Per the Duke Basketball Report, “The most interesting thing in college basketball right now, in our opinion, is Kentucky turning on John Calipari. And by Kentucky we mean fans and local media. You could toss in national media too for that matter.” The Duke Basketball Report went on:
Calipari is in some ways an admirable man. If nothing else, his children are interesting and intelligent and deeply loyal to their family. Clearly he has good qualities and cannot be the caricature opposing fan bases believe him to be.
But he does have some significant flaws and one of them is dealing with heavy criticism. When he was with the Nets, and flailing, Calipari had an intern call into a sports talk show to defend him. And, more bizarrely, he had his people check to see if his phones were bugged (this was before cell phones). While with the Nets, he could reasonably be described as paranoid.
The New York media is of course ferocious and the fans are a handful.
Currently though, Calipari, is in the most demanding fishbowl in college sports. Alabama football is a close second, but there is no worse place to flail than Rupp Arena.
In short, while Calipari is doing a good job of keeping up appearances externally, internally, he’s almost certainly having a very difficult time. And if the pressure builds, his temptation to look to greener pastures is going to be strong.
Walter Cornett, of Glendale, Kentucky, is the owner and operator of Walter’s Wildcat World. He founded WildcatWorld.com in 1998 making it one of the oldest Kentucky basketball fan sites in operation today.
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