John Calipari has five more years remaining on his Kentucky contract. The heat will be on.

Another shocking NCAA Tournament upset to prolong Kentucky’s postseason drought was met with the expected reaction from a vocal segment of the Wildcats’ fan base Thursday night.

John Calipari has plenty of time left on his UK basketball contract. But patience is wearing thin — and for many, it’s clearly worn out completely — following the Cats’ 80-76 loss to 14-seeded Oakland.

Calipari did not directly address his future as Kentucky’s coach following Thursday’s loss, but he did talk about the future of the program in the context that he would still be in charge of it when the 2024-25 season begins eight months from now.

“We’ve gotta figure out who’s coming back and who’s not,” he said. “We got this transfer stuff going on. We may not need it. We have an unbelievable group coming in that I feel really good about. We add some guys and (some current guys) stay. … I’ll meet with them tonight. I talked to them after (the game). But I’m going to meet with them in my room tonight, and these guys took this really hard. I mean, they took it really hard.”

Kentucky’s fans will take it hard, too, something Calipari acknowledged a short time later. And he’s going to get the bulk of the blame for this loss. He’s also the common denominator in the Wildcats’ skid in March that will drag on for at least another season. Thursday night’s defeat came two years after UK’s first-round loss to 15-seeded Saint Peter’s.

Since Calipari signed a 10-year contract extension following the 2018-19 season, Kentucky has won just one NCAA Tournament game, and the Cats have not advanced beyond the second round of March Madness. UK hasn’t been to a Final Four since 2015 — the skid will now reach 10 years, the second-longest in program history — and there hasn’t been a national title since 2012.

The details of that contract extension that Calipari agreed to five years ago basically ensure that he will be back in Lexington next season, as long as he wants to be, no matter the level of fan angst.

Calipari, who turned 65 years old last month, is due to be paid $8.5 million for the 2024-25 season and $9 million for each of the four years beyond that, with the deal ending at the conclusion of the 2028-29 season.

There is a so-called “ambassador clause” in his contract that would allow Calipari to step down as head coach and serve as “special assistant” to UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart. Only Calipari can trigger that option, however. It would pay him $950,000 annually for the next five years, a relatively small amount compared to his salary as head coach, which would total $44.5 million over the next five seasons.

If Kentucky wanted to move on from the Calipari era — which wrapped up its 15th season Thursday night — the university would owe the Hall of Fame coach 75% of his remaining salary. That total would be around $33.4 million. There’s been no indication that Barnhart or UK President Eli Capilouto would even entertain going that route after this season, especially knowing that Kentucky would be expected to pay its next head coach a similar salary.

The buyout after next season would be $27 million.

Before this recent skid, Calipari took UK to four Final Fours — all between 2011 and 2015 — and won the 2012 national title. He also led the Cats to the Elite Eight in 2017 and 2019.

This Kentucky team was as beloved as any in recent years, with in-state sensation Reed Sheppard and several other highly touted freshmen capturing the imagination of UK fans.

Sheppard said Calipari was not to blame for Thursday’s loss.

“None of that’s on Coach,” he said. “Coach isn’t out there playing the game. He’s not out there shooting the shots. He’s not out there guarding. He’s not out there doing anything. They prepared us for the game. And we didn’t — we couldn’t stop them defensively. And we didn’t make shots. And we had some bad turnovers. And that’s not on him. He can’t shoot the ball for us. He got us open shots. … None of this is on any of the coaches. I don’t care what anybody says. We have the best coach in the world. And we’ve got the best coaching staff in the world. How much we learned from them this year — they’re a great group of guys and a great group of coaches.”

Calipari’s final comments at his postgame press conference Thursday night featured a section looking ahead to the next UK basketball season. He certainly sounded like he would be a part of it.

“I’ll say it again. I feel bad for our fans who all traveled again,” he said. “They’re here. These kids — they know they’re playing for these fans and our fans, who are the best in the country. They travel. They’re everywhere. And I imagine they’re hurting like we are hurting. So I’ll look at other ways that we can do stuff.”

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