You gotta wonder how John Calipari enjoyed today’s broadcast of the Tigers and UMass from Boston. The timing couldn’t have been better. Two days after Hall of Fame coach Bobby Knight called into question the integrity of college sports — the focus of his ire on Calipari being employed at Kentucky after putting two programs “on probation” — the two programs Calipari led to the Final Four faced one another on the floor normally occupied by the Boston Celtics.
With all the discussion of Calipari’s impact on the two teams — each now coached by former assistants of his — you’d think he brought the sport to UMass and Memphis, that he was to the Minutemen and Tigers as Gene Bartow is to UAB. But a guy named Julius Erving played at UMass before John Calipari first wore a tie. Larry Finch and Penny Hardaway did their thing in Memphis before local fans could pronounce Calipari’s name properly.
And the programs live on in his aftermath, however soiled.
