Originally posted by Joneslab:
Originally posted by C1180:
Calipari is a good coach but Calipari is not UK basketball. I believe UK had won 7 NC when he showed up on campus. He has won one to make it 8. UK was one of the all time greats in college basketball before Calipari and will still be one of the top teams in college basketball after he leaves. Five different coaches have won NCs at UK. Calipari had never won a NC before he became the UK coach. The question is did UK make Calipari or did Calipari make UK? I think any reasonable person would know the answer to that question. They are no doubt a good combination.
Yes but if you look back at the post-Rupp years, there's been a lot of good-but-not-great from UK
except in a handful of the Hall years, Pitino's post-probation years, and the Calipari era.
Joe B. had some powerful teams. Tubby had two or three and then a couple of other dangerous teams. Sutton and Gillispie were mostly disasters.
That's 45 years of history and the only consistency you can really find are some isolated patches of Hall, the '90s, and today.
So Kentucky definitely has a hand in "making" the coach, but history proves that having the right coach in place is monumentally important.