Calipari’s idea of preseason SEC tourney applauded for creativity. Could it ever happen?
On his radio show this past Monday night, John Calipari suggested that the Southeastern Conference Tournament be moved to the preseason.
Huh?
Of course, the Kentucky coach has made no secret of his dislike of the SEC Tournament. He has said repeatedly that, at best, it serves no purpose. At worst, it gets in the way of preparation for the NCAA Tournament. So, no surprise that he termed UK’s exit in last weekend’s semifinals “a Godsend.”
Calipari apparently had given the idea of a preseason SEC Tournament some thought. He said it would have a round-robin format.
“If you lose, you keep playing,” he said before adding, “Let’s go to a football stadium and put two courts down. We could go to Atlanta and do it. Watch two games at once.”
Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes said Calipari has proposed a preseason SEC Tournament before.
“Does that mean whoever wins that tournament has an automatic bid?” Barnes said with a smile.
Mike Tranghese, the consultant the SEC uses for basketball, was not surprised by Calipari’s preseason SEC Tournament idea.
“As long as I’ve known John, he’s felt that way,” Tranghese said.
But it’s not as easy as simply rescheduling.
“Where are you going to televise it?” Tranghese said.
And a preseason SEC Tournament would be competing for attention against another sport that’s, uh, important to the league.
“Football is football,” Tranghese said. “We all know that. If you’re an SEC athletic director, are you going to play basketball versus your home football game?”
Tranghese, a former Big East Conference commissioner, saluted Calipari for being willing to challenge conventional thinking.
“It’s like an innovator spirit,” Tranghese said. “That’s what I love about John. And I can’t pay any more of a high compliment than saying he’s like Dave Gavitt because that’s the way Dave was. … Dave always had ideas on what we should do. And some of them were off the wall.”
Tranghese declined to reveal any one of Gavitt’s off-the-wall suggestions.
“He’d curse me from heaven if I got into some of those things,” Tranghese said.
The SEC and other leagues playing conference tournaments between the end of the regular season and the beginning of the NCAA Tournament serves a purpose.
“There’s March Madness,” Tranghese said. “But championship week now is as much a part of the (NCAA) tournament as anything. People watch the games. They speculate on who’s getting in. They speculate on the seedings.”
Barnes, who led Tennessee to this year’s championship, suggested a more sentimental reason to keep the SEC Tournament where it is.
“Teams that have won that tournament, it’s something the players will never want to give back,” he said.
Moving the SEC Tournament to late October or early November?
“It’s not going to happen,” Barnes said.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey also did not envision the SEC adopting Calipari’s idea.
“That’s probably not going to happen,” Sankey said before adding, “I love his creativity. That would be my quote.”
Judging conferences
The strength of a conference is determined by the number of its teams that advance beyond the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. If a majority of the teams do not advance to the Sweet 16, it can suggest the league had been overhyped, John Calipari said in Tampa.
That could have applied to the Big Ten last season. Nine Big Ten teams played in the 2021 NCAA Tournament. Only Michigan advanced beyond the second round.
No. 1-seeded Illinois lost to Loyola Chicago in the second round. As Kentucky lost to Saint Peter’s on Thursday in this year’s tournament, No. 2-seed Ohio State lost to Oral Roberts in the 2021 first round.
Incidentally, SEC teams had a ho-hum 27-24 record against the ACC (10-7), Big 12 (7-9), Big East (2-3), Big Ten (3-5) and Pac-12 (5-0).
SOS for ACC?
What David Teel of the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote suggested he was skeptical that the ACC would make a big splash in this year’s NCAA Tournament.
In a column previewing the tournament, he noted that ACC teams had a collective record of 4-16 in non-conference games against ranked opponents.
Incidentally, SEC teams were 9-6 in such games, led by Alabama’s 3-0 record.
Teel, a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame, wrote that Miami Coach Jim Larranaga saw the ACC doing well in the NCAA Tournament.
“I think when all is said and done, come March when the Big Dance begins, there’s going to be a bunch of ACC teams in there,” Larranaga said several weeks ago, “and ACC teams winning a lot of games.”
Teel saw room for doubt.
Five bids was the fewest for the ACC since 2013. And if the ACC standard for success is advancement to the Final Four, brace for disappointment, Teel wrote.
“Mike Krzyzewski reaching a 13th Final Four in his final season as Duke’s coach would thrill CBS and its advertisers,” Teel wrote, “but can the young and skittish Blue Devils survive a second-game clash with the Michigan State-Davidson winner, let alone a rematch with Gonzaga in the West Regional final?”
North Carolina, a winner against Marquette in the first round, next faces defending national champion and No. 1 seed Baylor in Fort Worth, which Teel noted is a 90-minute drive from Baylor’s campus in Waco.
Fair criticism?
That John Calipari wondered aloud before Selection Sunday about how the seeding and bracketing would go probably did not surprise Gary Parrish of CBS Sports.
Parrish covered Calipari in Memphis.
“John often, if not always, thought somebody was trying to make things harder for him than they should be,” he wrote in an email. “In 2006, his Memphis team was the No. 1 seed in the West Regional. UCLA was the No. 2 seed. So, in the regional final, as the No. 1 seed, he basically played a road game against UCLA in Oakland. I know he didn’t think that was fair — and he was right. Making a No. 1 seed play UCLA in California to advance to the Final Four was ridiculous.”
Masked man
Former UK player Scott Padgett could identify with Jacob Toppin having to wear a mask while playing.
A broken nose during play in the SEC Tournament last week made Toppin a masked man.
For Padgett? “Friendly fire got me,” he said.
In a game against Indiana during his junior season of 1997-98, Padgett suffered a broken orbital bone (eye socket) when hit by teammate Heshimu Evans’ inadvertent elbow during an attempt to rebound.
The plan was for Padgett to play wearing a mask. “I wore it in practice for about 45 minutes,” he said. “And it got launched into the seats at Memorial (Coliseum). I was, like, I don’t care. I’ll play without it. …
“It kept fogging up. It would ride up in my face. It wouldn’t stay where it was supposed to stay.”
Positive thinking
Michigan’s longest winning streak of the regular season was three games: Maryland, at Indiana and Northwestern in late January.
So, center Hunter Dickinson was asked, why would Michigan think it could win six games and the NCAA Tournament championship?
“We’re due for it, I guess,” he said.
Happy birthday
To Sam Bowie. He turned 61 on Thursday. … To former UK player/present UCLA player Johnny Juzang. He turned 21 on Thursday. … To Patrick Sparks. He turned 39 on Thursday. … To Skal Labissiere. He turned 26 on Friday. … To Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl. He turned 62 on Friday. … To Cory Sears. He turned 42 on Saturday. … To Pat Riley. He turns 77 on Sunday. … To Jerry Hale. He turns 69 on Sunday. … To Jimmy Dan Conner. He turns 69 on Sunday. … To Darius Miller. He turns 32 on Monday. … To Wayne Turner. He turns 46 on Tuesday. … To Marcus Camby. He turns 48 on Tuesday. … To Zan Payne. He turns 22 on Wednesday. … To Troy McKinley. He turns 59 on Wednesday. … To E.J. Floreal. He turns 29 on Wednesday. … To former South Carolina coach Frank Martin. He turns 56 on Wednesday.
