Michigan defeats Florida 79 to 59 Sunday afternoon in Elite Eight NCAA Tournament action…
Third straight year Florida has lost in  Elite Eight round
Just days after stepping away from his role as Alabama AD, Mal Moore has died at age 73…
Moore had been battling serious heart problems for the past month
Shoulder surgery Friday for Kentucky defensive tackle Donte Rumph…
Expected to make a full recovery and be back in the fall
Stay up to date with SEC news year-round at MrSEC.com and on Twitter at Twitter.com/mrsec

No one has taken better advantage of the NBA’s age limit than John Calipari.  In his first three years in Lexington, Kentucky’s coach took the brightest stars from America’s high schools, coaxed them into playing defense and putting team ahead of self, and led them to Elite Eight, Final Four, and national championship finishes.  If anyone can deal with the so-called one-and-done rule, it’s Calipari.

But eventually, having to recruit a new starting five every season was going to catch up to Cal and his Cats.  Any objective soul knew that to be the case.  Still, UK fans have sent us plenty of emails whenever we’ve written things like this:  “Eventually the coach will land some kids who won’t have the attitude to buy into his team-first philosophy, but he hasn’t yet.”

Now, with its best player out for the year and with a few “uncoachable” players on its team (Calipari’s since reversed field on that), it appears that this day has indeed become someday for Kentucky.  Erase the word “eventually.”  This season has become the season of chickens coming home to roost in the Bluegrass State.  You can bet more than one SEC fan has thought to himself in recent days: “Live by the one-and-doner; Die by the one-and-doner.”

Ah, but Calipari has lived a lot more than he’s died over the past four seasons.  Which means there’s no reason to stop going after recruits who most likely won’t last in the college ranks for more than a season.  We can all say “we told ya so” to UK fans today.  We can correctly state that they’re finally seeing the downside of having to start from scratch every year.  But what Wildcat fan would trade the past four years for a more traditional type of program?

For that matter, what fan of any school wouldn’t trade places with Kentucky fans today?  If your school could go the one-and-done route for four years and reach an Elite Eight, a Final Four, and win a national championship as a result, wouldn’t that be worth one disappointing season?  (Disappointing is a relative term, of course.  This year’s Wildcats are still 17-8 with the third-best RPI in the SEC.)

Hey, we’ll admit it… we weren’t fans of the build-it-up-tear-it-down-build-it-up approach when Calipari launched it.  We still wonder if UK fans 20 years from now will be able to remember what players were on which of Calipari’s teams.  There’s something sad about that.

But Kentucky’s coach has had more success than we ever dreamed possible.  He’s hitting .750 and this season isn’t even over yet (though it must feel like it for Cat fans).  After that much success, one disappointing year is no reason to chuck the Calipari model.  Until the NBA player’s union allows the NBA to raise its age limit, UK should continue to do what UK has been doing.  It’s worked more times than not.  It just can’t be counted on to work every season.

But what system could be?

The Southeastern Conference is known for football.  Seven BCS titles in row.  Five different schools with BCS crowns since the system’s inception in 1998.  Big name coaches, famous stadiums, dominant recruiting.

Mention the words “college football” and the letters S-E-C will pop into most people’s minds.

But utter the words “SEC basketball” and a different three letters come to mind: B-A-D.

Spin it any way you like, Mike Slive’s league is struggling through an abysmal season.  Florida has been dominant.  Kentucky finally appears to be rounding into shape.  Missouri has been a little worse than expected; Ole Miss a little better.  After that, it’s unlikely any of the conference’s 10 remaining teams will receive at-large invitations to the NCAA Tournament.  Saddled with a #8 RPI ranking among conferences, four bids might be generous.

In an age when the NCAA Tournament has been expanding, the number of SEC tourney berths has been declining.  This is more than a down year… it’s a trend:

From afar, the SEC has continued to have success — in most years — in the NCAA Tournament regardless of its dwindling number of bids.  But in many of those seasons, the SEC was dominated by just one or two teams.  That’s a far cry from the top-to-bottom toughness produced by the very same schools on the gridiron.

Using mathematician/hoops guru Ken Pomeroy’s computer rankings as a guide, here’s a look at the SEC teams that finished in his top 20 over the past decade:

2012:  #1 Kentucky, #12 Florida, #16 Vanderbilt

2011:  #6 Kentucky, #16 Florida

2010:  #3 Kentucky

2009:  None

2008:  #14 Tennessee

2007:  #2 Florida, #14 Kentucky

2006:  #1 Florida, #10 LSU, #15 South Carolina, #17 Arkansas, #20 Kentucky

2005:  #6 Florida, #10 Kentucky, #18 Alabama

2004:  #9 Kentucky, #17 Mississippi State

2003:  #2 Kentucky, #12 Mississippi State, #14 Florida, #17 LSU, #18 Georgia

As you can see, the number of top 20-caliber teams from the SEC has fallen drastically.  There were 17 SEC teams in the final top 20 of Pomeroy’s rankings from 2003 to 2007.  From 2008 to 2012, there have been just seven teams in his final top 20 rankings.

Worse, of the 24 top 20 slots filled by SEC squads in the last decade, 14 were filled by two schools: Florida and Kentucky.  Compare that to the SEC’s football success where in the last five years Alabama, Auburn, Florida, LSU, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas and Texas A&M have all had top 10-type seasons.

(In case you’re wondering Pomeroy’s current hoops rankings have Florida #1 and Kentucky #18.  No other SEC schools rank in his top 20.  Same song, different verse.)

So why do 14 schools that recruit the same areas in both sports have such drastically different results when it comes to football and basketball?

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week the Kentucky-Indiana basketball rivalry died.  Next season, the Cats and Hoosiers won’t play in hoops for the first time since the 1969-70 season.  The reason?  IU wanted to continue to play UK in Bloomington and Lexington while the Wildcats wanted the game to be rotated between Louisville and Indianapolis.  Neither side would budge or compromise and basketball fans will pay the price.

But Kentucky’s love for neutral-site games is not limited to its rivalry with Indiana.  John Calipari wants his squad to become America’s Team, playing in made-for-TV matchups on neutral courts whenever and wherever possible.  Andy Katz of ESPN.com tackles Calipari’s scheduling plan today.

But Coach Cal’s desires aren’t new.  As far back as August of 2010 we wrote that UK fans in Lexington might have to put up with lesser-name schools coming to town.

In 2010-11, UK played nonconference games with Boston University, Indiana, Mississippi Valley State, Winthrop, Coppin State, and Pennsylvania at Rupp Arena.  Away from home, the Cats played Portland, Oklahoma, Washington, UConn, North Carolina, Notre Dame and Louisville.

In 2011-12, Kentucky fans at Rupp were able to see Marist, Radford, Portland, St. John’s, North Carolina, Chattanooga, Samford, Loyola (MD), Lamar and Louisville.  Either on the road or neutral courts, UK faced Kansas, Penn State, Old Dominion, Indiana and Arkansas-Little Rock.

You can now scratch Indiana from the list of teams that will be coming to Lexington.  North Carolina officials said last week that UK would not be playing them in the coming season, so that series might or might not return to Lexington in the future.

In the upcoming season, Calipari has Kentucky facing Maryland at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn and Duke at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.  Louisville will host this year’s rivalry game with the Wildcats, too.

Look, as long as Calpari is signing one-and-done NBA stars, reaching Final Fours, and hanging championship banners, Kentucky fans will be just fine with him scheduling games in the Kingdom of Tonga or at Newt Gingrich’s moon base.  And we at MrSEC.com fully understand UK’s push to brand itself nationally.  Still, with the price of tickets these days it would seem that Calipari or Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart might want to reward their hometown ticket-buyers with a few more big-name games at Rupp Arena.

Then again, Calipari says he’s running a “nontraditional” program and he has to be able to schedule accordingly as one group of one-and-doners might be better or worse than another group:

“We’re not a traditional program.  We can’t have our games locked in for nine or 10 years.  We don’t know what our roster is going to look like.  We have to go year-to-year.

I told our people that we won’t do anything more than a two-year contract because of that.  Our league is hard, too.  We’re trying to prepare for the NCAA tournament and that tournament is played in domes.  Most people just play the home games and you win those, and then go on the road and you lose.  But for this program, it’s important to play in big football stadiums because that’s where the NCAA plays the Elite Eight and Final Four.  Our freshmen have to play in those kinds of buildings.  We’re a nontraditional program so it makes scheduling a little bit different for us.”

Fair enough.  But one must wonder if loyal, ticket-buying fans in Lexington are good with seeing one really good nonconference game at home each year… amidst a sea of Radfords, Samfords, and Marists.

During John Calipari’s remarkable three-year run at Kentucky, we have praised him repeatedly for his ability to take the blue chip stars off of high school teams and quickly create in them a team-first mentality and work ethic.

He draws praise because that’s just not an easy thing to do.  Which means sooner or later it’s likely that UK’s coach will land a group that doesn’t believe in unity or doesn’t understand the work it takes to earn a title.

And his current group of all-star signees are already talking about titles and success.


Alex Poythress:  “You’re following in the footsteps.  They’re setting the standard high, so you’ve got big shoes to fill.  And I feel that we can fill them.”

Nerlens Noel:  “Just the success (UK has) had with younger players going out there and winning a national championship, that’s not easy with five or six freshmen.  Just seeing what they did with that, and what Coach Calipari dos is real successful, and I think I can go there with Archie (Goodwin) and Alex and Willie (Cauley) and be successful the same way they were.”

Archie Goodwin:  “We’re going to be able to work together.  I know we are because (Noel is) a team player and I’m a team player and Willie’s a team player.  There are going to be a lot of amazing things that happen.”


For now, the smart money is on Calipari to turn this crew into another Elite Eight or better squad.  But eventually, the odds are he’ll sign one or more players who aren’t team-first guys.  Chemistry is important.  This year’s UK team had it.  An eighth championship banner was captured.

But whether the next wave will have that chemistry remains to be seen.  (And before any Cat fans email to point out that Goodwin said they were all team players, have you ever known anyone to say, “I’m a me-first” player?)

John Clay of The Lexington Herald-Leader doesn’t sound like a man who thinks John Calipari will be leaving for the NBA’s New York Knicks anytime soon.  And it doesn’t sound like he believes Calipari’s first national title will be his last.

An excerpt from his column today:


“Outside (UK’s locker room on Monday night) stood John Calipari, weary and happy and a tad defiant.

‘There’s a lot of angry people right now, that said you couldn’t do it,’ the Kentucky coach was saying.  ‘Tried to put the black hat on me and all that stuff.  They’re not real happy.’

Those mad men (and women) better get used to it.

Monday night wasn’t the end of something, it was probably the beginning.

‘If this was 1985, I’d have all these guys back and we’d be trying to go undefeated next year,’ he said.  ‘It’s not 25 years ago.  It’s now.’

No one has figured out ‘now’ better than John Calipari.”


Indeed he has.  UK could possibly lose its entire starting lineup to the NBA Draft this summer.  We’ll know next Tuesday who all is a’ goin’ and who all is a’ stayin’.

But is there any doubt that Calipari will simply reload with five of the best recruits in the nation if/when that happens?  And after three years of doing things his way, Coach Cal’s track record looks pretty good: Elite Eight, Final Four, national title.

Whether kids arriving, playing and leaving in seven-month intervals makes a mockery of “college” basketball or not, Calipari didn’t create the rule.  He just knows how to win while using it.

Clay is probably right, SEC fans.  Kentucky and Calipari are on a roll.  Eventually the coach will land some kids who won’t have the attitude to buy into his team-first philosophy, but he hasn’t yet.  (And if he has, they’ve made it at least as far as the Elite Eight anyway).

The only thing that can run UK off the tracks at this point is a Calipari departure or some sort of NCAA bust.  And as we noted earlier today, Calipari’s never been caught doing anything wrong despite the fact that he’s the most-eyeballed coach in the country.

So get used to it.  Just as Alabama will be the SEC favorite in most years so long as Nick Saban is in Tuscaloosa, Kentucky will be the league favorite in hoops just as long as Calipari is kicking around Lexington.

The league’s traditional powers both look as if they’re just getting started.

It was just three short years ago.  Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators had just wrapped up a three-game run in their second straight NIT.  There were more than a few rumbles, grumbles and questions about whether the coach had lost his mojo.  Maybe it was time for a change.  After all, Donovan had also taken an NBA job only to give it back hours later.  His heart just wasn’t in the college game anymore.  In the minds of a few, Florida needed someone new.

All this talk came after Donovan had already won back-to-back national titles in 2006 and 2007.  His whole team had gone pro on him afterward.  He was starting from scratch with his program in ’08 and ’09 and still winning 20+ games (he’s now put together 14 such seasons in a row) and he was still making postseason tournaments (15 in a row as of this season, with only three NITs in that mix).

Well, with Donovan’s Gators upsetting Marquette 68-58 last night in Phoenix to reach their second consecutive Elite Eight, maybe it’s time to look back and mock those finicky, fairweather folks who questioned UF’s coach.  Talk about “what have ya done for me lately.”

Tomorrow, Donovan and his 7th-seeded Gators will face 4th-seeded Louisville in the West Regional final.  Florida’s coach will be battling the man he played for at Providence, Rick Pitino. 

“Obviously, I’ve said that outside of my parents, he’s the most influential person in my life,” Donovan said last night of the man who is a perfect 6-0 against him as a coach.  But if UF can get past Louisville — who upset top-seeded Michigan State last night — Donovan will make his fourth trip to the Final Four.

Two national titles.  Five Elite Eights.  On the verge of a fourth Final Four.  People, that’s rarefied air.  That’s the Mount Olympus inhabited by the Mike Krzyzewskis, Roy Williams, Tom Izzos and Pitinos of the world.  That’s lifetime contract stuff.  In other words, it’s the kind of success that should keep fans’ mouths closed the next time Donovan’s program has to go through the bumps of a rebuilding cycle.

John Calipari might soon make Kentucky what it once was in terms of regular Final Four visitors and occasional national champs.  The Wildcats certainly appear to be heading in that direction.  But for now — until Coach Cal captures a crown — Florida and Donovan are the Kentucky of the SEC.  (Any insulted Gator fans should look up UK’s hoops history and realize what kind of compliment I just paid them.  Ditto insulted UK fans.)

As for last night’s win, it was a big dose of Bradley Beal — 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting — and some stingy defense that earned UF its latest Elite Eight trip.  Holding the up-tempo Golden Eagles to 58 points is no easy feat.  In its three NCAA tourney wins so far, the Gators have allowed just 51 points per game on average.

Earlier this week we told you that Marquette star Jae Crowder had said Florida is “a great offensive team,” but “they lack a few things defensively… we’ll get a lot of things we want offensively.”

Not so much.

Crowder scored 15 but connected on just 5-of-15 shots.  As a team his Golden Eagles shot just 30% from the floor.

With a dynamic Beal impressing on a nightly basis and the ability and desire to play some downright nasty defense, Florida is an uber-dangerous team right now.  And whether they take down Pitino’s Louisville squad tomorrow afternoon or not, Florida’s coach remains the SEC’s best.  Kentucky’s Calipari is good, but he’s got a ways to go before he equals Donovan in terms of hardware.

Let’s hope people in the Sunshine State remember that the next time Florida stubs its toe.

Jimmer Fredette is the nation’s leading scorer at 28.8 points per game.  BYU recently suspended key complimentary player Brandon Davies.
 
So it’s kind of obvious Florida needs to focus on Fredette in their Sweet Sixteen battle with the Cougars on Thursday.  Right?

“Jimmer gets a lot of publicity and attention and exposure, but it’s really their whole team,” Billy Donovan said yesterday.  “We understand with him, he’s certainly a hard guy to defend and stop.  But they also have some other good players. … And I don’t think that you really get to this point in the season like they’ve gotten to with it just being one guy.”

Maybe so.  But if the Gators can slow down Fredette in New Orleans, they’ll have a darn good shot at reaching the Elite Eight.

John Calipari has spent the offseason trying to convince Kentucky fans and the rest of the world that this year’s Wildcat club won’t be the equal of last year’s Wildcat club. 

Most folks aren’t listening.

But as Paul Daugherty of SI.com writes today, Calipari continues to thrive anyway.  Year in, year out, high expectations or not.

We’ll share one anecdote that Calipari told to Daugherty… and it’s a pretty good one:


Two weeks after last season, which ended with a loss in the Elite Eight, the coach is sitting in a coffee shop.  “Guy taps me on the shoulder,” Calipari says.

“Tough year, Coach,” he says.

Calipari pauses.  “Sir, can I tell you what is tough?”

“New job, new staff, new team.  Bring in lots of new players.  You win the SEC.  You win the SEC Tournament.  You go to an Elite Eight.  If you don’t start that game 0-for-20 from three, you probably win the national title.

“Then, you’re sitting in a coffee shop two weeks after the season and a guy taps you on the shoulder and says, ‘Tough year, Coach.’”