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| Calipari's freshman sensations like Wille Cauley-Stein, Nerlens Noel and Archie Goodwin failed this season. (Credits: Dave Martin/AP Photo) |
When the NBA created the one year out of college eligibility rule back in 2005, John Calipari took the idea of having a team full of pretty much all top-tier recruited freshman and ran with it. At first of course, he tinkered with the idea, starting that first season under the rule at Memphis with a lineup that consisted of two freshman, two sophomores and a senior. That team lost an ugly game to UCLA 50-45 in the Elite Eight and it took Calipari a while before he understood how to truly use this rule to his advantage. In '07-'08, Freshman Derrick Rose took him to the National Championship before the free throw fiasco sent Rose bolting to the NBA. Then first-year guard Tyreke Evans couldn't take him past the Sweet Sixteen and he, like Rose, dipped to the show. Calipari, on the other hand, realized he couldn't make the most out of his system at Memphis; he had to follow his former players to greener pastures. He needed to go somewhere else, somewhere BIG. That's when the storied program in Lexington, Kentucky gave him a call and everything changed, well...sort of.
His first season at Kentucky brought with it excessive amounts of excitement. With the Wildcats coming off a disappointing season in which they didn't even make the tournament, Calipari enlisted four top-25 ranked recruits including the top two in the nation. Kentucky's prestige and national prominence helped Calipari do exactly what he wanted to do, create a super team of freshman. Of course many analysts questioned his decision to start four freshman, something that hadn't been done since the Fab Five, a team that fell flat on it's face for the exact reason everyone was talking about: inexperience. Kentucky tore through the regular season and SEC Tournament finishing 32-2 heading into the NCAA Tournament. Led by the scintillating guard play of John Wall and Eric Bledsoe and the bruising post play of DeMarcus Cousins the Wildcats earned the number one overall seed and looked like a lock for the Final Four. Instead they were beat by a more experienced West Virginia squad in convincing fashion in the Elite Eight. Bledsoe, Cousins and Wall all cashed in their NBA checks after failing to meet expectations and Calipari was forced to retool. Retooling was exactly what Calipari did.
But his next group of elite freshman, Terrence Jones, Brandon Knight and Doron Lamb could only crack the Final Four before being bounced as well. Knight fled for the NBA, but Lamb and Jones stayed for an opportunity to do it over again, to win a National Championship. Calipari once again fired up his recruiting engines and brought in arguably his best class ever with three top-5 recruits. These three freshman studs joined Lamb and Jones and brought Kentucky its first National Championship since 1998. Calipari had finally perfectly mixed his unbelievable (possibly questionable) recruiting tactics and his versatile system to win it all. Let's just say the college basketball purists were not happy.
I personally do not like Calipari; the guy just rubs me the wrong way. Yet, I respect and even enjoy his style of coaching. Other than his ability to pull in stud freshmen, he has an interesting way of putting forth a basketball product. With so many talented, but unique players passing through his ranks so quickly Calipari has to be adaptable. Adaptability is his system. Every year that he brings in new players he tweaks his play sets to most effectively utilize the talent on the court. It's a difficult and time consuming process, but seeing Calipari's .774 winning percentage, it shows you he really knows how to do it. Once he won the National Championship last year, his whole style was completely legitimized. And even if you want to go the college basketball purist route and say the way he does it is wrong and just goes against everything the amateur league is about, don't blame Calipari. It's the NCAA's fault, not Calipari's, that freshman come and go faster than Andrew Bynum's knees.
This year was different though. From the start it seemed like taking this team to the promised land was an impossible task. There's just simply no way to craft a successful system around a majority of big man if you don't have a true point guard and those big man can't really move the ball. Neither senior Julius Mays nor freshman Archie Goodwin truly assumed the role of floor general and Kentucky never recovered. And right when we all thought that Kentucky had it all figured out with a five game winning streak, Calipari's man-child freshman Nerlens Noel's knee gave out and the season ended right there. The Wildcats went 4-5 the rest of way including an ugly second round exit to a terrible Vanderbilt squad in the SEC Tournament. That was all just a prelude to what happened last night, when the Wildcats embarrassed themselves against Robert Morris in the first round of the lowly NIT.
Calipari's system failed. His fortress invaded by a bunch of Colonials. His players embarrassed by a unheard-of Northeastern Conference team. Yet the magical thing about Calipari's system? It could easily win him a National Championship next year. The core of this team, Noel, Goodwin, Alex Poythress and possibly even Willie Cauley-Stein will probably head for greener pastures in June. They'll be easily replaced by five top-20 recruits including the 5th, 6th and 7th ranked incoming freshmen and the '12-'13 season will become an aberration.
Lexington is in mourning right now. But Calipari is already crafting his freshmen masterpiece for next year. Kentucky will be a sure bet once again come November, you just watch.
Oh and while you were reading this. The number three ranked recruit just signed his letter of intent to Kentucky as well. Calipari at his finest.
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