Homer Simpson? Mrs. Doubtfire? What does Calipari have to do to make the cut?
John Calipari was not among the late-season list of 15 candidates announced Wednesday for the Naismith Men’s College Coach of the Year award sponsored by the Atlanta Tipoff Club.
When asked on Friday about his omission, Calipari said, “I’m fine.”
Others not so much. One of his daughters, Erin Calipari, objected with a satirical tweet of her “2019 Father of the Year finalists.”
Her list included Al Bundy, Homer Simpson, Donald Trump, Mrs. Doubtfire and Tony Soprano. “Unfortunately, @UKCoachCalipari didn’t make that either,” she tweeted.
TJ Beisner, editor of the CoachCal.com website, tweeted that Calipari was the only coach among teams in the top 12 of The Associated Press college basketball poll not listed.
To which Calipari more or less shrugged.
“Let me tell you,” he said at the regular day-before-the-game news conference. “These kind of awards go with winning. And if you ask me about us, winning the national championship or winning 50 of these awards, let’s go win a national championship.”
That said, Calipari added a familiar reference to the perception he has of critics seeing him as more recruiter than master coach.
“If they think all I do is roll out balls, as long as we win, I roll out balls . . . ,” he said. “I don’t spend any time worrying about it.”
As Calipari noted, he has been named Naismith Men’s College Coach of the Year three times: 1996 with UMass, 2008 with Memphis and 2015 with Kentucky. That ties Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski for the most times winning the award. Jay Wright of Villanova and Tony Bennett of Virginia have won it twice.
“So it’s not like they’re against me,” Calipari said.
Eric Oberman, the executive director of the Atlanta Tipoff Club, pointed out in an email that the late-season list of 15 candidates for this year’s award is preliminary in nature. He wrote that a national board of directors comprised of leading college basketball media, submitted names for the list.
“You should know that these 15 names are merely candidates to keep an eye on,” he wrote, “and they are non-binding, meaning that when we ask for names of 10 semifinalists next week, our board can select whomever they want.”
The 10 semifinalists will be named March 11, Oberman said.
Then, “Our master voting academy takes over,” he added. “This is several hundred voters including coaches, media, former winners and conference commissioners. They will whittle the list to four, announced on March 20.
“We repeat the process again to determine a winner, which is announced at the Final Four on April 7.”
Fans can vote from March 22-April 3 at naismithtrophy.com. The fan vote accounts for 5 percent of the overall vote, Oberman wrote.
Cupcake?
After Kentucky had to rally from 15 points down to beat Arkansas on Tuesday, Calipari suggested the Cats might have perceived the game as a “breather.”
To which, Ashton Hagans agreed. With UK having routed Auburn, and Auburn having routed Tennessee, Hagans said, “We thought it was going to be a cupcake.”
When asked if an 86-69 victory over Tennessee two weeks ago made the Vols seem like another cupcake, Hagans said. “That’s a good one. I don’t know. I just know we’ve got to move past that.”
Something to lose
With first place in the Southeastern Conference on the line, Calipari welcomed how Tennessee could be inhibited by having something to lose in the game. Except for maybe three games a season, UK faces opponents who can play freely as decided underdogs, he said.
“It’s nice when you play North Carolina or Louisville,” he said. “Somebody else who has as much to lose as you do.”
Calipari left out Duke, which presumably had something to lose in routing Kentucky 118-84 on opening night.
LSU, the third team tied for first place, plays at Alabama on Saturday.
Happy for Vols
Calipari said his players should expect a Rupp Arena-like environment. “If you’re an opponent . . . ,” he said. “It’s a hard deal.”
The game has been a sellout since November. There will be no promotional ploy like a white-out staged.
In saluting Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes, Calipari pointed out how he saw fans dressed in orange when the teams played in Rupp Arena two weeks ago.
“Really means they’re into this basketball team,” Calipari said. “They’re into their coach. They’re into their players. I’m happy for them. Rick’s a dear friend. He’s a class guy, and he’s an unbelievable coach.”
Etc.
▪ Tennessee is 16-0 at home this season. Only once has an opponent not lost by a double-digit margin (UT beat Alabama 71-68). The average margin of victory is 21.4 points.
▪ In going 7-0 at home against SEC teams, the Vols’ average margin of victory is 16.6 points. Not counting a 96-50 rout of Georgia on Jan. 5, the average margin of UT victory is 11.8 points.
▪ Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson will call the game for CBS.
