Calipari brings style to bluegrass

By JIM O'CONNELL AP Basketball Writer

Comments (...)

E-mail this story

Print this story

Comments

Until the games start next week there is still one topic that dominates all hoops talk – Kentucky.

Yes, Kansas was the runaway No. 1 choice in the preseason Top 25. And sure, the Jayhawks had two players on the preseason All-America team.

But it’s Kentucky that’s generating all the buzz. With one of college basketball’s storied programs now being run by John Calipari, what else are people going to talk about?

It’s the marriage of a program starving for big-time success to a coach looking for that elusive national championship.

Calipari, who took Massachusetts and Memphis to the Final Four only to see both appearances wiped out as part of NCAA probations against the programs, will start his first season with the Wildcats with a team that will try to get Kentucky back in the NCAA tournament.

“When I first got the job, [the expectation] was going to the Final Four,” Calipari said. “Then a month later it was, ‘We are going to win all the league games.’ Then a month ago, winning the games by 10, and now winning all the games by 21.”

With such lofty expectations, he’ll be counting on junior forward Patrick Patterson, a member of the preseason All-America team, and freshman point guard John Wall, who must sit out two games and repay almost $800 in expenses incurred during unofficial visits to schools during high school.

“[Players] are held to a higher standard than other players across the country, and so am I as a coach,” Calipari said of Kentucky, which fired Billy Gillispie after two seasons.

“You are held to a different standard. That is the privilege of being here. Things that go on over [at other schools] just cannot go on here.”