Head Coach John Calipari has made his intentions clear that he has no issue with recruiting freshman, in effort to get them prepared to jump to the NBA after their debut season in Lexington.
The logic behind this is what is wrong with college sports. We have heard the commercials that less than 2% of all NCAA student athletes will turn professional in their sports each year. Yet, Calipari has basically become an agent to players, rather than a mentor. He recruits high, then turns around to essentially let these teenagers fend for themselves at the highest level.
Calipari is behind NBA All-Stars such as Anthony Davis, John Wall, Karl Anthony-Towns, DeMarcus Cousins, and Rajon Rondo since taking over behind the bench in 2009. He has just one National Championship (2012) to show for it.
Now, I get that Kentucky has made the Final Four four times (2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015) since Calipari arrived, but Connecticut just fired Kevin Ollie earlier this month, and he has as many National Championships as Cal does this decade.
The Wildcats drew the fifth seed in the South Region, where they could have potential matchups against top overall seed Virginia, Cincinnati, Tennessee, or Arizona. Well, we all know what happened to Arizona and Virginia in the opening round. The Bearcats choked away a 22-point lead, and lost to Nevada. Tennessee was just another victim to the upset machine that is Loyola-Chicago. So, this was a done deal the Kentucky would reach yet another Final Four. Their remaining opponents in the region were Kansas State, Loyola-Chicago, and Nevada. Kentucky was the highest seed remaining in the region.
Then Calipari blew it last night...again.
The Wildcats fell down 12 in the opening five minutes against Kansas State, but found a way to take the lead in the final five minutes. K-State had three players foul out, including leading scorer Xavier Sneed. This should have been a cake-walk for Kentucky in the second half, but P.J. Washington went just 8-20 from the charity stripe. Yes, Washington missed 12 free throws, including four straight in a key span late in the ball game. Calipari's lack of adjustments, and questionable time out selections ultimately did in his players.
Immediately after the game, Kentucky supporters went to the “We got beat by a football school card.” Uh, news flash UK honks...K-State has only two Big 12 conference titles in football since 2000 (2003 and 2012).
People try to diminish the accomplishments of North Carolina, Duke, and Villanova. Look at their coaches...Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski, and Jay Wright, respectively. Those are three of the best coaches at any level of basketball in the world. All three have National Championships, but more importantly run admirable programs (at least that we know of). The other factor is none of the three ever jumped to the NBA like Calipari did between 1996-1999, when he was at the helm of the New Jersey Nets. The Nets fired Calipari after he started the 1998-99 season 3-17, after making the playoffs the year prior.
Calipari’s handling of the Derrick Rose situation at Memphis in 2009 led the NCAA to strip Memphis of their 2007-08 National Runner-Up season, which was the best in school history. When at UMass, Calipari turned a blind eye to Marcus Camby accepting cash and gifts, forcing the Minutemen to vacate their lone Final Four appearance in 1996.
Everyone loves the underdog stories of Loyola-Chicago and Syracuse in this year’s tournament. However, seeing not one of the eight SEC teams reach the Elite Eight may be the best of them all. This coming from a Florida and Mizzou fan.
-JC24