[Old School Hound]

One of the coaches that Hoot listed as better than Cal is Bruce Pearl.  I think that is debatable but let's suppose Mr Gibson is right.  How  many of you folks would want Bruce at the helm of UK?  Not only would I not want him coaching my son if I had one, I wouldn't want his sweaty, slimy  body near my cheerleader daughter either.  He is as skanky as they come, probably as likely as running afoul of the law as he is running afoul of college basketball rules.  Having  Bruce Almighty sweating all over Rupp Arena  would be the basketball equivalent of taking a dump in the nation's Capitol. Unthinkable.

I never suggested hiring Bruce Pearl. He is hands down a better coach than John Calipari but I would not want him coaching UK. You challenged me to list coaches who would have done a better job coaching UK than Calipari and I produced a long list of coaches. Now, you can debate a few of them individually if you want, but that was not the purpose of the list. The point is there are many better basketball coaches in this country that John Calipari. I would rate Calipari as no better than the fourth best coach in UK history, behind Rupp, Pitino, and Hall. The man is not irreplaceable.

As for ethics, let's not forget that Calipari left the programs at UMass and Memphis in shambles when he left those programs. I know that the NCAA never connected Calipari to the violations at those two schools, which occurred during Calipari's tenure, but at the very least he did not provide proper oversight to the programs that he ran. For that reason, I was disappointed when Kentucky hired Calipari and I would be disappointed if they hired Pearl for the same reason.

I gotcha. That's fair enough, Hoot.


I just think there is a bunch of factors that go into determining whether a man is a good coach.  X's and O's are only part of the equation. Cal is okay as an in-game coach but there are others who are better.  Where Cal has excelled is in motivating these star-studded , highly-prized athletes to buying into his team-first concept and molding them into a championship caliber squad. As I mentioned before, Cal could easily have four championships at UK with a little luck and a couple of things falling into place.

Is there anyone out there right now( willing and available to come here), BGR fans and Cal detractors, that you would be more satisfied with than Cal?