SI : Coach Cal ranked #3 coach in college basketball
- Thread starter BrickandMortar
- Start date
Subjective like any opinion. I think they have him too low. But he’s certainly top 3 to any rational fan.
My thoughts were this after reading:
Cal has been and probably always will be a great head coach in terms of helping his players achieve their goals. It is fun to watch the same guys who played for your team move onto the NBA and succeed in the way our guys have, and to have so many in the league is awesome to see.
Where me and Cal would not see eye-to-eye is on the program side. It has been said many times, and always will be, Cal has done so little with so much. Sometimes we got screwed over, sometimes fell on our own face, but through it all Cal has always let us down.
I enjoy watching our players go on to play at the next level, but can we please enjoy their time while they're at Kentucky too? Win a championship? Final Four?
Cal's a great guy and a great college coach, but it's time to see results with the talent we're getting.
My ranking of Cal would be 4th or 5th, also think Eric Musselman (Arkansas) should be a bit higher: love the culture he has built there, wish Cal would take notes.
Agreed, just think they should both be lower a bit. Think they should Scott Drew and Mark Few higher.
Sorry...he shouldn't be ranked anything close to that. Never has a coach squandered so much talent and got nothing out of it. He hasn't cared about coaching for years and his concern has really only been getting guys to the NBA as quickly as possible, no matter what the cost to his program. That's not a top tier coach.
There are 2 versions of Cal:
First version: 2009-2015
Second version: 2016-2023
The first version of Cal is 3rd behind K and Roy, which is really respectable. Dude had fire and motivation back then, he was awesome.
The second version of Cal isn't a top 10 coach. He's had more talent than anyone else in college ball, but he has severely underperformed. He can get talent, he just isn't a good coach for today's game.
First version: 2009-2015
Second version: 2016-2023
The first version of Cal is 3rd behind K and Roy, which is really respectable. Dude had fire and motivation back then, he was awesome.
The second version of Cal isn't a top 10 coach. He's had more talent than anyone else in college ball, but he has severely underperformed. He can get talent, he just isn't a good coach for today's game.
Both have one title, Izzo has what 8-9 final fours. Cal has 6 with one title.
Pre-UK great coach, good recruiter
2009-2015 good coach, great recruiter
2015-present poor coach, good recruiter
2009-2015 good coach, great recruiter
2015-present poor coach, good recruiter
I thought that was a higher ranking than he deserved for the present time, maybe the younger Cal at 3 but no way Cal should be ranked higher than Pitino.
Last edited:
WildcatfaninOhio
All-American
I knew this would be sure to trigger some folks. So far it has not disappointed.
I’ll def check back on this often for the entertainment value.
I’ll def check back on this often for the entertainment value.
Who's triggered? Seems like everyone has been pretty calm.
you must be to young to remember Dean Smith
you can also say that about Roy Williams
Cal owns pitino head to head. Say what you want but the facts don't lie.
Roy Williams has 3 titles to his name and no longer coaches.
Dean Smith quit coaching decades ago.
Neither coach has anything to do with UK, Calipari does, so I'm not sure why you felt the need to bring those 2 up.
We get it, you hate it when anyone says anything negative about Cal, but you have to admit, he has more than earned the criticism. In fact, I think he has gotten away with underperforming. He hasn’t really had to address his failures.
Top 3 is wayyyyy too high. But he also isnt one of the like bottom of the barrel P5 coaches as I have read on here in the past. I would rank him around the 12-15 range.
I agree with all this.
By UK standards, Cal is not close to being up-to-par, but heck yeah, he’s still top 15.
If they did these rankings between 2009-2015, he’s easily top 3.
But, if he was still at Memphis and performed the way he has since the 2015 Wisconsin loss, he wouldn't be considered top 15. He’s getting a bump because he’s coaching at UK.
The real question is, can Calipari get his mojo back? Can he recapture what he was from 09-15? If he did that, he would own college basketball and probably own Lexington.
One could say Rick Barnes owns Cal but that dont say much
New efficient offense. The more you yell, the more they do, at least in theory! Cal must not be loud enough.
Hasn't been as entertaining as in March when people wanted to burn his house down (hyperbole!), calm post for sure
What would your top 10 look like guys? Just curious to see what your thoughts are.
I'm laughing at myself. I read the post title and thought someone fell and hit their head thinking it was all coaches...then clicked the link and saw that it was current coaches. Calipari is up there in the current crop of coaches.
Had the same exact reaction! I was dying laughing (and relieved).
The list in your OP is very good. While I think Cal is better than Altman, I would add other coaches to the list in front of Cal.
Chris Beard
Larranaga
Tommy Lloyd
Dusty May
Rick Barnes
Now, these coaches aren't as decorated as Cal, but I'm focusing on modern day. All of Cal's big accomplishments happened 8+ years ago. When you look at the second half of Cal's tenure, there is no argument for Cal to be better than those coaches and Cal has the advantage of coaching at UK. Dusty May runs a better system, but he's at Florida Atlantic.
Some people will gasp at seeing Barnes on there, but look at the head to head since Barnes took the UT job. Barnes has been better in and out of SEC play.
Since the 2015 season, Cal has consistently lost to some bad coaches when he has had a huge talent advantage. Coaches like:
Bruce Weber
Tom Crean multiple times (yuck)
Walter McCarty
Jerry Stackhouse
Chris Mooney
Whoever coached Saint Peters
Nate Oates
Lamont Paris
Mike White
Jerome Tang
Cal has been that bad the last few years. You can't lose 3 times to Tom Crean and not slip in these rankings.
SI obviously didn’t get the memo that the UK coach is not eligible for consideration if not anointed by the underbelly of the UK fanbase along with the pretenders.
This is the truth, until proven otherwise he isn’t even top 10 now. He doesn’t beat good teams often enough, and we don’t go far in the tournament.
He's probably the same guy who makes fun of the left in the comments of every single Yahoo article. It just reads way too similarly.
The same crop of coaches that continue to take his lunch or do something significant in the postseason?
People just don’t seem to want to understand that all the talent he gets here hasn’t matured yet. It’s not like you can expect NBA Booker at 17-18.
Yep. His record since the 'lifetime contract' is embarrassing.
Then why is Cal doing it?
I've never gotten an answer from anyone on these questions.
Since duke won in 2015, how many freshmen have you seen in the FF that played key starting roles?
Cal has had multiple 5* freshmen on every team he has had here, he has 1 title, yet he keeps fielding young teams, then using youth as an excuse. Why does he keep doing it? Seems like the only benefit is bragging rights with regards to the amount of draft picks he can claim.
You can't use inexperience and youth as an excuse for losing, when that is the roster you choose to have.
In my opinion, it looks to me like winning isn't a top priority, it's a nice thing if it happens, but the goal is to get highly rated kids drafted, because apparently they wouldn’t get drafted if they went anywhere else.
Meanwhile, guys like Self, Wright and Drew are developing 2, 3 and 4 star kids, getting some of them drafted AND winning recent titles in the process.
Good response. Lot to think about for sure. Cal is def. a player first coach, and his only goal is to get them drafted.
Except that they do well on either side of Cal's influence. It's as if they drIve through a dark tunnel with a smaller rim and a dead plywood backboard during their time at UK.
