With the departure of Smith to Minnesota, Kentucky hired Texas A&M head man Billy Gillispie who had successfully rebuilt both the Aggies’ program and, prior to that, UTEP’s.

Once Gillispie proved to be a poor fit at UK, the university hired the Memphis head man, Calipari, one of the best-known coaches in men’s college hoops.

In the current era, simply trying to land the biggest “star coach” available could prove more challenging.

Had UK and Calipari parted ways after this past season, five coaches who might have been on Kentucky’s wish list as a replacement are Alabama’s Nate Oats, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd, Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, Connecticut’s Dan Hurley and Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger.

The cost to UK to buy any of those five coaches out of their existing contacts would have been immense: an $18 million contract buyout for Oats; $17 million for Otzelberger; $12 million for Lloyd; $10 million for Hurley; and $8.5 million for Pearl.

Yet the size of those contact buyouts are not always static — which impacts the attractiveness of potential hires.

In the case of Lloyd, the Arizona Daily Star reports that his buyout drops to $9 million after the 2025-26 season, then to $6.25 million (2026-27), $3.25 million (2027-28) and, finally, to nothing (2028-29).

Connecticut’s Hurley has a similar buyout deescalation in his contract. According to CT Insider, Hurley’s $10 million buyout after 2023-24 drops to $7.5 million after next season, then to $3 million (2025-26), $2 million (2026-27) and $1 million (2027-28).

Interestingly, two of Kentucky’s peers among men’s college basketball’s historically elite programs, Duke and North Carolina, have pursued a very different pattern than UK’s historic one in replacing their longtime head coaches.

When Roy Williams gave up the Tar Heels coaching job in 2021, UNC elevated his assistant, Hubert Davis. Since the iconic Dean Smith retired in 1997, all four subsequent UNC head men have come from the “Carolina family.”

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