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Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Calipari has UK basketball buzzworthy again

What they said when Calipari was hired

"The University of Kentucky has hit a home run! That's right, out of the park, baby! The hiring of John Calipari is a grand slam. The Big Blue fans have to be ecstatic as the new coach is the perfect fit. He loves dealing with the fans and the media, he is enthusiastic and an outstanding recruiter. I really believe he will have the Wildcats contending for the national title within 2 to 3 years."

Dick Vitale, ESPN college basketball analyst

"In the past 14 years, six teams have reached the Final Four from non-BCS conferences. He coached two of those teams — 1996 Massachusetts and 2008 Memphis. When he got to UMass, it was one of the poorest Division I programs. And his success was not just a matter of recruiting Marcus Camby. Calipari made a Sweet 16 with guard Jim McCoy as his star in 1992, long before Camby committed."

Mike DeCourcy. senior writer for the Sporting News

"Now here comes Cal and you wonder what will happen down the road at Louisville. Pitino, who once helped get his alma mater, UMass, to hire Cal, has no interest in this. He was pushing Travis Ford and John Pelphrey in the media for a reason, and not just loyalty to former players. Pitino doesn't fear Calipari, but he dreads him. He dreads the comments, dreads the rivalry, dreads the fact that he isn't going to be able to push the Wildcats around anymore."

Dan Wetzel, national columnist for Yahoo! Sports

"Kentucky made the perfect hire, and the right one to resuscitate a program that had slipped from the elite. John Calipari is a polarizing figure. He may have more detractors than fans. But he wins, wins big, and wins with star players. He also is the most extroverted, opinionated, confident coach in the business today. Nothing about the passionate and demanding Kentucky fan base will faze Calipari. The Kentucky media won't scare him. He will embrace and challenge them all."

Andy Katz, college basketball writer for ESPN

"To state the obvious, Calipari has a huge ego — and I mean that as a compliment. While some coaches may shudder at the attention and expectations lavished on the Kentucky coach, Calipari will bask in it. Whereas Billy Gillispie was the first Kentucky coach in history to turn down an invitation to speak at the local Gridiron Club, Calipari would love nothing more than to walk into a room full of several thousand people who are hanging on his every word. This is his chance to be the knight in shining armor who rides into town, leads the Cats back to glory and gets elementary schools named after him. Kentucky is making him feel wanted, it's offering to make him the highest-paid coach in the country, and dangling the extra sweetener that Cal will get to go head to head every year with his longtime nemesis, Rick Pitino."

Seth Davis, senior writer at Sports Illustrated and a CBS studio analyst

"So what happens now that John Calipari is coaching Kentucky? I'll tell you what happens. Kentucky will win like it's the Boston Celtics. College basketball as you know it? It's over. That sport doesn't exist anymore, because that sport had a semblance of parity. One year North Carolina is the dominant program. One year it's UConn. One year it's Duke or UCLA or Florida. Maybe those teams don't win the national title the year they're dominant, or maybe they do. Either way, every year there is a team that, on paper, is the dominant program in college basketball. And every year it's a different team."

Gregg Doyel, national columnist for CBS Sportsline

"Finishing ahead of Kentucky is about to become more difficult. As Bruce Pearl pointed out following Calipari's hiring, 'The bar has been raised.' And the entire SEC could benefit from it. The best players don't just want to play for the best teams. They want to play against the best players."

John Adams, sports columnist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel

RANDOM TWEETS by Coach Cal

Oct. 3 (camping out for Big Blue Madness tickets): BTW, we stayed until 3am and found out two things: it gets cold at night and no one sleeps! Brad and I gave it our best!