In Reply to: It is for sure, but to be fair posted by bruindth on July 28, 2024 at 06:59:28
Calipari has been labeled as a coach who had great players but "only" won one national championship and is a "cheater". These assessments are not quite fair and shouldn't detract from the fact that he's one of the best coaches in college basketball.
First of all, he had most of these future NBA all-stars only as freshmen. Nobody wins national championships with freshmen laden teams these days. Of the last eight national championship teams, there were a total of five freshman starters. Total national championships are not a fair way to judge a coaches' career.
Another knock on him: He's been eliminated early in the tournament the last three years, two by #14 and #15 seeds. Cal has made no secret about playing his freshmen for NBA exposure. If you lose to a #14 and #15, that means you earned a very high seed by having an excellent regular season. Of course tournament games are weighed more heavily that the regular season by fans, but that's one game compared to more than 30. If losing tournament games one shouldn't is the ultimate judge of a coach, then Jim Harrick might be the worst of all time. But he also won a national championship. It's all subjective.
Here are some numbers: Since 2012, he has had 27 1st round draft choices and nine 2nd round picks. He has one NC, three Final Fours, two Elite Eights and one Sweet Sixteen during that time.
But another coach, during the same time span, had 23 1st rounders and nine 2nd rounders. He had one NC, two Final Fours, three Elite Eights and one Sweet Sixteen. Almost identical draft choices and records. Of course that would be Mike Krzyzewski. No reasonable fan would say he isn't a good coach, so how could anyone say Cal isn't one?
Now how about the Cheating rap?
There were only two cases where his team was penalized and one, Marcus Camby, involved him getting paid by an agent, not something Cal did and now meaningless in the NIL era. The other, Derrick Rose, who was accused of not taking his own SAT test but there is no evidence that Memphis was aware of this when he enrolled. It was Rose that cheated, not Calipari. There was also some illegal benefits such as providing his brother transportation which led to the penalties. Not a big deal.
So that's one very good player he probably shouldn't have had, but he did. You still have to win with your players which he did and many coaches don't, even with excellent players. Calipari made a Final Four at UMass with only one future NBA player. He was a three time Coach of the Year in three different conferences. He's won or tied for 18 conference championships. Do you think coaching a bunch of 5-stars is easy? They were all the first option on their teams before Kentucky. Getting them to play secondary roles and mold them into a team is a difficult task.
You might not like him, but there is no denying that Calipari is one of the best coaches in college basketball.