Coach John Calipari instructs during the win over Georgia. (Victoria Graff photo)
As Kentucky coach John Calipari finished his pregame press conference Monday, ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla walked by and joked, “Now just go the roll the balls out.”
He was joking, but Fraschilla also knows that is the perception many college basketball fans have about Calipari. He recruits stars and then just watched them play.
Recently Calipari even laughed somewhat at himself as he explained why perceptions like that don’t bother him.
“What happens when we are all done with this is that history will tell you what kind of job you have done. What kind of men you have molded, how they have turned out, what you have done in the community and the campuses where you work, in the community you work,” Calipari said. “It all comes out. If I am worried about what everyone is saying, I am cluttered. I have a sign on my wall upstairs that says ‘coach your team’, and that’s my job. Coach the individual players, and help them get better.
“At the end of the day, I want this to be about those players. If they keep saying, ‘Well, he has better players than everybody’, and I get the connotation ‘he can’t coach,’ then that’s OK. Then I have done my job because they are saying my players are better. That gives me satisfaction. This is about these young people. You are never going to hear me say that ‘this guy can’t do this and this guy can’t do that’. I’ll challenge them physically to mentally be tougher in all of those things, but I have always said that I’ve got good players, and our job is to get them to play harder, get them to play together, get them to talk to one another. Mental and physical toughness is the key to all of that.â€
Maybe it will take a national title for Calipari finally to be recognized as a true coach. However, Fraschilla knows his friend can coach.
“John is as good as there is. He can recruit, but that’s part of it. He can also coach,” the ESPN analyst said. “I like to joke with him about rolling the balls out, but I know he can coach and so do the guys who have to coach against him.”
10 Responses to ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla on Calipari: “I know he can coach”
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Talent without good coaching is wasted.
UK’s talent has DEFINITELY NOT been wasted.
Only a complete fool would look at this (or either of the last 2 teams) and think that these kids have progressed to the point they have, without a tremendous coaching job being done with them.
These players aren’t becoming a dominant defensive force or a very efficient offensive power because the kids are “just talented”. They are being coached, at a VERY high level, to bring about the changes that have occurred since the start of the season.
I could not be more impressed with what Cal does in the area of coaching. Look at his teams in game one and look at them in March. There is just no way to deny the results.
Mr Boyers, your last paragraph says all that needs to be said on the subject.
Not only can Cal “coach ‘em up” but his assistant coaches are an outstanding group
of men who seem to want to work for the guy as well. It would be hard to see how it can get any better than what is there right now.
I guess that Phil Jackson couldn’t coach a lick either because he had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaq, and Kobe. It is not an easy chore to blend all those egos, when they are used to being the star. Teams don’t play defense like Cal’s teams do without good coaching. Teams don’t improve from the start of a season to the end unless good coaching is involved. As Cal says, history will tell if he can coach or not. As for me, I am already convinced.
What fans from other teams(close to UK) don’t get is that in order for him to keep guys that essentially do not have to attend class or play another game of college hoops motivated, getting better, playing great defense he has to be not just a good coach but a GREAT ONE.
Every one of our top 7 guys and maybe more are all going to get paid to play somewhere be it NBA, Europe or the CBA. But these guys are really trying to get better and do something special. It takes a very special coach to accomplish that task.
Like he said “there are a lot of guys taking mediocre players and eventually turning them into a good team lots”.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. GO BLUE OR STAY HOME
I have never understood why people say Cal can’t coach. How else do you get the elite of the elite to play together as a team if you can’t coach. He does not just coach during practice, he is teaching during games. He is one of the most animated coaches I have ever seen. When a young man comes out of the game for one reason or another, Cal is there to talk or yell at him what he did or didn’t do. He is still teaching, coaching. It does not matter what level of talent you have unless you are able to refine that talent instead of letting them play anyway they want you are not going to have a TEAM. Cal can flat out coach and I would like to see anyone argue it with me. Go Cats!
And the players who have played for him seem mostly to care about and continue to love him when they’re gone.
Have to agree with everyone here. The Man can coach. How many coaches can take a group of young men, young men who have been told for years they are going to be great, and mold them into a TEAM, a team that loves to share the ball, loves to see their team mates do well and just want to win. You have kids from all points of the country, Anthony and MKG from the inner cities of Chicago and New Jersey/New York, Teague from Indy, Jones and Kyle from out West and of course the home grown Darius. Don’t forget the guys on the bench who came here as high school stars and now practice just as hard to make everyone better. Cal has done this for the last three years, turned a team into a great family.
I knew Cal was a good coach I just didn’t know how good till he came to Kentucky. Can you imagine what would have happened to Harrleston and Liggins without Cal? How can you take a new team every year and start over? Believe me other coaches don’t want to play Cal, just ask Rick.
were it not for John Calipari, DeAndre Liggins would be playing in Europe/Asia and Josh Harrellson would be selling insurance in Missouri…Daniel Orton aside, coach Cal can turn average kids into good players, good players into NBA players, and great players into superstars…anyone who says he can’t coach, hasn’t watched a UK game this year…there are times that it seems the only thing you can hear in the auditorium of 23000 people is coach Cal screaming instructions to his players…I rarely see him sit down…what he has been able to do at UK with the player turnover he has is nothing short of amazing…especially concerning the “sharing the ball” theme and playing defense…plus those like Bob Knight who erroneously claimed that Calipari doesn’t care about education haven’t been paying too close attention…if I were a father of a high school junior/senior and had a choice between a hot-headed, egomaniacal, abusive, self-serving, and banned from Puerto Rico Knight and Coach Calipari…it wouldn’t even be close…how Calipari hasn’t won a national coach of the year while at UK is a complete mystery (unless those national media types are blind to the truth–while still trying to dig up dirt on Calipari–even when it doesn’t exist)…I certainly hope Calipari wins the title this year…not for the fans, the school, the state of Kentucky…or even the players…for him…he deserves some national recognition for all he has done at Kentucky…he will win a championship here at UK…it’s only a matter of time…and he will do it with great kids, who attend class, and that are a credit to the university and their coach
If last year didn’t prove what a great coach Cal is I have no idea what could ever convince his critics. He took 6 players, one of which had been a bench warmer and a big selection of freshmen, and made it to the Final 4 losing by ONE to the eventual champion and they had an off night or they could easily have won that game. That’s coaching folks.
He also cares about the really important stuff like a good human should. BTW we had a coach that had a bunch of talented players who went on to outstanding NBA careers in some cases and they were nowhere near as dominating in college as they should have been because the coach couldn’t control the egos on the team. When he had great combinations of players he seemed to be even more lost (Sparks/Rondo – the whole 2000-2001 team – etc.). The media loved that guy though – because he kept the Cats in the position of also-ran.
Cal does need at least one title to be mentioned with the greats. That’s just how it is. But I’ve seen how he coaches and he can coach.