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OT: John Calipari to return as Kentucky men's basketball coach

Travelman6

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www.espn.com

John Calipari to return as Kentucky men's basketball coach

Despite another early exit from the NCAA tournament, Kentucky coach John Calipari will return for a 16th season, athletic director Mitch Barnhart said Tuesday.
www.espn.com www.espn.com

I know Big Blue Nation was in an uproar after Oakland, will be interesting to see how fans treat the news or if they will follow thru and not buy tickets or support the team anymore as many claimed they would do. Will Coach Cal have a nice bounce back season next year? Luckily one less p2 team that up and coming schools have to worry about regarding their coach being ....poached.

I would think an article like thus might signify a hot or at least warming seat and he's reaching the end of his chances.
 
Leebo said:
I hope they limp to a "not quite success, not obvious failure" season and do this all over again.
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More or less this year in a nutshell, maybe one extra win. May you have many 24-9 (13-5 or 12-6 sec) seasons and round of 32 appearances! I think for him to stay long term gotta throw in a s16 next year though.
 
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I want them to get to the point where they make Calipari ask Calhoun to mentor him for a year or two, and Calhoun never gets back to him.

The only thing better would be to hire John Cheney as Calipari's mentor, but apparently he died a couple years ago.
 
temery said:
I want them to get to the point where they make Calipari ask Calhoun to mentor him for a year or two, and Calhoun never gets back to him.

The only thing better would be to hire John Cheney as Calipari's mentor, but apparently he died a couple years ago.
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The AD should ask Dave Benedict to mentor him on how to get out of the $33 million Calipari will be owed when he's terminated.
 
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State Of The Union Congress GIF by PBS NewsHour
 
At this point, uk fans hate him even more than opposing fan bases. The end of that story is not going to be pretty.
 
Hoophound said:
We’ll see. UK will probably start throwing insane money at big transfers.
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I’m sure they will, but that program requires a significant cultural change as far as preparation, accountability, attention to detail, and the standard to which players in that program are held. I’m VERY skeptical Cal is going to be able to change his stripes there even with an older team. That has never been his MO. He’s always been a personality manager.
 
Cal can coach. Thats not the problem. He just doesn’t know how to build a team for this era. If he’s smart he may bring in a new assistant to help with that. The portal has made it nearly impossible to win playing a very young team.
 
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BGesus4 said:
At this point, uk fans hate him even more than opposing fan bases. The end of that story is not going to be pretty.
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I get feeling upset, and refusing to buy tickets and merchandise, or even sending letters to the AD. But some Kentucky fans are insane, absolutely bonkers. They've been known to send death threats to refs who "wronged" them, tried to review bomb a business of a ref who "wronged" them (and targeted the wrong business at that), and were on Coach Cal's lawn planting "for sale" signs to the point where cops had to be called to the scene to protect his property in the aftermath of the Oakland loss. They maliciously targeted Saul Smith for no real reason. I mean imagine hating a player on a team you claim to root for to THAT extent. People complain about Philly fans but Kentucky fans give them a run for their money. Uconn fans can be brats sometimes, spoiled, but Kentucky is another level. As a coach you need to be experienced and have very thick skin to go to Lexington.
 
Travelman32 said:
www.espn.com

John Calipari to return as Kentucky men's basketball coach

Despite another early exit from the NCAA tournament, Kentucky coach John Calipari will return for a 16th season, athletic director Mitch Barnhart said Tuesday.
www.espn.com www.espn.com

I know Big Blue Nation was in an uproar after Oakland, will be interesting to see how fans treat the news or if they will follow thru and not buy tickets or support the team anymore as many claimed they would do. Will Coach Cal have a nice bounce back season next year? Luckily one less p2 team that up and coming schools have to worry about regarding their coach being ....poached.

I would think an article like thus might signify a hot or at least warming seat and he's reaching the end of his chances.
Expand ...
That's good. I was a little concerned about losing Luke to them.
 
Travelman32 said:
More or less this year in a nutshell, maybe one extra win. May you have many 24-9 (13-5 or 12-6 sec) seasons and round of 32 appearances! I think for him to stay long term gotta throw in a s16 next year though.
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He can always claim the team did well despite being young…or.. they blew it … because they are so young.
 
HuskyHawk said:
Cal can coach. Thats not the problem.
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The guy can coach offense. Can he coach the rest of it still? His teams were making wildly stupid plays on defense and their attention to detail was just embarrassing. That was with two fifth year seniors and a sophomore in the starting lineup. Maybe it’s complacency on his part, maybe it’s just the wrong players, but I’m not convinced Cal is going to change enough to right the ship there.
 
I don’t like getting in other people’s business as if we have all the answers. Bad karma.

Purdue got ambushed last year, Kentucky this year, somebody next year…we are one hot team and one off night away from burning down the board…when you have high expectations the height of the fall makes it that much more painful.

Let’s keep focused on our business.
 
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The quote at the end sounds very “former presidential” in that it was a whole paragraph of words that absolutely meant nothing and I have no idea what he’s trying to convey except he wants people to think he’s got this.
 
Travelman32 said:
I get feeling upset, and refusing to buy tickets and merchandise, or even sending letters to the AD. But some Kentucky fans are insane, absolutely bonkers. They've been known to send death threats to refs who "wronged" them, tried to review bomb a business of a ref who "wronged" them (and targeted the wrong business at that), and were on Coach Cal's lawn planting "for sale" signs to the point where cops had to be called to the scene to protect his property in the aftermath of the Oakland loss. They maliciously targeted Saul Smith for no real reason. I mean imagine hating a player on a team you claim to root for to THAT extent. People complain about Philly fans but Kentucky fans give them a run for their money. Uconn fans can be brats sometimes, spoiled, but Kentucky is another level. As a coach you need to be experienced and have very thick skin to go to Lexington.
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Isn't that the way of the world now?
 
HuskyHawk said:
Cal can coach. Thats not the problem. He just doesn’t know how to build a team for this era. If he’s smart he may bring in a new assistant to help with that. The portal has made it nearly impossible to win playing a very young team.
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Think he also just isn’t getting the talent he used to when he won. He’s only going to be as good as the recruiting class is and this years bigs sucked. The top 5 guys he brought in were overrated.

If he found another Anthony Davis, Cousins, or even maybe a Bam they can do well. Bigs are generally just not that good coming out these days and are horribly coached in the US.
 
Hoophound said:
We’ll see. UK will probably start throwing insane money at big transfers.
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And then when Squid fails at that he can blame them for being older players with ingrained bad habits which can't be molded.
And then he'll blame the generational gap between freshmen and fifth year seniors.
And then he'll blame the transfers for being high floor, low ceiling.
And then he'll blame..........................................
 
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alexd said:
Yes, but Cal was having issues building a team WAY before the portal.
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Are you sure. Portal came out in 2018.

Screenshot 2024-03-27 101144.jpg
 
runner11 said:
Cal went portal heavy back to back years and did terribly. And then he reverted back to solely freshman. But you really need a mix of all 3 and it’s not a problem you can throw money at when everybody has it.
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He's not alone. Kansas fans are being utterly dumb about the portal, thinking Timberlake failed because he was a mid major. The reality is that Morris was the worst transfer (obviously) and Dickenson, while he played well, drove away too much depth.

Like UConn, KU runs complicated stuff on both ends. Have to look for smart guys who can adjust to that. It isn't easy. There are more free flowing teams where it matters less, including Kentucky. But Cal may need to fix that most of all.
 
HuskyHawk said:
Cal can coach. Thats not the problem. He just doesn’t know how to build a team for this era. If he’s smart he may bring in a new assistant to help with that. The portal has made it nearly impossible to win playing a very young team.
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Totally agree. Cal has proven to be a really good coach, but the way he is assembling and developing teams isn't working. The Kentucky culture is about getting to the NBA and not winning national championships and he has been very successful doing that.

Where Kentucky has really fallen off is on defense. Look at these Ken Pom defense rankings and their post season performance starting with their last championship in 2012 (Note, Kentucky's Ken Pom offense was top 25 every year but 2021 at 84 and 2013 at 38):

Ken Pom defense ranking:

2012: 7 NCAA champions
2013: 88 NIT
2014: 32 NCAA runner up
2015: 1 NCAA Final Four
2016: 39 NCAA 2nd round
2017: 7 Elite 8
2018: 22 Sweet 16
2019: 8 Elite 8
2020: 52 COVID No Tournament
2021: 35 No tourney invites
2022: 36 NCAA 1st round
2023: 88 NCAA 2nd round
2024: 112 NCAA 1st round

When you look at the Ken Pom defense ranking for this year, it was pretty clear Kentucky wasn't going very far in the NCAA tournament.
 
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