Let’s give John Calipari his due as a coach. This would be needed even if Kentucky lost on Monday night, but now that they have done what a team with that talent should do by winning the national championship, we need to give him his due and put an end to all the things that have been said about him to dismiss his coaching ability. It’s time we stopped saying the common lines that have been uttered about him that stop short of giving him credit as a coach.
Let’s stop saying he’s just a great recruiter.
Let’s stop saying he’s just a great salesman.
Let’s stop saying he wins games just because of the talent he has, as if he just rolls out the balls and his kids play.
All of it needs to go. We’ve seen that he can coach before, and this season drove that home.
Sure, Calipari has an outsized personality to go with the outsized expectations of the rabid fan base in Lexington. That’s why he’s a perfect fit, and perhaps few other coaches would fit that job so well. He plays to the fan base perfectly, and did after Monday’s game was over. But that’s beside the point.
So, too, is his past. Yes, he has taken two schools to the Final Four and seen both of them vacated by the NCAA because of violations that occurred on his watch. You can think what you will of him as a person; the purpose here isn’t to defend his past or excoriate him for it. The focus is John Calipari as a coach.
This Kentucky team had a target on its back pretty much as soon as the balls were tossed up back in November. The talent on this team was already well-known, although one wondered if the lack of experience might at some point be a hindrance. That’s a big reason why Darius Miller became so important to this team, besides the fact that he’s simply a good player. But there was no question this team had the talent to win it all, and after an early win over North Carolina that was thought to be the case even more so.
Much was expected of this team, and they delivered. To be favored to win and then win it all is harder than anyone outside of sports realizes. It means that every game is the opponent’s big game, their Super Bowl, their championship game. For many, it would make their season to topple the favorites, even if they don’t win a game the rest of the way.
All this team did was go 38-2 against those teams. They were the best defensive team in the country, evidenced not only by their national-best field goal percentage defense, but also by how they won games by scoring 57, 60 and 62 points much like they won each of the many times they topped 80 points. They were also 12th in the country in rebounding margin.
The Wildcats had good chemistry. For a young team to mesh this well both in terms of how everyone plays and personalities says a lot about the job Calipari did. While it’s true there’s a lot of talent, and not all of this can be put on the coach, the coach has a lot to do with it. This is the same challenge many prep school coaches have, as they have many of their players for just a year or two. That leaves little time to create any kind of chemistry and feel for each other, as opposed to a traditional high school where a core group might play together for three or all four years and grow together.
Kentucky had the most talent, but it had to be melded together into a team that could win. Countless times over the years, we’ve seen the most talented team not win the championship for one reason or another. Coaching is not always the reason such teams don’t win it all, but sometimes it is. When a team like this wins, there’s a tendency to not give the coach any credit, as if the staff just rolled out the balls and the players won just by virtue of being more talented than their opponents.
John Calipari coached this team to a national championship. Now we have to realize that he’s not just a great recruiter. He’s not just a great salesman. He’s not just an outsized personality that fits the program he leads perfectly. He doesn’t just have the most talent. He’s a pretty good coach, and that played an important part in the Wildcats winning this season.
