Head coach John Calipari has posted a statement/explanation on his web site regarding his decision not to retain at least three of the walk-ons from last year’s UK basketball team.
An excerpt:
In my 17 years of college coaching, I have very rarely had walk-ons and when I have it’s usually been another student-athlete, who could help us in practice or game situations because of his size, speed or skill level. I find my practices run at optimum performance when there are 12-13 players. Any more than that and we’re not able to accomplish what I want in each practice.
Calipari did say that he was considering a spot for Mark Krebs, but had not made a determination at this point.
This is so wrong. I understand for the underclassmen, but Dwight shouldn’t be forced to leave. I don’t care what Coach’s situation in the past was, this is a special circumstance and the kid had to deal with all the same CRAP as the other seniors.
He should be allowed to stay on the team.
I think its pathetic. He treated Landon Sloane like he was nothing, while he would probably cancel his whole schedule if Sloane was “McDonalds All-American” and now he snubs 2 Seniors who were there during some one of toughest times in UK’s Basketball History. Part of playing at Kentucky is realizing the players whose hard work made the program one of the top if not the top basketball program in the country. You need guys whose passion for Kentucky shows day in and day out REGARDLESS OF TALENT and remind some of the scholarship guys what a PRIVILIGE it is to play basketball at the University of Kentucky. If he Calipari treats UK as if it is a NBA Developmental League, UK won’t be hanging up to many banners. I think Calipari does not truely understand the passion of Kentucky Basketball Fans
Although I would have preferred to see the 2 senior walk ons stay and get the opportunity to enjoy senior night, I understand Coach Cal’s decision. It is a decision that 1000′s of high school coaches have to make every year in various sports. I doubt very few enjoy it. I never understood why Billy G had so many players and how he was able to effectively conduct practice (maybe he did not considering how the Cats fell the last part of the season).
We wanted a coach to come in and make changes and bring UK back to the national championship level. In order to do that, good coaches have to make tough decisions that are not always popular.
Terrible, absolutely terrible. Hope everybody’s happy, we’re becoming Memphis.
This is in no way necessary to build an elite program. The UNCs and ULs of the country all have multiple walkons. This guy’s a joke.
“we’re becoming memphis…”
please, first you bought the man, be happy you have him. memphis new when we hired him we were playing with fire and look, we were burned. honestly, as a memphis fan living in cincinnati, i read started reading this blog when the whole cal to uk talk started. you guys wanted him bad, you should have been prepared to deal with the consequences. this is only the beginning. memphis wasn’t a school that associated with the types of players this scumbag brought in before he was with us and i am glad to say that it looks like we are going back to the old ways before this guy took over our program. and before anyone bashes memphis pre-cal… we were a respectable program (minus the dana kirk incident, but if i remember correctly uk had a little incident with sutton as well so hasn’t your past been tainted as well) and it looks as if our new coach seems to be taking us back to that route (will barton is an impressive young man. very down to earth and with a great family support structure, i say this having met the kid in person).
so before you go bashing memphis, look at your schools past indiscretions. i was not a fan of cal’s before he was here and i have an even larger distaste for this man now. by the way, all the talk of a possible national championship in your near future on many of your UK message boards as well as what i have seen on this blog from commenters, way too premature. cal is not a coach he is a manager of talent. go back and watch the ncaa championship game from 07. out coached in that game and to be honest there were many games in cusa play where he was out coached and manuevered by wojik at tulsa, brown while he was at uab and penders at houston. ask any memphis fan who is still a fan of cal’s now and they would agree with this statement. now that he has to face ut, uf and many of the other sec schools 2 and with the tourney 3 times a year, the ddmo will come under even more scrutiny. a 3 man weave at the top of the key with cutters through the lane based on defensive sets doesn’t work against quality opponents with equal athletes. crappy cusa is different week in and week out than the sec and the out of conference schedule he wants to play. memphis slid by in conference play and avoided major injuries and was ready for the ncaa tourney with fresh legs after not going through a rough conference season minus the few scares they had due to being out coached or the one tough out of conference game (gonzaga or ut). at uk, this more than likely won’t happen. as fanatical as some of you uk fans are and the insane success you want to have immediately, i give cal 4 years and then he is out; either that scenario happens or you are so deep in ncaa investigations with us due to cals awesome recruiting tactics that you become irrelevant again.