Calipari: Kentucky Is Like Hawaii Bowl Champs

After eight years coaching at UMass in the A-10, nine years in CUSA at Memphis (with three, mostly unsuccessful, years with the Nets tucked in between) John Calipari seems poised to take his first head coaching job within a major conference. Not only that, but it’s Kentucky, which isn’t your typical power conference gig. Kentucky is about as big as it gets in NCAA basketball. Calipari fully understands this.↵↵Speaking with his team this morning about what seems to be his inevitable move to Lexington, Coach Cal made a poorly timed metaphor to explain to his players just how big-time Kentucky is:↵

↵↵⇥While Calipari did not say explicitly what he planned to do, players left the meeting convinced that Calipari would take the job. According to the source, Calipari told the team that Kentucky was the Notre Dame of basketball. ↵↵So, in other words, Calipari will be overpaid and lead a once highly successful, but declining program into another trough. Metaphor fail. Although to be fair, the Notre Dame reference was better than the other options he was mulling over: The Wildcats are the 49ers of roundball ... the Ford Automotive of college basketball ... they’re like the AIG of hoops ... Kentucky is a Mike Tyson-esque heavyweight program ...they’re the hair metal of hardwood ... you get the idea. They’re big time and still doing just fantastic, thank you.↵