John Calipari is one of the best, if not the best recruiter in college basketball, and probably one of the top five coaches in the game today. After having two not so good seasons, John Feinstein of cbssports.com thinks John Calipari has changed and for the worse.
Here is an excerpt from Feinstein’s article.
Calipari has become the king of recruiting one-and-dones — players looking for a place to walk-through college for a year before they are eligible for the NBA draft. His sales pitch is simple: Come here and you will be better prepared for the NBA than anyplace else AND you will be more marketable because you will be at Kentucky and I will sing your praises.
Only now things have gone a little bit off the rails. A year ago, not only did UK fail to make the NCAA Tournament, it lost in the FIRST ROUND of the NIT to Robert Morris not far from the gym where John and I first met. Sure, Nerlens Noel tore up his knee, but the Wildcats weren’t exactly hammering people before the injury.This year was going to be different. Calipari really LIKED the new freshman group. They were tough. They were hugely talented. They were tabbed by the so-called experts as the best recruiting class since The Fab Five. (Which, NCAA sanctions aside, never won a championship). There were whispers about 40-0, which Calipari didn’t discourage.
Fast forward four months. Kentucky is 22-9 and lucky to have played in a weak SEC. Maybe they will make a March run in the NCAA Tournament — because they will be in the field this year. Their one quality win all season? Louisville and Pitino, naturally.
Calipari hasn’t handled the disappointing regular season very well. He’s sniped at his team publicly — accusing the players of not ‘taking ownership,’ even though he’s now paid $5.5 million a year to ‘own,’ and lead the players HE recruited. He’s whined about how young the team is — that’s the way he PLANS it each season, no? He’s accused the players of not buying in, of not being emotionally committed. A couple weeks ago he got thrown out during an embarrassing loss to South Carolina and then ducked the media afterwards claiming he had to do his radio show. As if the media wouldn’t have waited until he finished his (paid) radio bit.
Did the National Championship change Coach Cal?
Evans and Massimino were never — to put it mildly — friends. But after Massimino left Villanova in 1992 with a good deal of bad feelings (since repaired by Jay Wright) in both directions, Evans said this: “After he won the national championship in 1985, I think Rollie kind of fell in love with himself.”
Harsh words, but sometimes there’s truth in harsh words. Looking at Calipari now and remembering the smart, eager, honest young coach I hung out with all those years ago, I can’t help but wonder if those words don’t also apply to him.
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Read John Feinstein Blog: John Calipari Has Changed For The Worse by clicking here.
