Joe Sargent/Getty ImagesThe No. 14 Oakland Golden Grizzlies shocked the No. 3 Kentucky Wildcats in the first round of the 2024 NCAA men's basketball tournament on Thursday, and they reportedly did it on a minuscule budget compared to UK.
According to Front Office Sports, Kentucky spent 10 times more than Oakland on its men's basketball program in 2023, as Kentucky invested $23.6 million, compared to just $2.3 million for Oakland:
Front Office Sports @FOSKentucky spent over 10x more on its men's basketball program than Oakland last year.<br><br>14-seed Oakland just upset 3-seed Kentucky in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. <a href="https://t.co/1iSLOeQmmI">pic.twitter.com/1iSLOeQmmI</a>
Despite the discrepancy, the John Calipari-coached Wildcats suffered another early exit in March Madness, falling 80-76 to Oakland in the South Region.
It comes as little surprise that Kentucky's basketball team is far more financially supported than Oakland's since Kentucky is a blue-blood program and one of the most successful of all time.
The Kentucky men's basketball team has won the NCAA tournament eight times, reached the Final Four 17 times and won two major tourneys before the existence of the NCAA tournament as well.
By comparison, Oakland did not become an official Division I program until 1999, and this year marks only the fourth time it has made it into the NCAA tournament field. To make matters worse for Kentucky, Thursday marked the first NCAA tournament win in program history for Oakland.
Kentucky is stacked with high-ceiling prospects and 5-star recruits thanks to the resources it is able to sink into recruiting, whereas Oakland's roster is made up of overlooked players who weren't necessarily highly touted coming out of high school.
There is no greater example of that than senior guard Jack Gohlke, who transferred to Oakland this season after previously playing at Division II Hillsdale College.
Gohlke led all scorers Thursday with 32 points, going 10-of-20 from the field with all of his attempts coming from three-point range.
Oakland University, which is located in Auburn Hills, Michigan, had just under 16,000 students enrolled as of the fall of 2023, while the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, had nearly 34,000 enrollees for 2023-24.
Kentucky is bigger by every metric, and it should be better as well, but that wasn't the case on Thursday.
Now, Kentucky has just one win over the past three NCAA tournaments, and it has experienced a first-round exit in two of the past three tourneys.
While Calipari is 410-122 at Kentucky and has led the Wildcats to four trips to the Final Four and one national title, he has not gotten past the Elite Eight since 2015.
As a result, Calipari may be feeling the heat, which could be why he discussed the possibility of changing his team-building strategy after Thursday's loss, telling reporters the following:
"I'll look at other ways that we can do stuff, but, you know, there's—this thing here, it's a different animal. We've been able to help so many kids and win so many games and Final Fours, national titles and all this stuff, win league championships with young guys.
"It's changed on us. All of a sudden it's gotten really old. So we're playing teams that our average age is 19, their average age is 24 and 25. So do I change because of that? Maybe add a couple older guys to supplement."
Over the past several years, Kentucky has largely been made up of young, blue-chip prospects who often leave for the NBA after one or two seasons.
One of the reasons why smaller schools like Oakland can compete with big-time programs in the NCAA tournament is the fact that it has its players for longer and can build chemistry over time.
Given Kentucky's lack of success in recent years, perhaps funneling more of the school's resources into the transfer portal could be beneficial since it would help bring experienced, veteran players into the fold, which could be huge come tournament time.
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