ochai Agbaji.

The last team to win a championship with a freshman point guard was 2018-19 Virginia, which had freshman Kihei Clark, though even he had the help of juniors Kyle Guy and Ty Jerome.

The perfect comparison to the 2023-24 Kentucky team, if it is going to be truly great, is the 2014-15 Duke team. That team was led by three great freshmen in Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones, going 35-4 and winning the NCAA Championship.

Even then, Duke also had veterans play a big role such as senior guard Quin Cook, who averaged over 15 points per game, and junior forward Amel Jefferson.

Kentucky will be led by Wagner, Edwards and Bradshaw, but will desperately need veterans like Mitchell and Reeves to play consistent minutes also if it wishes to accomplish anything.

Head coach John Calipari has proven he can win with young teams in the past, but the college game has changed. Kentucky has the talent to make a championship, but as of late, talent hasn’t been enough on its own.

If Kentucky can’t overcome its experience gap, fans’ lofty expectations will seem futile and, even if it can, perhaps a broad lowering of expectations is needed.