Hamidou Diallo to Test Waters (UPDATE: DIALLO TO RETURN TO UK)

[J.Jennings]

No offense, but that's a ridiculous statement to make. Final Fours have ALWAYS been a standard of celebration. Championships are to be celebrated, but they're exceedingly rare. No coach except Rupp has won more than 1 here, and his were in a 10 year span over a 40 year career.

If 4 final fours in 8 years is not enough for you (that's a better record than ANY coach except Rupp), then I don't know what it takes to make you happy.

Championships!!!!!!!!!!! Anything less you failed. I do not know of anyone with a Championship mentality who takes pride and celebrates finishing second, this goes for any sport and great teams with the mentality of winning. Celtics, Lakers, Yankees, Patriots, Packers, etc. etc. etc.

[Joneslab]

If you use the metric of "nothing less than a championship coach" and you're trying to pick a John Calipari successor, then the list of candidates is very, very slim.

Brad Stevens can't be on that list.

[Dwight Schrute]

Championships!!!!!!!!!!! Anything less you failed. I do not know of anyone with a Championship mentality who takes pride and celebrates finishing second, this goes for any sport and great teams with the mentality of winning. Celtics, Lakers, Yankees, Patriots, Packers, etc. etc. etc.

This program has failed over 90% of the time in its history, then.

That's, of course, a ridiculous statement.

[KevinHall]

If you use the metric of "nothing less than a championship coach" and you're trying to pick a John Calipari successor, then the list of candidates is very, very slim.

Brad Stevens can't be on that list.

You would have to get Roy Williams of Coach K to better Cal. Or Pitino. I don't think we want to go there.

Williams is another one who took a long time to win a championship. Everyone used to say he couldn't coach the big game. He almost always lost out early at Kansas. He did go to a Final Four or two there but always came up short in the end. It took him going to another school to win a championship. Same thing could happen to Sean Miller. He may just need a change of scenery now.

[J.Jennings]

Since we want to be hipocrits, what if Coach Cal just came out each and every year and told us he's only trying to make it to a Final Four and send players to the NBA, could care less about winning a Championship at Kentucky, would you bow down and worship the ground he walks on then?????

Believe what you want believe, tell LeBron James or Michael Jordan it's okay to finish second or 3rd every year, tell that to Tiger Woods who was abolutely dominate before it all came crashing down, tell that to M. Ali, tell it to JOHN CALIPARI himself and see what he thinks of the "it's okay to fail" attitude,,,, sickening... Coach Cal takes losing worse than i do, it's a fact so don't sugar coat just being happy and proud we made it,, it's not the Cal's mentality to lose and finish second....

[Joneslab]

We've reached the point in the proceedings where JWORLD is just trying to see how much muck he can rake.

[J.Jennings]

We've reached the point in the proceedings where JWORLD is just trying to see how much muck he can rake.

Before he's finished coaching Kentucky, John Calipari has a lofty goal he wants to reach.
"Our next challenge is to chase UCLA’s 11 titles," he wrote on his website Monday.
UCLA is the only college basketball program with more national championships than Kentucky. Calipari led the Wildcats to their eighth title in 2012 behind Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, but they still need three more championships just to tie the Bruins and four to overtake them.
"This could take more than a decade, but so what? Let’s chase it," Calipari wrote. "Can we do it? Sure, but it’s going to be really tough. The tournament isn’t a best-of-seven series and the best team doesn’t always win the title. The trick is to always be one of those teams at the end of the season that’s right there. That’s the first step."
Kentucky has won only won championship during Calipari's seven-year tenure, but it has consistently been a title contender thanks to his ability to land a bevy of top prospects every year and consistently mold them into a cohesive team. The Wildcats have advanced to the Final Four four times under Calipari and have won an average of 31 games per year during his tenure.
Of course, the only way Kentucky can have realistic hope of surpassing UCLA under Calipari is if he remains in Lexington for many years to come. Calipari says he's in it for the long haul despite annual speculation that he could leave for an NBA gig if offered a lucrative contract and player-personnel control.
“My plan is to coach here for the rest of my career,” the 57-year-old Calipari wrote. “I want this to be my final coaching position.”
One of Calipari's other goals for the future at Kentucky is to improve the environment at venerable Rupp Arena so that it becomes "the preeminent home-court advantage in basketball." Calipari says he does not know if Kentucky will break ground on a new arena during his tenure, but in the meantime he wants to make games at Rupp have a big-event feel.
"Since I’ve gotten here, little has changed in the game-day atmosphere of that historical gym," Calipari wrote. "We have the best fans in the country and they give us an incredible advantage each game, but like anything else, we constantly need to be thinking about what’s next and how can we continue to be the best."

[J.Jennings]

Like you all say, Coach Cal is happy finishing second ever year He's jus glad to have a job and put players in the NBA, he could care less about winning a Championship

[Joneslab]

Is the argument being made then that Calipari's tenure has been a failure?

If so, then using the same logic don't we have to call Rick Pitino's tenure a failure?

And Brad Stevens was REALLY a failure. No titles. Complete failure year after year.

Coach K: 40 years of coaching, 4 titles. That's like 90% failure.

[J.Jennings]

So let me get this striaght to make sure we are all clear. Coach Cal is the greatest recruiter in UK history but has managed only 1 title in 9 years. During this time, he has landed ungodly once in a lifetime talents at Kentucky but has continued to fall short.

If Coach Cal can't win with all this talent, how in the world would we expect the next guy to win when it's very possible he won't even come close to recruiting like Cal??

All i am saying, we are not taking advantage of a great situation to win titles now in the present,, we have missed on a few and that sucks missing out on a few when we had the team and horses to do it...

[J.Jennings]

Is the argument being made then that Calipari's tenure has been a failure?

If so, then using the same logic don't we have to call Rick Pitino's tenure a failure?

And Brad Stevens was REALLY a failure. No titles. Complete failure year after year.

Coach K: 40 years of coaching, 4 titles. That's like 90% failure.

Call it what you want but Cal won't be here forever and then what?

[Joneslab]

Call it what you want but Cal won't be here forever and then what?

Then we get a new coach, one who will likely do a lot of failing. Because if you look at UK's history after Rupp, it's been almost all failure.

[J.Jennings]

Coach Calipari is the Jim Harbaugh and Marv Levy of the NFL...........

[Dwight Schrute]

Then we get a new coach, one who will likely do a lot of failing. Because if you look at UK's history after Rupp, it's been almost all failure.

If you look at Rupp after 1958, it's all failure.

[J.Jennings]

Better call State Farm




Better yet,, don't be a settler