DANIEL STYLER
<Staff Writer>
The Kentucky Wildcats are the defending champions in NCAA Basketball. What is happening at the University of Kentucky, though, goes beyond winning championships. They are completely changing the landscape of college basketball and making all other programs (despite their recent loss to Duke) appear irrelevant by comparison.
The mastermind behind this transformation is John Calipari, the polarizing former coach of both UMass and Memphis. He isn’t polarizing because he’s not likeable (he is) or because he can’t coach (he can). He’s polarizing because he is the best recruiter of high school talent in the country, and that scares people.
It scares people because his immense and perhaps even startling success (given the relative lack of prestige of the basketball programs at the respective schools) at UMass and Memphis has often been overshadowed by allegations of improper benefits received (Marcus Camby at UMass) and fraudulent SAT examinations (Derrick Rose at Memphis).
Whatever his involvement in those scandals (he was not implicated by the NCAA for the incident at UMass), one thing is clear: when it comes to recruiting talent, it is John Calipari and then everyone else.
From the moment Calipari was hired in March 2009, anyone who knew anything about college basketball knew what his hiring would do to reenergize a floundering program that was desperate for success. Plagued by the inept coaching of Billy Gillispie, Kentucky had missed the NCAA Tournament in 2008-09.
This type of failure may be commonplace for many basketball programs around the country, but not at Kentucky. Not at a school that has won 8 National Championships, participated in 15 Final Fours, and compiled the most wins of any program in NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball history.
John Calipari was just what the program needed, and he has delivered. He has used a combination of Kentucky’s prestige, his ability to market the program to top tier high school athletes, and his famous friends to return Kentucky basketball to the top.
On the topic of famous friends, LeBron James stopped by to play a game of pick-up basketball with the Wildcats during the NBA lockout last year. The NBA fined Jay Z for visiting the team in their locker room after the team advanced to the Final Four two seasons ago. Drake speaks glowingly about John Calipari, suggesting that he inspired him to finish high school after dropping out to pursue his career in entertainment; the Toronto rapper received a personalized championship ring from last year’s victory. Back in 2010, he said that he “took a lot of planes to see a lot of games.” Just a couple of weeks ago, Calipari excitedly tweeted a picture of him and Charlie Sheen, hanging out at a Cincinnati Reds game; he was nervous to meet Sheen, but Sheen greeted him with “I know you. Good to finally meet you.”
It’s impossible to quantify how much this helps, but it certainly can’t hurt. 18-year-old high schoolers are probably going to like the fact that the man that is recruiting them has really famous connections. Knowing that LeBron James, the best athlete in the world right now, considers Calipari a close friend probably makes his selling of the Kentucky brand at least a little bit easier.
It’s not just celebrities, though, that makes Kentucky basketball so relevant right now. There is substance: they win. In Calipari’s first year as coach, the team made it to the Elite Eight. In his second, they made it to the Final Four. And in his third, last year, they won the Championship.
What is most amazing about the team’s success is the fact that the star players from each team have bolted to the NBA and its promise of lucrative financial success after spending just one year at Kentucky. In 2010, the team had five first round picks. In 2011, they had four draft picks. In 2012, they had six draft picks (including the top two picks in the draft).
And yet they keep winning. They keep winning because of the players Calipari recruits. In his first three years, he had the top recruiting class. This year, his fourth, he had the second best.
And yet all of this recruiting success, by all accounts, will pale in comparison to next year’s incoming class. Within the span of a month, Calipari secured three of the top six 2013 recruits, and another prospect ranked inside of the top thirty. He’s not done yet, though. There is a very good possibility that he will secure at least two other top ten recruits from that class. Given his success at Kentucky, there is absolutely no reason to doubt him.
It is true that having top-tier talent doesn’t guarantee winning. For those who think Calipari goes to practice, rolls basketballs onto the court, and lets the talent do all of the work, they’re wrong.
He gets the most out of his players by being critical of them and never letting them believe the hype that surrounds them. This year’s team started the year ranked third in the country. When asked about them, he said that they’re probably about the eighth best team in their conference. Calipari teaches them to play together and to win for each other; he consistently gets recruits who have always been the best player on their own high school teams to forego playing selfishly in order to benefit the team. He also prepares them for the NBA, as evidenced by the team’s success on NBA Draft night over the past few years.
John Calipari has guaranteed one thing in his time with the Kentucky Wildcats: the question isn’t whether they will win another championship, it is “how many will they win?”