John Clay's Sidelines

Kentucky coach John Calipari at the Final Four podium today.

NEW ORLEANS — Slate’s Josh Levin broaches the subject of which super-slick coach to root for — Rick Pitino or John Calipari.

Levin discusses the backgrounds of each coach, the pros and cons of each coach, then settles on which team his own heart hopes prevails on Saturday.

“A Pitino victory would be a story of redemption and Cinderella’s plucky spirit—a triumph for college basketball as we’d like it to be,” Levin writes. “A Calipari victory would be a triumph of sleaze and capitalism and dark forces we don’t quite understand. We have enough fairy tales in sports as it is. That’s why I’m rooting for John Calipari, and for a triumph for college basketball as it really is.”

Click here to read the entire column.

Continue reading ‘Slate roots for UK and “college basketball as it really is”’

NEW ORLEANS – Transcript of Kentucky coach John Calipari’s press conference at podium today at the Final Four in New Orleans.

Moderator: We’ll continue with questions for Coach Calipari.

Q. John, just from a coaching standpoint, what do you see as Rick’s strengths?

COACH CALIPARI: Bringing teams together, motivating teams to play at a high level, coming up with schemes and different ways of playing that gives his teams a chance to win, pushing them to places they don’t want to go by themselves and making them do things they didn’t think were possible.

Continue reading ‘Transcript of John Calipari on Final Four Friday’

NEW ORLEANS — After Rick Pitino’s press conference today in new Orleans, Adam Zagoria of Zagsblog cornered the U of L coach and asked him about the $5,000 check Pitino says he wrote to help hire John Calipari at UMass.

In S.L. Price’s Sports Illustrated profile of Calipari, the check story was disputed.

But Pitino claims it is true, telling Zagoria, “John doesn’t know this but I know it to be the truth.”

Continue reading ‘Pitino says Calipari/UMass $5,000 check story is true’

At his interview today at the Final Four in New Orleans, Louisville coach Rick Pitino was asked about his relationship with Knetucky coach John Calipari.

Five minutes of Kentucky coach John Calipari’s breakout room interview at the Final Four today in New Orleans.

Before practice, John Calipari talked to the media for nearly 20 minutes today about Saturday’s Final Four game with Louisville.

The team will practice Wednesday, then leave for New Orleans where they will do media interviews on Thursday.

Click the continue line for the video.

Continue reading ‘Video: John Calipari at today’s media opportunity’

From the post-game press conference, UK coach John Calipari on playing Louisville in the Final Four:

Q. Sorry, John. We’re not going to let you celebrate or sleep. Can you spin this ahead a little bit to Louisville now and talk about is this rivalry as big as everybody wants to try to make it?

COACH CALIPARI: It is in our state. They’re a great program. We’re in two different leagues.

The city of Louisville drives our state. The University of Louisville drives that city. So it’s a very important thing for our state, and it’s important that that school does well. It’s important for our state. Literally, they drive our state.

We’re so close. But they have a great program. They’re well coached. They’re talented. I’ve always loved Peyton Siva. I loved him when I saw him play against Eric Bledsoe. I watched those two go against each other. I said that kid can really play. Behanan, I recruited him. I wanted him in the worst way.

So they are a very talented team, and they play, and they compete. Like my kids say, I’m going to enjoy this. I’m not worried about who we’re playing. I’m just happy we’re still playing.

I told my wife before I left the hotel: Honey, this is either the last day or next weekend will be the last days. One or the other. We’ll see. She said: Oh, I hope it’s the weekend.

So, fortunately, we did win the game.

(H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)

So here we go as Kentucky needs a win over Baylor for its 15th trip to the Final Four. Gametime is 2:20 p.m. CBS is the network. Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Tracy Wolfson will do the broadcast honors.

Much of Saturday’s preview material centered on Baylor’s athleticism, the Bears’ option of playing a zone defense, Kentucky’s possible fatigue after a racehorse game Friday night with Indiana and the Cats’ special skills.

The thinking here is that Kentucky is the better, tougher team. I see a second Louisville game in the Big Blue Nation’s future.

Click the continue line for this morning’s links.

Continue reading ‘BBL: All the links you need previewing Kentucky-Baylor’

(H-L photo/Charles Bertram)

Big Blue Links for Friday:

• John Calipari is a big winner in dire need of a title
• Tough times paying off for Indiana’s Crean
• In loss, UK did as much wrong as Indiana did right
• Indiana vs. Kentucky pits head against heart
• Christian Watford’s shot is not forgotten