John Calipari always doing less with more
John Calipari
- Thread starter NYShoreGuy
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18 min tonight 3 assists, missed 4 3p fg...their best kids were a grad transfer in mitchell and reeves
Kentucky has a $33 million John Calipari dilemma after March Madness failure
Could it be time for Kentucky to part ways with legendary head coach John Calipari?
nypost.com
Joe B Ball
Adolph Rupp
Rick Pitino
Eddie Sutton
Tubby Smith
John Calipari
Who on this has least amount of wins in their last 126 games as UK head coach?
126 games equals last 4 seasons of Calipari
Adolph Rupp
Rick Pitino
Eddie Sutton
Tubby Smith
John Calipari
Who on this has least amount of wins in their last 126 games as UK head coach?
126 games equals last 4 seasons of Calipari
Calipari to mull changes after UK's stunning exit
Kentucky coach John Calipari said he would "look at other ways" to approach constructing the team's roster after Thursday's first-round loss to Oakland.
John Calipari to mull changes after Kentucky's first-round exit
PITTSBURGH -- Sitting at the dais in his hometown's arena, Kentucky men's basketball coach John Calipari was something close to shell-shocked after his No. 3-seeded Wildcats' improbable 80-76 loss to No. 14-seed Oakland.
Now 1-4 in his past five NCAA tournament games, matching the program's worst five-game span in the tournament, Calipari considered what Thursday night's loss could mean for his approach to constructing the team's roster.
"I've done this with young teams my whole career, and it's going to be hard for me to change that, because we've helped so many young people and their families that I don't see myself just saying, 'OK, we're not going to recruit freshmen,'" Calipari said.
Of Kentucky's 15 rostered players, eight were freshmen and three were sophomores. Oakland, meanwhile, has one freshman and a pair of redshirt freshmen. Five of the Grizzlies' players were either seniors or graduate transfers.
Entering 2022, Kentucky was 19-0 against 14-seeds or lower in the NCAA tournament, according to ESPN Stats & Information research, but it is 0-2 in games since, including the 2022 loss to No. 15 seed Saint Peter's. The Wildcats were 13.5-point favorites Thursday night.
"I'll look at other ways that we can do stuff, but, you know, there's -- this thing here, it's a different animal," Calipari said. "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."
The process to rebuilding from another early March exit begins immediately after losing to Oakland, Calipari said.
"We've got to figure out who's coming back and who's not. We got this transfer stuff going on," said Calipari, who has been at the helm of the Wildcats since 2009. "We may not need it. We have an unbelievable group coming in that I feel really good about.
"We add some guys and they stay. I mean, you know -- I'm going to -- I'll meet with them tonight. I talked to them after. 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, and I took it hard."
He has done a lot to help kids. He has always said to a kid and his family that was going to be an NBA 1st round pick they have to justify and make a strong case why they are going to pass up guaranteed $$ and go back to college. Clearly with NIL things have changed.
Kentucky has a $33 million John Calipari dilemma after March Madness failure
Kentucky has a $33 million John Calipari dilemma after March Madness failure
Could it be time for Kentucky to part ways with legendary head coach John Calipari?
nypost.com
I think he does. He's pedestrian as an in game coach and no longer has a huge talent advantage. Its gotten stale at Kentucky, needs a new challenge and to bring in more vets through the portal.
Elephant in the room is his buyout, he has to know the majority at UK want him gone and if his buyout was $5M it would have happened already. That makes for a very toxic work environment. Excluding the money aspect definitely best for both parties to move on.
I would go after Kelvin Sampson if I was Kentucky.
Kentucky failure shows how NIL is changing March Madness: Jay Wright
Kentucky failure shows how NIL is changing March Madness: Jay Wright
Former Villanova coach Jay Wright pointed to Thursday’s bracket-busting loss as an example of how he believes the college game is changing.
nypost.com
I don't think these Blue Blood coaches have what it takes to succeed in this NIL era. You can pay all you want to get 5-star freshman, but it's difficult to get a young kid to focus when they receive a windfall of cash. New found money is difficult for adults to handle, imagine the distraction for a 19 year old kid.
We may see a decline in value for incoming freshman if we continue to see young teams exposed in the tournament. Why waste money on an unknown?
We may see a decline in value for incoming freshman if we continue to see young teams exposed in the tournament. Why waste money on an unknown?
Blue blood doesn’t necessarily correlate to having the best NIL set up either. I assumed Kentucky did but reading the main college basketball board I learned its even taken them a while to get their collective going. Now its apparently in better shape.
Name brand still matters but job security and NIL funds are going to go a long way with coaches now. If the NIL is similar between two schools, you’re already financially taken care of and one carries monumental expectations, is it really better to leave?
On that point, McDermott would be nuts to leave Creighton. Perfect example.
Another example off the top of my head; Louisville is a better job than Arkansas but would it be wise for Musselman to leave a school in a great conference that has proven it can afford his players for a big time program thats turned into a dumpster fire and is in limbo b/c of the ACC? Just b/c “its Louisville”…not so sure about that anymore.
NIL has pitfalls but if a unknown household name can raise the $$$ they can compete with the big boys. I like that.
I thought Calipari committed coaching malpractice last night when his team cut the lead down to 2 with 1:08 to go and with 3 timeouts left, he let the clock run 10 seconds before the ball was inbounded by Oakland. That could have meant an entire possession if he calls timeout right after the ball goes through the hoop. Also, it stops the play, get's his players to calm down, makes the other team think about everything, and setup his defense.
I think this is a bigger picture story; I'd say compared to 10+ years ago, the top 5, top 10, top 25 players in each respective HS Class is less impactful. The number 1 player in classes used to take over College basketball for a year or 2, or certainly top 5-10 players. Now it seems like they are WAY below. Few theories...
1- The supposed 5 star players, so say rated in the top 25 of their respective classes...have WAY less of a clue of how to play basketball at this level than their predecessors 10 years prior. The AAU culture of just putting up points for status....the social media/Rivals.com Hype machine, and the coddlers and enablers around them. Dajuan Wagner Jr was like the no. 6 player in the class. Bradshaw was no. 2! Defense, knowing what is a good shot vs great shot, playing team offense vs quality competition are all at worse levels than 10 years ago for the same status player. They are more unprepared for College basketball than their predecessors.
easy example is Reed Sheppard was no. 28 in the class. Yet he is an eternity ahead of Wagner, Bradshaw.
2- College basketball in the transfer portal Era (since 2021 season) so that's 4 years already is much older. 5th year players galore on rosters, and then teams are acquiring 5th year players often.
3- International players. Without doing the research, my hunch is the amount of International players is more each 5-year range...more now than in 2019-20, which had more in Div 1 MBB than 2016 etc. International players by and large are older freshman playing as 19.5 year old freshman, even older than the US hyped freshman
4- NIL $. Even the non-1 and done freshman (guys outside the top 5) are so fragile and so beholden to the possibility of transferring or upping their NIL "stock" that they (and their "people") pull the plug on their situations and quiet quit in-season where they have 1 foot out the door or the threat of it.
5- If you ever look around NBA Draft time, look at the Date of Birth's/ages at Draft Day of the Freshman prospects top 10, top 25 prospects. Routinely, they are older than they should be by 1+ years, their parents doing intentional held-backs for athletic advantages when they were young, or left back due to academics. Then they are always with a massive advantage, a player that's ranked 40th in his class if he did another year of HS could be the 8th ranked player for the following year when compared against kids that are mostly 1yr younger. Then that same player shows up to college, and that physical advantage that was built in is gone, and they never really gain again. I think College coaches do not ever consider the "true age" for or against a prospect they're recruiting, because they're more than ever looking year-to year. Great example of this was Isaiah Briscoe.
We would ALL have gotten WAY more girls in HS if we were 1-1.5 years older than everyone in our grade!
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