Was it Worth it, Big Blue? The Risk of Hiring John Calipari

When Kentucky hired John Calipari in 2009, Pat Forde wrote for ESPN, “They want their winner and they want him now, and they’re not worried about what happened at his previous place of employment.”

Kentucky got its winner, and the wins came in a big way, fast. Final Fours. A National Title. Lottery picks. Cal won elite recruits over with his hip arrogance.

Today, that arrogance has become blame. For the school. For the media exposure. For the players. This is what Kentucky signed up for when it got its winner. A man who says of his players, “The program almost got hijacked,” or “They’re counting on me too much.”

Was it worth it? The Kentucky brass knew the man they was getting into bed with. They knew the bridges he burned and the ashes he left at every other stop in his career. This should come as a surprise to no one. 

It should also be a very sobering thought for anyone clamoring for their school to hire a new coach. We should all ask ourselves, “What do we want and what are we willing to give up to get it?” Winning is amazing, but is it worth what Kentucky is going through now? We forget that we're building our school pride and identity around 18 and 19 year old students, using their talents and abilities as long as they are useful to satisfy what it is we're coming to sports for. Cal has been a master at manipulating this to his own advantages.

Forde concluded his 2009 article with the assumption that Memphis fans probably didn't care about what happened at Cal’s previous place of employment when they hired him ten years earlier.

“Ask them how they feel today.”

Big Blue Nation needs to take a long look at whether or not this is what they want from their program going forward.

Kentucky's Struggles and Why College Basketball Might be Okay

On the eve of last year’s Final Four, Chuck Klosterman wrote one of my favorite articles of 2012, titled “Kentucky’s Death March”. It declared college basketball, as we know it, was ending because John Calipari’s evil genius empire of stud players who should have gone straight to the NBA meant the sport was now professionalized, that the traditional, power programs would adapt, and college basketball would become “a niche sport for people like me (Klosterman)- people who can’t get over the past.”

At the time, his fears seemed plausible, if not inevitable. Fast forward 12 months, however, and his fears seem a little overstated.

(I’m not bashing Klosterman in the least. Hindsight is the easiest way to troll a writer who puts out a bold statement. Years from now he could end up being right.)

Kentucky has struggled with a collection of freshmen who have, well... played like freshmen. The team has lacked leadership and looked downright sloppy in a mediocre at best SEC. So much so it may miss the tournament all together.

Kentucky in the NIT? Think of how shocking that is. Sports writers (like any other fan) tend to exaggerate, but UK forever dominating with one-and-dones seemed like such an inevitability. Today, they’re in the “First Four Out” with Southern Miss and Alabama.

So at least for the moment, the basketball purists can breathe easy. Gonzaga may finish the season number one, the Player of the Year and Defensive POY will likely be upperclassmen (Victor Oladipo and Jeff Withey), and only two freshmen have a remote shot at being a first team All-American (Ben McLemore and Marcus Smart). Kentucky will still turn its freshmen into first round picks (even if one has a torn ACL), and this lamenting might start all over again when Cal brings in his next round of superstars. But for now, this season is for the old school.

Unless the NBA becomes altruistic and decides to change its rules, the one and done player is as much a part of college hoops as irrationally hating Duke. But UK’s struggles have at least brought us back to reality that the sport isn’t on its death bed. As exciting as this season has been, it seems far from it.

The Drag of Swag: Marshall Henderson Needs to Get Over Himself

I assume I’m like most people when I say there is something about arrogance that is so irresistible. Extreme confidence. It sucks me in. I find myself rooting for or against teams or players based solely on their level of humility shown. It’s an asinine rationale since I’m coming to this conclusion of who these athletes are as people by what I can see on my 19 inch screen, but it happens almost every time I watch sports.

For this reason, Marshall Henderson has drawn more attention to Ole Miss than anyone not named Manning for both his 19 PPG and his apparent desire for an opposing student section to throw batteries at him. He’s so totally contrary to the humble, soup kitchen volunteer, athlete long glorified by the NCAA that his divisiveness has risen to Carmelo Anthony levels.

But Tuesday night was when Henderson’s extreme belief in himself came to a screeching halt. Against ultra-arrogant John Calipari and ultra-arrogant Kentucky, Henderson was a complete non-factor. He finished with 21 points, but in the same way Allen Iverson used to score in the 30s or 40s. He was just 5 of 19 from the floor, including 2 of 11 from range. It was one of those games you wish Bob Knight was announcing so he could rip apart what missing 14 shots can do to a team.

Bravado aside, Henderson is in reality a very mediocre shooter. He’s just 35 percent from the field in conference play, which is just slightly below his season average of 38 percent. He consistently misses double digit shots, and in the now infamous Auburn game, he was a putrid 26 percent from the floor. A performance hardly worthy of the performance he gave after the game.

But it was that show of cockiness to the Auburn student section that drew the national spotlight on Oxford last night, and left Ole Miss exposed as a team that’s not ready to join the nation’s elite. On how his team could handle Henderson, Calipari said he told his players:

“Oh, I’d like us to lose our composure. That’s what I’m looking for. Like, lose your composure. Get mad. Get angry. Be mad to be great. (Pretends to be moping, then getting bumped by someone) ‘Oh, sorry.’ What? Be mad. And if he talks to you, talk back to him. I mean, just be mad. Compete, fight, battle, toughness, swagger. It’s hard to have a swagger when you’re ducking and you’re running. You gotta dig your heels in. That’s why I’m saying all this stuff is good for our team. If we’re going to get it, it’s competing in games like this and learning and growing.”

This is what the Rebels can expect every game. Elite athletes hate to be shown up, probably more so than any other group of people, and Henderson has unfairly and selfishly put this target on his team. Ole Miss has great potential to do something special this season, but it will continue to underachieve unless it’s lead scorer learns to get over himself.

For What It's Worth: The Real Cost of Hiring Bobby Petrino

The desire to win will make you do crazy things, like inject yourself with a substance that will some day shrink your testicles and give you “man-boobs”. It’ll also make you say things like, “Hey, how about Bobby Petrino?”

Yes, rational, competent adult SEC fans have uttered such a phrase about this man. The man who hired his unqualified mistress to his staff at Arkansas, abandoned his NFL team after 13 games, and interviewed secretly for a position at Auburn while he was still head coach at Louisville. 

Yeah, that guy.

It’s difficult to believe Tennessee fans and boosters have such a short memory. Lane Kiffin anyone? Remember the train wreck? The carnage? The burning mattresses? This is what happened when winning was given precedent over integrity. Does anyone want to experience that again?

But fans at Tennessee are clamoring for Petrino, and they’re not the only ones. Fans at Auburn, Kentucky, and yes, even Arkansas are joining in on the Scumbag Sweepstakes. This irrational fervor is summed up nicely by Grantland’s Bryan Curtis. “The point is not that Petrino is an OK guy. It’s that college football has festered for so long that even Petrino’s awfulness seems pedestrian.” 

So if fans want Petrino, then fine. Sign him, but you have to own it. When he screws over the university for more money (a la Louisville AND Atlanta), or abandons the young men who trust him because a hot, co-ed gives him a second look (a la Arkansas), accept it. It’s happened everywhere he’s been. Why on Earth would it change at Tennessee or anywhere else?

I’d rather go 7-5 and wait for Jon Gruden to come save the day.