Matt Norlander of CBS Sports says John Calipari can become the face of college basketball after Mike Krzyzewski retires.
Here is an excerpt of Norlander’s thoughts:
An understandable lookahead storyline to K’s retirement is “What will become of Duke?” But perhaps the more immediate — and consequential — question is: What will become of Kentucky? Calipari stands to be a bigger beneficiary of Krzyzewski’s retirement than anyone else. UK doesn’t do down years often. Calipari is coming off the worst season of his career, a 9-16 debacle amid a season of COVID. It was so bad, he brought back former assistant Orlando Antigua, in addition to adding Chin Coleman to his staff in an effort to reset the program. (Both were at Illinois last season; the Illini earned their first No. 1 seed in 16 years.)
Safe to presume Calipari will run on jet fuel next season to make sure it resembles nothing of the prior one. And for Calipari, it always starts with recruiting. His greatest challenger is leaving.
Is a Kentucky resurgence imminent?
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Jon Scheyer has been an effective recruiter the past five-plus years for Krzyzewski. He was the lead guy in bringing in Zion Williamson, Jayson Tatum, Luke Kennard and Cam Reddish. The two highest-rated freshmen on campus now are Paolo Banchero and AJ Griffin. Scheyer was lead recruiter there as well. He’ll get it done.
But Duke will not be Duke all the same without Krzyzewski on the bench. Scheyer will not be expected, nor should he, to keep the Blue Devils at the very top of the recruiting rankings — at least not immediately. With the landscape of recruiting set to change yet again, the coach most equipped to adapt is the one who always has. Calipari — detractors be damned — has made it his calling to sell his program, his university, his players, himself — all of it — and done it brilliantly with a salesman’s voice, a surgeon’s touch and an operative’s instinct.
