After 10 seasons that included 305 total victories, 31 NCAA Tournament wins, nine NCAA appearances, seven Elite Eights, four Final Fours and an NCAA championship that ended a 13-year drought for the Kentucky Wildcats — so much of this achieved by 25 players who spent a single one-and-done season in Lexington — John Calipari tells us “there was no master plan” for this college basketball revolution.
There was an ideal, though, that he wanted to pursue.
“I knew we were going to make the program — and I said it at the press conference — it was going to be a players-first program,” Calipari told Sporting News. “We were going to make decisions based on them and their needs. And it’s not just about the name on the front. It’ll be about the name on the back. That’s how we’re going to do this.”
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That’s the kind of sacrilege Calipari invited into college basketball, which is one reason he is not terribly popular, which is one reason the NBA draft’s age-limit rule came into disrepute. (Seriously, who was complaining when it got Thad Matta and Ohio State to the 2007 NCAA title game?) And it’s why selecting him as SN's college basketball Coach of the Decade surely will not be met with universal acclaim.
Villanova’s Jay Wright (2016, 2018) and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (2010, 2015) both won multiple championships in the 2010s. Why not them? Indeed, why not? Either would have been a deserving choice. They are extraordinary coaches.
No one defined the 2010s in the same way as Calipari, though, nor achieved the same degree of consistent excellence. Calipari won more NCAA Tournament games this decade than all but five other active coaches did in their entire careers, or 18 coaches in the game’s history. He avoided sub-.500 seasons and first-round NCAA defeats. Kentucky was a single basket away from two more Final Four appearances.
Six times during the decade, Kentucky had the No. 1-ranked recruiting class, so perhaps the Wildcats should have been expected to achieve great things. Recruiting is a huge part of what makes a great coach, though. And the number of one-and-done players to roll through Kentucky made it imperative to land elite talent every single year. The Wildcats also were challenged, though, to form successful teams almost from scratch on an annual basis.
In the 2009-10 season, Kentucky reached the Elite Eight before losing to West Virginia. After the season, four freshmen departed the program and became first-round draft choices: John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton. And the following year, the Wildcats reached the Final Four. And after losing freshman point guard Brandon Knight from that team to the draft, the 2011-12 Wildcats won the NCAA championship.
“What I’m basically saying is, in the short term, there was no design,” Calipari told SN. “As it unfolded, I said, ‘We’re about these kids, and we’ll deal with what’s left. And then that’s what we do every year.”
Calipari’s flexibility and patience allowed him to manage this even in the most daunting circumstances. The 2012-13 season had been ruined by Nerlens Noel’s season-ending injury and the Wildcats missed the NCAAs. The Wildcats struggled to find a winning formula the next season, losing a home game in late February 2014 to fall to 21-7, following that up with losses against Arkansas and South Carolina, and then a 19-point blowout at No. 1 Florida. Even with a national title just two years earlier, Calipari’s use of one-and-done players was nationally vilified. That team wound up playing in the NCAA title game.
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It was a pivotal point for Calipari’s approach. There were fewer complaints about it, and there were more people attempting the same. Duke shifted to join the fight for potential one-and-done prospects it identifies as ideal candidates for the Blue Devils program, and beat out UK for the No. 1 class four times between 2014 and 2018. The Blue Devils also won a national title and reached two Elite Eights with the products of that approach.
“There were two points. One point was in 2012 winning the national title, which put everyone on their heels a bit because we did it with three freshmen, and two sophomores,” Calipari said. “And then in 2014, you remember it was March before that team came together. It was March. So that did help (change the perception).
“But the other thing that helped was now we have a bunch of guys staying for 2015 and now I have too many guys. I could have told those guys to leave, which is the old way of doing it: ‘You leave because we don’t need you anymore and you stay because we need you.’ I don’t do it that way. The kids make the choice here.”
Calipari said the platoon system that resulted that year, which produced 38 consecutive victories and a Final Four appearance, did lead some who recruited against Kentucky to suggest to prospects that it might not be so appealing for an NBA lottery prospect to average 23 minutes a game. But he still has been able to attract such players as PJ Washington, Jamal Murray, Bam Adebayo and De’Aaron Fox since. The recruiting class he has lined up for 2020 is ranked No. 1.
But that group is about the next decade — this is about the 2010s. This is about All-Americans John Wall, Anthony Davis, Willie Cauley-Stein and Tyler Ulis.
This is about how Calipari was able to get three players who ranked outside the top 25 in their high school classes — Eric Bledsoe, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyler Herro — into the NBA Draft’s first round after a single season.
It’s about how 24 of the 25 players who left after a single year completed their spring semester of academic work — making liars of those who claimed most one-and-done players were only taking a few fall classes and then splitting — earning APR awards from the NCAA for five years running and maintaining access to the lifetime scholarships Kentucky has promised to those who follow through on that promise.
It’s about how he impacted a very significant segment of college basketball history. Each year, he starts over with a new group of players. And, pretty much without exception, he ends with a team capable of challenging for the title.
“The reality of it is, it takes us time,” Calipari said. “It’s hard. It’s hard on the staff. And the best thing I can tell you is when you have an administration that accepts what we’re doing and why, that knows that we care about kids, and that it’s working for everybody involved.”