John Calipari has accomplished quite allot over his 24 year head coaching career. At Umass he led the Minuteman to their first ever final four (it happened, deal with it). He then led the awful New Jersey Nets to a playoff appearance after just 2 years. At Memphis he won a crap load of games including an NCAA record 38 wins during the 2007-2008 season (This happened too, continue to deal). In only 2 years at UK, Claipari won 61 games and reached a Final Four. This all may sound very impressive, but there is one accomplishment that has escaped Coach Cal throughout his career.
John Calipari has never won the "big one". The closest he ever came was against Kansas in 2008. John's critics blame the loss on Memphis' inability to make free throws as it seemed to be the only weakness the Tigers had that year. The truth is Calipari has never been as close to winning a title before that year....or since.
The question is then, if Cal doesn't win the title with THIS year's team, Will he ever?
Will Cal ever have a team as talented as that 2008 Memphis team? Even as much talent as Cal is bringing in at UK now, I don't believe Cal will coach a better team that that one. With that great mix of returning and incoming talent he still couldn't close the deal. 2 years ago he had Wall, Cousins, Bledsoe, Miller and Patterson. That team had an incredible regular season but in the tourney he could only get as far as the elite 8.
This year Calipari will have Miller, Lamb, Jones, Davis, Teague and Gilchrist to go for Calipari's first national title. I am of a firm belief that if Coach Cal doesn't win a national championship with this team, he never will.
That isn't to say that this team is the best team he has ever coached or ever will. Coach Cal isn't getting any younger and he only has 7-8 years left of coaching. The other reason is this UK team matches up well with almost any team. UK's length this year will give numerous teams problems as well as their athleticism. Those ingredients are exactly what you need when in the tournament, when you will have to play all types of offenses and defenses. A likely combination he will never see as a head coach.
UK matched up terribly with UConn, but Uconn matched up terribly with Louisville and UK beat Louisville by 15....at Louisville (not really relevant but fun to mention). John Wall's UK team matched up poorly with West Virginia, but in my opinion would have matched up great with Duke (see Duke vs. Arizona 2011 tourney game).
I am in no way saying that if Cal never wins a title that makes him a bad coach. Dan Marino never won a super bowl and he's regarded as one of the greatest Qb's of all time. John Chaney and Eddie Sutton have a combined 1,500 wins and they never won a national title, doesn't make them terrible coaches either.
How about those that say "Cal has only been at UK for 2 years?" Do you realize that recently 3 college football programs in the SEC won national champions all with coaches who have been there 3 years or less? LSU won a national title with 3rd year head coach Les Miles. Alabama won with 3rd year head coach Nick Saban and Auburn won the year after with 2nd year head coach Gene Chizik. This will be Calipari's 3rd year.
There are 2 things to note here. This is all depending if the NBA's Collective bargaining agreement keeps college students out of the NBA for just one year. If it goes to 2 years, never mind I ever wrote this. Secondly, I honestly think UK will win #8 this year so this won't even be an issue...right?
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