“A program synonymous with winning.” “The stars are aligned.” Let’s stick with clichés for awhile. It makes for good reading when viewed through blue lenses. Kentucky basketball is famous for both its winning ways and bottomless appetite for national championships. Try to imagine racing a Ferrari and a Maserati on a ¼ mile track. You’ve been given the keys to a Lamborghini. Three great thoroughbreds. One small problem for the Lamborghini: the wheels have fallen off. That basically sums up Kentucky basketball for the past half decade. It defined the Billy Gillispie era.
The fumes of victory had long since dried up before Gillispie rolled into town. Tubby Smith, the last coach of a UK national championship team, won it on the backs of Rick Pitino’s players: Scott Padgett, Michael Bradley, Wayne Turner, Jamaal Magloire and Tayshaun Prince. He was still able to recruit the great player every now and then (see Rajon Rondo and Randolph Morris [who was a bust, but nevermind that]), but struggled to bring in a complete class of great recruits. Gillispie brought in Patrick Patterson and developed Jodie Meeks into a more than solid two guard, but it was a steep downhill in talent after that.
So what do you do if you’re Kentucky’s ADUP (Athletic Director Under Pressure), Mitch Barnhart? Well, you find, hook, plead, beg and do everything else legally and illegally to get a coach that will absolutely put you on a path to success. Quick aside: Mr. Barnhart has a self-termed “15x15x15” plan that he is banking on for proof of his success. Basically, the goal for UK Athletics is to win at least 15 conference or national championships and rank among the NCAA’s top 5 athletic programs by 2015. Let’s take a reasonable guess and assume that Kentucky basketball wins the conference championship oh, I don’t know, every year from the 2009 to the 2014 season (6 conference championships). Let’s take another leap of faith and assume they will challenge for the NCAA title oh, I don’t know, every year through the 2014 season. And let’s say they will win two titles (2 national championships). Well that’s 8 championships from one sport. I’m sure the rest of the sports teams can pick up another 7 between them.After another down season for Kentucky basketball and the shadow of Rick Pitino growing in Louisville, it was time for a change. The plug was pulled on ol’ Billy Boy because, as the Kentucky administration put it, there existed an “incompatibility between the school” and coach. Billy Boy is now in the John Lucas After Care alcohol rehab program in Houston. Talk about “drinking away your sorrows.”
Strolling into the limelight and pressure is John Calipari. He’s never won a national championship, but he has also never coached a program as high profile as Kentucky. And, as Rick Pitino showed us by winning high praise with his Kentucky teams (but also tanked in the NBA and whose Louisville team has yet to reach the predicted heights), when you surround yourself with great players, you just need to be good enough to “manage the game.” And, of course, you don’t really need to have great recruiting pitches to attract the nation’s finest basketball players to the bluest part of the Bluegrass state. Just ask the FOUR five-star recruits that will be playing for Coach Calipari this year: Eric Bledsoe, DeMarcus Cousins, Daniel Orton and the will-he-or-won’t-he-play, illegally recruited, played 5 years of high school, maybe ineligible, highlight reel point guard, John Wall.
There exists my favorite of clichés: “No one knows that the future holds.” The college basketball landscape is forever changing. When you have someone as seedy and loathed as John Calipari (For the record, I love Kentucky basketball, but when does integrity give way to the “win at any costs” philosophy), an illegal violation waiting to happen, you’re not even sure of next week. For Billy Gillespie, the cliché, “Pressure busts pipes,” came true. Can Calipari turn an old stone back into a diamond? The 900,000 fanatics that follow Coach Calipari on Twitter each and every day are eager to find out.
11 comments:
I give coach Cal 3-4 years before the wheels fall off again and the NCAA sanctions Kentucky. He's just so greasy. Good hearing your pro-Kentucky arguments again Q-tip.
November 9, 2009 at 2:01 PMQ, I apologize because I invited you into a den of UK bashers, but isn't Calipari the ultimate cliche of Pitino (or at least Pitino Lite)?
November 9, 2009 at 6:06 PMI will add that the rest of the country is scared to death of what kind of talent Calipari might be able to reap in Lexington
November 9, 2009 at 6:07 PMjust realized that "pressure bursts pipes" could be used as a horrible euphemism describing Pitino's offseason ordeal
November 10, 2009 at 7:16 PMAs a devoted Tennessee fan, I was happy to see him take the UK job. Fully knowing he has the uncanny ability to destroy everything the school has been building for decades in just a matter of years.
November 10, 2009 at 9:50 PMUK rose out of the Sutton mess, so I think they can take whatever Calipari brings.
November 10, 2009 at 9:54 PMThat was also in the 80s, when Cinderella had names like Villanova. It's a new day with a lot more competition, where a clouded future could be a lot more damaging.
November 10, 2009 at 10:51 PMSee, I think it's actually the opposite. In the '80s, there was a bigger cliff from which to fall. Now, a program drops off, and it's still treading water. A Final Four run can be born from just one player: Dwyane Wade or Carmello. In the '80s, unless a team had a big man like Ewing, it took a few legit great players to make a run.
November 10, 2009 at 11:22 PMYou have a good point, considering the age rules with the NBA. But if they end up like Memphis, who does UK hire? Do they hire a big enough of a name to get players like that? Or do they go with someone safe to show their cleaning the program up? It's a whole lot of what-ifs, but I figure they go with the latter. Which would free us from UK dominance for at least a couple seasons.
November 10, 2009 at 11:34 PMWell, the Calipari era at UK has officially begun with a 16 point victory over Morehead St.
November 14, 2009 at 11:13 AMIt hasn't been vacated yet, has it?
November 14, 2009 at 12:15 PMPost a Comment