Calipari Coaching Tree
- Thread starter FiveStarCat
- Start date
I think when he was at UMASS his system was very unknown so he was able to take a couple guys with some talent and win with it. By the time he went to Memphis he took on grey area studs and used his system to thrive. When he went to Kentucky, he was even at a better advantage with our resources. So how do you teach “get superior athletes and let them take your defender 1 on 1 and let him distribute to score. That doesn’t translate to other coaches like Pitino’s where his system works no matter what you have. It just works better when you have better athletes.
And you don’t have to comment with your paragraph length run on sentences.
Cal is a terrible coach and his inability to develop coaches is a testament to his fixed mindset.
Another coach who has had lots of success but has a pretty terrible coaching tree is Bill Self. I think BCG might be his most successful believe it or not.
Jay Wright is another one. I don’t believe he’s ever had an assistant hold a major DI job. Granted, he was only a head coach for 20 years.
Jay Wright is another one. I don’t believe he’s ever had an assistant hold a major DI job. Granted, he was only a head coach for 20 years.
Interesting coaching tree. Dead end at Cal.
Interesting coaching tree. Dead end at Cal.
Oh that's freaking cool!
I was going to ask if something like this could be created but here it is!
See?
Even "another Cal thread" can lead to something unexpectedly awesome [laughing]
Thanks for posting that , Condor
College basketball's most barren coaching tree
John Calipari has won nearly 850 games, but none of his former assistants have had close to the same level of success as head coaches. It makes the Kentucky boss a historical outlier
frontporchsports.substack.com
(Things were looking so promising for Walter McCarty until 2019).
Though not a college player under Pitino, as a teenager in 1977 Cal participated in a Five Star Camp and met Pitino….
Sean Woods has coached at several universities.
Steve Masiello was head coach at Manhattan, and is currently an associate head coach under Pitino at St. John’s.
Scott Padgett was head coach at Samford, and is currently an assistant at Mississippi State.
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Cal is not a real coach, so his assistants learn basically nothing basketball wise from him
Is there a bigger goober out there than Brad Calipari? The fade… the turtlenecks… the bling. He is like a white Drake but with no money, women, or talent (not that Drake has any talent either). Brad does have a better jumper tho… barely.
Good point. It seems UK started with the DD and lob for the slam. Now you see many teams doing that, and better than UK can do it. Plus people have figured out how to defend it it seems.
This is exactly what I thought about when I read the title.
I didn't mention him because he also played for Duke. I think Brey was K's most successful who was only an assistant.
There was a fool on this message board a few years ago who tried to downplay Pitino's coaching tree. It was actually kind of humorous to watch his imbecilic logic in real time.
My feeling on this was that Cal was more like a CEO. Your typical CEO isn’t trying to groom more CEOs. He/She is trying to fill whatever gaps needed to successfully run a company,
In Cal’s heyday, he did a nice job of hiring (and seemingly trusting) people who complemented his other abilities. Robic would be a great example. Rod Strickland would be another.
These guys might not be great head coaching material, but they fit well into the roles that Cal needed, and he leaned on them to do what they did well.
In Cal’s heyday, he did a nice job of hiring (and seemingly trusting) people who complemented his other abilities. Robic would be a great example. Rod Strickland would be another.
These guys might not be great head coaching material, but they fit well into the roles that Cal needed, and he leaned on them to do what they did well.
Calipari is such an awful coach it’s not even funny. Look at how a lot of teams operate during a timeout. All of the coaches will huddle and discuss what they wanna do and then go deliver the message to the players. Could u imagine a scenario with cal and his assistants huddling and everyone getting their turn to give their input? He has to be the worst coach of all time about letting his assistants help him throughout a game. I can’t tell u how many times over the years I’ve seen chin or Antigua try to yell and tell a player something during live action or a dead ball and cal immediately turn around and shut that coach up. Why on earth would anyone wanna work for him? Oh yea it’s bc they get to just sit back and collect a paycheck.
In all my years I have never heard a coach speak about extending his legacy by making another great head coach. However, smart people that are in CEO positions and management, the successful ones, tend to surround themselves with other smart people. I think there is a drastic difference in Pope’s stable of assistants vs Cal. Right now Arkansas is seeing why you don’t just hire your friends and family.
Brad Calipari is the most important Cal branch for UK. He's the reason why Cal left. If Cal hadn't insisted he was going to hire him and being told by Mitch that in most circumstances a head coach can hire who they want but not Brad, not now, and probably not ever. It would have been torches and pitchforks at both Cal and Mitch's doors. Cal got too cute for his own good and started fishing for offers with the proviso that he hires who he wants, Arkansas took the bait, Cal amazingly thought he had leverage with an Arkansas deal in hand but he'd voided his own deal with UK by negotiating with them.
It's a solid take, I think it makes the most sense. It's also been mentioned by folks around here. I believe it. cal bluffed his way out of a great job.
Joe B. Hall has more good coaches in his "tree" currently, Lenard Hamilton spent 10 years under Hall at UK, than Cal.