John Calipari passes Adolph Rupp on all-time NCAA Tournament wins list

John Calipari made history in Kentucky’s 62-58 victory over Houston on Friday evening.

With his 31st postseason victory as UK’s coach, Calipari surpassed legendary head coach Adolph Rupp on the school’s all-time wins list in the NCAA Tournament.

At Kentucky, Rupp appeared in 20 NCAA tournaments, won 30 total tournament games, had six NCAA Final Four appearances, and won four NCAA titles. He also managed four 30-win seasons, a number Calipari also passed last night when he reached that threshold for the fifth time in ten seasons.

Earlier this season, Calipari also made history when he passed Kentucky head coach Joe B. Hall for No. 2 on UK’s all-time wins list.

In other interesting statistics and facts, per UK Athletics:

• Calipari now has a 56-18 overall record in the NCAA Tournament
• He is now 7-1 in Sweet 16 games at Kentucky, 12-3 in his career
• This will mark his 12th Elite 8 appearance in the last 20 seasons.
• Calipari-coached teams have won 37 straight NCAA Tournament games when leading at halftime, tying John Wooden for the longest streak by an NCAA head coach.
• Calipari has made 10 Elite 8 appearances in his last 14 seasons as a head coach dating back to his time at Memphis

As for Kentucky-specific NCAA Tournament tidbits, per UK Athletics:

• Kentucky has an all-time record of 129-51 in the NCAA Tournament, more wins than any team in NCAA history.
• UK is making its NCAA record 58th appearance in the tournament.
• Kentucky is now 25-7 as the No. 2 seed in the tournament and 7-3 vs. No. 3 seeds.
• UK improved to 22-5 all-time in Sweet 16 games since 1975 (the first year that all teams in the tournament had to win at least one game to advance to the Sweet 16) and 37-11 in regional semifinals (1988 game was vacated and does not count towards either number).
• The Wildcats advanced to their 34th all-time Elite 8 appearance since 1951 (the first year that all teams in the tournament had to win at least one game to advance to the Elite 8).
• UK is making its seventh Elite 8 appearance in 10 seasons under John Calipari
• The Wildcats’ seven Elite 8 appearances over the last 10 seasons are more than any other school.
• UK is 31-7 in the NCAA Tournament under Calipari.
• It was Kentucky’s first-even NCAA Tournament game in Kansas City, Missouri, an oddity considering UK has made more NCAA Tournament appearances than any other school and Kansas City has hosted more NCAA Tournament events other than Dayton, which hosts the play-in games every season.

[mobile_ad]