On this day 41 years ago UK Legend and Lexington native led the UK Wildcats to the NCAA Championship. Jack was a key plyaer for UK's 1975 Championship run (when the Cats defeated undefeated IU in the regional final), where they lost to UCLA.
Jack led UK to the NIT Championship in 1976 when it was still a big deal (only 32 teams made the big dance back then and the cats played short handed that year with Robey out with an injury) and a regional final in 1977 when a legendary coach called Rick Robey a "Cheap Son of a Bitch." You can read that here.
I have the 1978 game on DVD and I will likely watch it over the next couple of days, hell might even do that tonight.
Fast forward to today. It is interesting that people assume that my declined interest in
College Basketball and the University of Kentucky Basketball program that I am
now somehow against the UK program, want them to lose, etc.
Fist and foremost I am a Cal fan. I think there was no other coach that
Kentucky could have hired, Barnhart should have hired him instead of Clyde, and
I go back to several of the things that Cal said at his opening press conference
related to history of the Kentucky program which demonstrated he was the right
guy. I also think he will be hard to
replace. Something that some people disagree with me on is he is not a great in game coach and if he were, he would have two to three more
championships.
I have taking some snippets from a recent article from Saturday Down
South to provide some insight:
John Calipari is finishing his
10th season at Kentucky. He revived a sleeping giant, winning an NCAA title in
the process. Only one team in the
country has won more games since he arrived. He did it his way, too, one
freshman-to-lottery pick at a time. Innovator. Motivator … Top Cat.
LEXINGTON, Ky. — In the
beginning, there was … not much in Lexington.
Yes, Kentucky basketball has long
marketed itself as, to steal a phrase from Jim Nantz, a tradition unlike any
other. But the Wildcats of Ralph Beard, Dan Issel, Rex Chapman, and Jamal
Mashburn were ghosts. But before John Calipari came to town, the Kentucky
Wildcats had become the team of Lukasz Obrzut, Mark Coury and Ramon Harris.
There were four SEC Final Four
teams in the 2000s — the Florida Gators three times and LSU once. In the last
four full basketball seasons of the decade, Kentucky went 84-52, with an SEC
record of 38-26. The Wildcat won 2 NCAA Tournament games in those four seasons.
BC – I totally agree with this statement! The fact that in one-year Cal could take that
program from such low point, not as low as when The Coach After Eddie was
hired, to immediately be one of the top teams in the country is a truly amazing
accomplishment.
But more than wins and losses,
Kentucky basketball had lost any kind of cultural relevance. Tubby Smith had
become “Ten Loss Tubby.” A recruit named Tyrone Nash chose to spend a year in
prep school rather than commit to Kentucky. In basketball.
BC – “Ten Loss Tubby” is accurate.
It is also accurate that Tubby was no longer the guy for the job (people
will start calling me a racist here for that statement which is false). Tubby won a National Championship and had
multiple shots to win others (a bad match up in the 2nd round one on
year, but no excuse to lose, cost him one and a high ankle sprain to Keith
Bogans likely cost him another).
Imagine where Kentucky Basketball would be had Tubby won that second title
or even a third which he was capable of doing?
Tubby was a great coach, a great person but he was not the right fit for
the job in the end, not because of coaching ability but because he did not want
to be the face of the program. He just
wanted to be a basketball coach and there is nothing wrong with that except you
cannot do that at UK. Also, to note
Tubby was the right guy when he was hired, in my opinion the only guy!
Billy Gillispie was brought in to
quench the fire of UK fans to again be relevant. A basketball-workaholic who
allegedly lived on peanut butter crackers and Dr. Pepper, Gillispie alienated
his own players, his fan base, the national media, and ultimately just about
everyone except the 8th-graders he recruited. Yes, Gillespie took a commitment
from an 8th-grade shooting guard during his two years at UK.
BC – How Mitch Barnhart kept his job after the Clyde fiasco is beyond
me.
That began a brief era during
which Kentucky’s Big Blue Nation actually watched a live stream of a door,
apparently at the Memphis basketball offices, from which their next head coach
was expected (hoped for? prayed over?) to emerge.
The door stayed closed, but
nevertheless, after a fevered search from UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart,
entered Calipari, a man who, in the words of one of his first recruits to
Lexington, Alabama guard Eric Bledsoe, came to “get s—t right.”
Calipari came to Kentucky as a
coach who had a reputation of 1) signing great recruits and 2) getting programs
on NCAA violations. His defenders pointed out that he was not implicated in the
NCAA troubles at UMass or Memphis. His detractors wondered if he could stay on
the right side of the NCAA law long enough to turn around Kentucky’s program.
BC – I recently was involved in a discussion while vacationing in
Florida. A guy wearing a Villanova shirt
showed up at the bar where we were watching UK and UT play basketball, with
several UK fans. This guy immediately
stated, “Cal is a crook, he is paying players like he did at the other schools,
blah, blah, blah, blah.” I immediately engaged him in a conversation:
- Why was UMASS put on probation? His answer was Cal is a cheater
- I asked again why was UMASS put on probation? He had no answer. I then explained to the gentlemen what happened at UMASS with Camby, Cal’s role in the investigation (do the research if you do not know) and how Cal was not associated or charged with any violation
- I asked why was Memphis put on probation? He said because Cal is a cheater and they were paying players.
- I then explained to him that was not true and the player in question was first cleared to play, then not cleared to play then cleared to play and then a month after the season was over was declared ineligible (Cal did nothing any other coach would not have done and played the player).
- Then he pulled my favorite, the “I know him” line and “He is a scumbag”. Cal is not a scumbag! You may not agree with things he does but all you have to do is look at his family to know he is not a scumbag.
- Then he said, “Well his players do not even finish the semester” which I explained to him that all but one of Cal’s players who left early, one is a very small percentage, has finished the Spring Semester and that several have continued to taking classes in the summers.
- Then he said well “Their GPA sucks and they do not go to class” so I asked what is their GPA? He had no idea.
- I then attempted to explain to him about APR and he literally had no idea what APR was and continued to rant and rave about Cal being a cheater.
- I then punched him full fist straight in the chest…. I did not, but I did close my conversation with it must be embarrassing for a school like Villanova to have graduated such an ignorant person as him and he tucked his tail and then the boys from Pikeville let him have it.
Cal by the numbers:
- 302 wins at UK
- 26 first-round picks
- 4 Final Fours in 5-year span
- 1 NCAA championship
BC – This is just nothing but solid.
I do think Cal let two Championship get away and I think in both
instances coaching decisions during the games critical moments were costly.
I do not give a rat’s ass about how many first round NBA picks he has
had or will have. I do also think that
you can say with all this talent he has somewhat underachieved because he does
not have multiple championships. Underachieved purely from a Championships won perspective.
Calipari unveiled his own
blueprint, talking about servant leadership, compiling vast amounts of talent,
and then insisting that his job was to help those players realize their dreams
and goals — and if he happened to win a lot of basketball games on the way,
that would be OK too. He hung out with Drake, he dropped the mic at press
conferences. He was fun.
BC – This is the issue I have with Cal.
Why can’t it be his is at UK to win Championships and also help guys
realize their dreams or NBA dreams? After
the loss the Wisconsin in the Final Four when he had a shot at an undefeated
season he clearly stated that it is about more than championships. I think that was him trying to downplay to
himself how much that loss stung him.
There are multiple guys who went early to the NBA and have not realized
their dreams and should have stayed in school to either get better or more
important obtain their degrees. Nothing
wrong with having a degree to give you a good foundation vs. being a one or two
and done player, play two to three years in the NBA and then be reliant on
playing in Europe, China, Greece or Israel, who all have formidable pro leagues
but that is not the NBA.
The list of guys who should have stayed at least another year:
Isiah Briscoe
Jarred Vanderbilt
Wynand Gabriel
Brandon Knight
Marques Teague
Dorian Lamb
Archie Goodwin
James Young (If Young stays four years I think he would have been a UK
Legend, he had that much talent)
Trey Lyles
Dakari Johnson
Andrew Harrison
Aaron Harrison
Tyler Ulis
Skal Labissiere
Bam Abeydo
At the end of the day I am not a fan of what college basketball has
evolved into (a tryout for the NBA). I
do not like the roster turnover (all schools effort to do this now) and I do
not like that like the NBA, College Basketball has become just a perimeter
game.
I liked the college game that relied on stellar inside and outside play
and there are several things that CBB can do to correct many of the issues (NBA
has to fix the one and done). In trying
to watch the first and second round NCCA Tourney games my wife and I turned
several of them off or quit watching because it was nothing but teams jacking
up threes (move the line back to 23 feet and they will actually have to play
basketball again).
As for Cal he is one of a kind and he was the right guy for the UK job
and still is today. Cal said two things
that really turned me off on UK Basketball (Matt Jones and his posse did not do
them any favors either as it relates to my fandom).
- At the draft one year he said this is the biggest day in Kentucky Basketball history… Sorry not even close.
- It is not about Championships, we have a bigger mission here at Kentucky… I do not even think he believes that.
For people who are still UK Basketball fanatics I salute you! I hope Cal wins another Championship and I
hope that UK continues to be a Basketball Blue Blood. I also hope that they fix college basketball
by getting rid of the one and done and move the three-point line back to 23
feet and then I might come back to the game.
