If true, this makes Barnhart look like a total clown. He is actively holding the basketball program back from improving.
According to Kyle Tucker, Cal has secured $30 million in funding for a new facility. He is doing the fundraising alone on this and much of it has come from former players. However, Barnhart will not let him proceed with building the new facility.
From The Athletic:
To the first question: If I were GM of Kentucky basketball … the first item on my list would already be covered. Kentucky basketball needs a GM. I would argue every major program in the country today does. With the transfer portal and name, image and likeness transforming college sports — and deeply affecting the building, retention and management of your roster every year — you’d better be highly organized with a sharp leader at the top. To his credit, I’ve heard that Calipari pitched something like this to Barnhart in recent years and was shot down.
Which brings us to that question of athletic director culpability, and absolutely some of this lands at Barnhart’s feet. For whatever reason, he and Calipari no longer have a relationship of any significance. They don’t speak to each other, Barnhart attends fewer games and he hasn’t been to a Kentucky basketball practice in ages. His response to Calipari’s regrettable “basketball school” comments this summer was bizarre at best. Calipari wanted to immediately publicly apologize and was told by Barnhart to keep his mouth shut. Barnhart then joined football coach Mark Stoops for a stunning press conference that felt like an hour-long clapback at Calipari. How in the world was fanning those flames productive?
The bottom line here is that Barnhart signed Calipari to the crazy contract that means they are married to each other, like it or not, for the foreseeable future. So he’d better start talking to his basketball coach and work with him to try to fix this thing. The whole “basketball school” comment came during a Calipari rant about needing a new practice facility to keep up with the Joneses the way Georgia and Alabama football do, even if their current facilities are still fine. Calipari has already secured pledges of about $30 million in private funding — mostly from his former players in the NBA — but Barnhart refuses to let him proceed with planning a facility. He has balked at any request by Calipari to add support staff for basketball (UK’s staff is small compared to other top programs) while handing the football program a blank check.