It seems it’s always the same thing. A group of freshmen comes to play Kentucky basketball, struggles early, finds their tempo late in the season, but is always too inexperienced to take home the title. After that, they all leave. It’s become monotonous, and UK basketball has started to lose the appeal it once had.

Kentucky is 2-1 so far, with wins over Utah Valley and Vermont. Players like Quade Green, Hamidou Diallo, Nick Richards, Kevin Knox, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, PJ Washington, and Wenyen Gabriel look to take Kentucky back to the Final Four after last year’s failure in the Elite Eight against eventual champions North Carolina.

However, I find myself asking, “Who are these people?” It’s a question I always end up asking this time of the year. Kentucky is loaded with another group of freshmen that I’ve never heard of, and like every year, I have lost interest.

How is someone supposed to get behind a team who only cares about heading to the NBA? Only a few of these players are going to stay, and the ones who do stay will surely leave in another one or two seasons.

What’s happened to the Patrick Pattersons or the Darius Millers of the world? Are there no more players who want to stay four years? Or is John Calipari just not recruiting them?

Fans want a hometown hero. Kentucky doesn’t have a single senior on the team this season. The only juniors on the team, Jonny David and Dillon Pulliam, hardly step on the floor.

Kentucky just needs one or two players who are willing to stay to change the entire program. Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, no team has ever won the championship without a senior on the team, and fans should stop expecting Kentucky to compete for national titles when they have an almost entirely new team every year.

Expectations are continuously growing for John Calipari’s teams, and it’s unfair for him. No team is going to be able to consistently compete with the experienced powerhouses like North Carolina, Kansas, Duke, or Michigan State, when we won’t have a senior step on the court all season.

Experience goes a long way in sports whether it’s high school, college, or the pros. This Kentucky team might have the talent to win a title, but they don’t have nearly enough experience to have success come tournament time.