All five of this year’s freshmen starters could be drafted this summer. But I also like what’s happened for them and their families.” Since Calipari arrived at Kentucky, in 2009, sixteen of his players have been drafted by N.B.A. “Would I like to have had them for four years? Yes. “Kids are going on to the league from us and performing, and I’m proud of that,” he said this week. Maybe it is Calipari’s frank description of his own undertaking, and the way that he talks about what he owes to his players. Perhaps it is simply that the N.C.A.A.’s amateur model looks more absurd and unfair by the day. The revolving door of talent at Kentucky from high school to the pros did little to help his huckster image.īut, lately, Calipari doesn’t look so bad. did not implicate Calipari in either investigation, yet the sanctions and the erased wins clung to him like a bad smell. Calipari had once again already moved on, this time to his current position, at Kentucky. But, again, there was scandal: an investigation found that someone else had taken the SATs for the Memphis standout Derrick Rose, and the entire 2007-2008 season, during which Memphis reached the championship game, was wiped from the record books. He returned to the college game, spending nearly a decade at Memphis. By then, Calipari had left for the N.B.A., where he coached the New Jersey Nets for a little more than two seasons, before being fired. But those tournament wins were later stripped by the N.C.A.A., after it was determined that the team’s star player had received money from an agent. He rose to national prominence when he coached the University of Massachusetts to the Final Four, in 1996. For years, he has been branded as a scurrilous opportunist. Kentucky’s late resurgence this season has afforded us another chance to consider Calipari. The particulars would be overlooked in favor of The Narrative: young versus slightly older, which, in this case, is shorthand for evil versus good. Never mind that both sides are still basically kids (and unpaid ones, at that), or that Florida’s older players most likely would have left college early for the N.B.A. academic standards), and were Kentucky to get past Wisconsin, the championship game could feature one of those cherished “big idea” matchups: Florida’s seasoned team versus Kentucky’s loose affiliation of semi-pro mercenaries. If it beats Connecticut (which was barred from the tournament last year after the team failed to meet N.C.A.A. 1 seed, with four senior starters and two wins over Kentucky this season, as evidence that experience and team chemistry might still trump raw talent.įlorida is in the Final Four, too. Had Calipari’s 2012 title been a fluke? Analysts pointed to a team like Florida, the No. The team entered the tournament to little fanfare, as a meagre No. Kentucky began this season with another highly touted squad, but, by early March, it looked listless. (Whether this is much different from other major programs is a matter of debate.) Kentucky won the national championship in 2012 using this model, but the following year’s team, with an entirely different starting lineup, didn’t even make the tournament. Calipari’s system goes more or less like this: building on your past success, recruit the best young talent in the country make the new players meet only the most basic academic standards give them plenty of chances to show off their skills in front of television audiences and pro scouts and swiftly guide them, likely after just one season in college, to a job in the N.B.A.
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