Calipari: "We walk" if a recruitment seems shady

John Calipari was in rare form today at SEC Basketball Media Day. In the wake of the corruption scandal embroiling the sport, Calipari was asked how he responds when he feels a recruit wants more than to just play for the University of Kentucky.

“We walk. We walk. We just walk. We’re out. I’m not going to deal with it. I think we when we walk in, we make it clear how we do this and what we do and don’t do so it never comes up. Here’s what I would say: if my staff is uncomfortable with what it is, there are other kids. We’re gonna walk.

“I’ll say this to you guys. It’s not always guys asking for something or insinuating something. It could be this: a kid disrespects his mother or grandmother. I walk out immediately because if he’s disrespectful in that way, how is he ever going to respect me or our institution or the people that we all work for? He’s not going to have that kind of respect. If I see a kid that doesn’t even think about making anybody better and my staff will come back and give me all his stats, we walk.

“So, the thing that Kentucky is not for everyone, we do not get everyone that we start recruiting. Some of them, we walk away from. Some of them, they walk away from us and it’s — you’re not promised anything.”

From there, he launched into his solutions for the sport should the one-and-done rule go away, namely, the league paying for eight semesters of college education for players who go straight to the league and don’t make it in the G-League. You can read more about that here:

Calipari shares his solution for the future of college basketball

TJ Walker will be by in a bit with more.

[mobile_ad]