When Kentucky decided to prematurely end the Billy Gillispie experiment, most figured that they were going to go after a big fish. Little did we know that Mitch Barnhart and company would land themselves the biggest fish in the pond in Memphis’ John Calipari. Over the past four seasons, no coach has won more games, brought in more star-studded recruits, or been able to build a mid-major program into an annual National Championship contender like Calipari has (and no, Gonzaga and Xavier don’t count. Tell me, how many Final Fours have those two schools been to?). The move has been lauded as a slam dunk for both Kentucky and Calipari. Their marriage is one that will eventually lead to more banners amongst the vast collection at Rupp Arena. Bringing in Calipari was certainly worth the risk, because of his proven track record, yet there’s also a chance that his blows up in Kentucky’s face.
Just looking on the surface, you probably can’t name ten better coaches in America than John Calipari. During his coaching career, he’s built two mid-majors into national powerhouses. At UMass, Calipari won five A-10 titles, went to three Sweet 16s, and the 1996 Final Four. At Memphis, Coach Cal set an NCAA Division-I record with 137 wins over a four-year span (2005-2009). He’s made three Elite 8s, including a National runner-up finish last season. His .762 winning percentage (446-139 college record) is 2nd only to Roy Williams all-time. Calipari even took the Nets to the playoffs in 1998, at a time when it was still rare for the Nets to sniff the postseason (they were promptly swept by Jordan’s Bulls). Nobody's questioning the fact that the guy can coach.
Counting the New Jersey Nets, Calipari has won with three different mid-majors
But, when you look a little bit deeper into Calipari’s career, some major red flags arise:
The 1996 Final Four appearance by UMass has since been vacated by the NCAA after investigators determined that star forward Marcus Camby had accepted $28,000 from sports agents while enrolled at the school. Calipari was never proven to have had any knowledge of the incident, but the NCAA said the offense was so blatant that the school was negligent for not noticing the transgression.
In his first season as head coach of the Nets, Calipari called Newark Star-Ledger reporter Dan Garcia “a <bleeping> Mexican idiot” during a Nets’ postgame press conference. Just imagine if Bobby Knight had said something like that?
In his 2nd season at Memphis, Calipari landed mega-recruit and Naismith Prep Player of the Year Dajuan Wagner. Shortly after signing Wagner, Calipari appointed his Dajuan's father as Coordinator of Basketball Operations.
Many believe that Calipari became a top recruiter thanks to his relationship with William Wesley, nicknamed “Worldwide Wes”, who has had ties to Michael Jordan and LeBron James along with sneaker companies. Wesley openly roots for Memphis, and developed relationships with Tyreke Evans, Derrick Rose, Chris Douglas-Roberts, and Dajuan Wagner – all of whom later committed to Memphis. Calipari once called Wesley “a goodwill ambassador of the program.” Some have called for an NCAA investigation, but Calipari and Memphis were never accused of any wrongdoing through Wesley.
William Wesley's ties to the Memphis program rose some eyebrows
John Calipari is a winner and a phenomenal head coach. He’ll win at Kentucky, there’s no doubt about that. To be fair, Calipari was never linked with the agents who gave Marcus Camby improper benefits, or with anything illegal involving William Wesley. Also, some of the players listed above had their charges dropped. He has however been very loose when it comes to punishments for his players. Coach Cal will have to be more careful now because Incidents like these are not going to be tolerated at a place like Kentucky, which already has a glaring black eye from the Eddie Sutton scandal in the late 80's.
Will the dark clouds that surrounded Calipari's programs in Amherst and Memphis follow him to Lexington? Hopefully for the UK Nation, they’ll burn off.
At the start of the Sweet 16, Rakestraw and I made a list of the top sixteen coaches still alive in the NCAA Tournament. Tom Izzo ranked third on my list, behind only Rick Pitino and Jim Calhoun. It took only one performance (albeit one that I was able to see live) for me to put Izzo in the top spot. Michigan State eliminated top overall seed Louisville thanks to a magnificent gameplan masterminded by Izzo. After teams had tried to throw zone at the Cardinals, such as Villanova, Syracuse, and Arizona in the past few games, the Cardinals responded by shooting around 50% and hitting 13, 10, and 14 three-pointers. Instead of playing zone, Michigan State decided to stick with their man-to-man, something that most teams shied away from because of Louisville’s athleticism. The Spartans physical and tenacious defense frustrated the Cardinals, completely took them out of their usual up-tempo style, and handcuffed them into scoring just 52 points (wait, I thought Big Ten teams couldn't hang with the Big East powers?). But, this was just one of the many instances where Izzo’s gameplan worked to perfection. It was the fifth time in eleven seasons that he has led Michigan State to the Final Four, as Izzo improved to 11-3 all-time in Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games of the NCAA Tournament. Under his watch, Michigan State has perhaps become the top men’s basketball program of the past decade, and easily one of the ten best (2 National Titles, 7 Final Fours, 14 Sweet 16s) in college basketball history. You can make arguments that there are coaches like Pitino, Calhoun, Coach K, etc. that are just as good as Tom Izzo, but you can’t convince me that anybody is better.
Tom Izzo AKA the ballinest coach ever
Brick: Detroit Tigers
When the Tigers went out and traded for Gary Sheffield, then a year later dealt for Dontrelle Willis, most applauded the moves (I picked them to win last year's World Series...ouch). Flash forward to right now: the Tigers just cut Gary Sheffield (who batted .257 during his stint in Detroit), eating the $14 million remaining on his contract, and Dontrelle Willis, who has recorded ZERO wins since coming over in the Miguel Cabrera trade from Florida. The trade for Sheff at the time made sense, and he was projected to become the middle-of-the-lineup slugger that the Tigers needed. What didn’t make sense was the two-year extension worth $28 million given to Sheffield immediately after the trade. Some of these moves have made me begin to wonder if Detroit will turn into the mid-90’s Orioles. If you remember way back then, the O’s made a series of ill-fated trades and signings as they tried to stay in contention. They brought in BJ Surhoff, Roberto Alomar, David Wells, Albert Belle plus Will Clark and Joe Carter (!). All it resulted in was two ALCS appearances and one AL East title. Hopefully, the same result doesn’t await Detroit.
Air Ball: Jim Calhoun
When Yahoo! Sports broke the story last week involving UConn’s illegal recruitment of Nate Miles, I heard UConn fans give the same excuse that I heard from Indiana fans last year in the wake of the Kelvin Sampson allegations:
“Well they he didn’t actually play for IU UConn so it’s not like they got anything from it.”
Technically, the first part of their defense is right. A lot of the players that were contacted illegally by Sampson – like Yancy Gates (Cincinnati), Robbie Hummel (Purdue), and DeJuan Blair (Pittsburgh) - did not end up playing basketball for Indiana. The same goes for Nate Miles, who was kicked out of school this past fall after allegedly violating a restraining order. My question is, if I shoot at somebody with a gun but miss, do the police let me off the hook? What if I break into a professor’s office but steal the wrong answer key and use it on an exam that I end up failing? Should I not be punished for it? Just because Nate Miles allegedly struck a female on campus and got himself kicked off the basketball team, doesn’t mean that the NCAA should be lenient towards Jim Calhoun and UConn for bending breaking the rules. Adrian Wojnarowski, one of the authors of the Yahoo! Story, told us on the show that Miles could’ve potentially started at two-guard for UConn this year. In other words, Calhoun and Co. had big plans for the kid they cheated to get. UConn better hope they end up with a National Championship this year, because with the dark cloud hanging over their program, the NCAA hot on their tails, and the loss of key players like Jeff Adrien, AJ Price, Hasheem Thabeet (presumably to the NBA), and potentially Stanley Roberts (should he bolt early as well), this team could be facing a rocky season or two.
Welcome to the Cheater's Club, UConn!
Swish: Purdue women’s basketball
Though it was a banner year for the Purdue men’s basketball team, they couldn’t get as far as their female counterparts did in the NCAA Tournament. The Purdue women, a #6 seed, made a Cinderella run to the Elite 8 and led at halftime before ultimately falling to top-seeded Oklahoma 74-68. It was the 2nd Elite 8 appearance in three years for Sharon Versyp’s Boilers, and the team made their 5th Sweet 16 appearance in the past seven seasons. The Boilers lose five seniors which include leading scorers Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton and Lakisha Freeman. However, their talented freshman class led by former Indiana Miss Basketball Brittany Rayburn and fellow All-Star Alex Guyton should continue the success of the Purdue program into the future.
Air Ball: The NCAA Tournament
Remember when we used to call it March Madness? This year's version has provided us with only two truly great games - Gonzaga/Western Kentucky and Pittsburgh/Villanova - since the First Round. Only one seed lower than a #5 advanced to the Sweet 16 (#12 Arizona, who made their 25th consecutive NCAA Tournament), and no seeds lower than a #3 reached the Elite 8. Two of the biggest "upsets" of the Tournament were #12 Western Kentucky over #5 Illinois and #12 Arizona over #5 Utah, two games that over half of the brackets on Yahoo! and ESPN.com's bracket challenges picked correctly. Here's a breakdown of how lame the first two rounds were compared to past Tournaments:
Seeds lower than a #5 to reach the Sweet 16 in the past decade:
2008: Four (7, 10, 10, 12) 2003: Four (6, 7, 10, 12)
2007: Two (6, 7) 2002: Five (6, 8, 10, 11, 12)
2006: Five (6, 7, 7, 11, 13) 2001: Five (6, 7, 10, 11, 12)
2005: Six (6, 6, 6, 7, 10, 12) 2000: Eight (6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10)
2004: Five (6, 7, 8, 9, 10) 1999: Seven (6, 6, 10, 10, 10, 12, 13)*
* denotes the best NCAA Tournament in my lifetime
Everyone talks about how great it is when chalk advances because there will only be epic games and no blowouts. That's complete crap:
None of those games were actually as close as the final score indicates. The bottom line is that the pod system and an unfair margin of at-large bids going to BCS league schools is ruining the NCAA Tournament. Wake me up when it's baseball season.
Oh, where have you gone Bryce Drew and Cinderella?
The Shots Fantasy Update:
<Explicit> Is Racing, 340 point week (2nd and 4th place in two leagues)
Thanks to a 1-2 finish from Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin, I was able to stay near the top of the standings in each of my Fantasy NASCAR leagues. Unfortunately, just about everybody had either Johnson or Hamlin (or both) so I didn’t really gain much standing overall.
Wii Golf Superstar, 148 point week (2nd place)
Even though I am far from a Tiger fan, I did have him starting out of my A Group – the first winning golfer that I’ve had this year. Nick Watney’s fourth place finish (48 points) helped me out as well. I didn’t get anything from my C Group as Ian Poulter missed the cut and Ross Fisher was DQed (he would’ve missed the cut anyway).
Teixshredder, Fantasy Baseball
For the first time in six years, I didn’t join a public baseball league. Instead, I signed up with McCauley and some other people that work for the Indianapolis Indians. That’s probably not a good thing, considering that I’ll likely get run in this league by a bunch of baseball stat-buffs. I feel good about my pitching staff, which includes Tim Lincecum, Felix Hernandez, Yovani Gallardo, Matt Garza, and Fausto Carmona (who was my reach pick). My lineup is full of high-upside guys like Chris Davis and Matt Wieters. I haven’t finished in the top three of a baseball league since 2003, so hopefully this is the year I break out of the slump.
Nasty!
The Shots What to Watch this week:
Michigan State vs. Connecticut, Saturday
It will be interesting to see just how many of the 70,000+ fans at Ford Field are clad in (Go) Green(!) and (Go) White(!). This will be the first time since 1994 that a Final Four team has played in their home state (Duke in Charlotte). Look for Goran Suton to pull Hasheem Thabeet out of the middle and for Michigan State to try to exploit UConn's lack of perimeter shooting. Even in a virtual road game I'd still give the edge to the Huskies, but the Spartans will give them a fight.
Opening Day, Monday
Pick a game. Watch it. If you don't like baseball, move to Europe.
The Shots YouTube Clips this week:
Sports related –
You stay classy Kentucky news reporters!
Non-sports related -
Damn nature, you scary.
The Shots Chick Pick this week: Stacy Johnson-Klein
