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    Hoops City

    Sorry, John Calipari is the best coach in college basketball — and it's not even close as Final Four looms

    Chris Baldwin
    Apr 3, 2014 | 10:21 pm

    The Best Coach In College Basketball doesn't give sanctimonious speeches about the priceless value of a college education. He doesn't give self-serving talks about churning out future lawyers, doctors and public servants.

     

    No, John Calipari knows he's developing elite-level basketball players. He's comfortable with that. The University of Kentucky's coach embraces it. He's built a program selling it in living rooms.

     

    Which is no small reason why he's turned himself into the very best coach at this level.

     
     

      He's pushed and cajoled Kentucky to ultra-close wins over Wichita State, Louisville and Michigan — teams that all played Final Four-worthy themselves.

     

     

    Oh, Calipari makes some noise about not appreciating the "one and done" label at this introductory North Texas Final Four press conference Thursday. But he doesn't want to change the system of freshmen basketball stars leaving college after one season.

     

    Are you crazy? The Master Of The One And Done just wants to relabel it into something nicer sounding, something more marketer friendly.

     

    Typical Cal. Sure, he's a little two-faced, but who isn't in major college athletics when you think about it?

     

    Calipari is less fake than most big-time college basketball coaches, and high school stars recognize this. They trust the man whom the rest of America and the NCAA (see Calipari's vacated Final Four runs with UMass and Memphis) often clearly can't quite stomach.

     

    This is a big reason why Kentucky's new-age Fab 5 freshmen are still standing in the Final Four. All the Dick Vitale-favored, supposedly pristine coaches — many with even more heralded freshmen — are home, watching. And you can bet they'll be grinding their teeth if Calipari and his kids are cutting down the nets on Monday night.

     

    Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski couldn't get past his first NCAA tournament game with Jabari Parker. Kansas coach Bill Self failed to guide supreme talent Andrew Wiggins — the likely No. 1 pick in this June's NBA draft — past the tournament's first weekend. North Carolina's Roy Williams lost to a crippled team in his second tournament game.

     

    Arizona coach Sean Miller blew a game for the Final Four with Aaron Gordon, just minutes from earning a ticket to the supersized wonders of Jerry World.

     

    Yet, John Calipari's here with an eighth seed. He's pushed and cajoled Kentucky to ultra-close wins over Wichita State, Louisville and Michigan — teams that all played Final Four-worthy themselves.

     

    "We got here through an absolute mine field and happened to not step on a mine," Calipari said Thursday.

     

    That's coaching — whether anyone wants to admit or not.

     

     Kentucky's basketball empire
    Calipari is no miracle worker. He does a good job of making sure he has more talent than anyone. That's recruiting — which also happens to be a huge part of being an elite college basketball coach.

     
     

      Calipari is less fake than most big-time college basketball coaches and high school stars recognize this.

     
     

    Kentucky came into the season as the No. 1-ranked team in America. One could argue the Wildcats vastly underachieved during the regular season and are simply finally playing to their talent level in March.

     

    The problem with that argument is it completely ignores the fact that most super talent-packed teams that struggled and sputtered to a double-digit regular season loss total would have been long shot before the Big Dance ever began. A self-important Krzyzewski or a Williams would have ground this team down to dust, pushing harder and harder until there was no confidence left.

     

    Calipari let his talented, Texas-heavy team — Kentucky stars Julius Randle (Plano) and Aaron and Andrew Harrison (Houston) give the Wildcats a starting lineup that's 60 percent Lone Star State — breathe and grow. Even Coach Cal's often-mocked, simple designed plays out of timeouts — telling freshman Aaron Harrison to just rise up and take a 3-point shot to beat Michigan in the Elite Eight for example — instill belief.

     

    It's more the stuff of a self-help coach than a brain surgeon.

     

    "How did you know I was seeing a psychiatrist?" Calipari cracked at one point in his press conference.

     

    Calipari annoys other coaches, annoys the NCAA, annoys self-righteous college basketball commentators — it's what he's always done. I once watched Calipari scream at Michael Jordan as he coached the New Jersey Nets in a playoff series they had no chance of winning against His Airness. Jordan never let him forget it the rest of the series either.

     

    John Calipari always brought the theater. Now he brings the coaching skill to match. He's almost proudly lugged all that baggage with him to North Texas and you can be certain that the Best Coach In College Basketball's impact will be all over this Final Four.

     

    "I used to be the young," Calipari said. "Now, I'm the old guy."

     

    It's good to be the best — no matter how many people hate you.

     
    unspecified
    news/sports

    Basketball News

    Cooper Flagg is the new Maine man for the Dallas Mavericks

    Associated Press
    Jun 26, 2025 | 8:55 am
    Cooper Flagg
    Getty Images
    Cooper Flagg, newest Dallas Mavericks pick

    Cooper Flagg is the new Maine man in Dallas. The Mavericks took the Duke forward with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft on June 25, hoping they have found their next franchise superstar less than five months after trading one away.

    Mavericks fans were furious when Dallas traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers on February 1, some immediately threatening to end their support of the team.

    But the ones who stuck around may quickly love Flagg, the college player of the year who averaged 19.2 points and 7.5 rebounds while leading Duke to the Final Four. The Mavericks quickly announced that Flagg would wear No. 32 in Dallas, where fellow Duke products Kyrie Irving and Dereck Lively II are on the roster.

    “I’m really excited. I think I keep saying I’m excited to be a sponge, to get down there and just learn, be surrounded by Hall of Fame-caliber guys and just to be able to learn from them,” Flagg said. “It’s going to be an incredible experience.”

    His selection — considered likely ever since Flagg showed off his considerable game last summer after being invited to the U.S. Olympic team's training camp — was a daylong celebration in his home state for the 18-year-old forward from Newport, Maine.

    “It means a lot to me to have the support of the whole state. I know how many people showed up today and supported me at some of the draft parties back home,” Flagg said. “It feels amazing knowing I can inspire younger kids. I was in their shoes really not that long ago, so just to know I can give those kids those feelings and have the whole state behind me, it means a lot.”

     Cooper Flagg Basketball up-and-comer Cooper FlaggGetty Images

    The backstory
    Dallas Mavericks CEO Rick Welts wasn't thinking even for a second about Cooper Flagg when he started a staff meeting before the draft lottery by saying the club was entering the most important offseason in franchise history.

    The longtime NBA executive and relatively new leader on the business side of the Mavs was thinking about the lingering fallout of the widely reviled Luka Doncic trade, not the club turning a 1.8% chance into winning the rights to draft the teenaged star from Duke.

    “Never, ever did anybody in our organization ever even say what would happen if we win. That's a waste of time,” Welts told The Associated Press recently. “Like, it's unbelievable. It was hard to even get your head around.”

    The self-inflicted wounds were numerous after general manager Nico Harrison's stunning decision to send Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis in early February.

    Fans were incensed. Season-ticket holders were canceling. Potential new sponsors were telling Welts they'd have to think about it.
    Just like that, the Mavs had a vision to sell of a potential superstar who could someday be the face of the franchise — as Doncic was, and fellow European superstar Dirk Nowitzki before him. Just like that, despair turned to hope for plenty of people, including those under Welts who had spent weeks dealing with the wrath of a spurned fan base.

    Before the Doncic trade, Welts had already made a decision to raise season-ticket prices. He told the AP he had to back off on the size of the increase as he watched the visceral reaction unfold.

    Welts has seen plenty in nearly 50 years with the NBA, including time in the league office and stints with Phoenix and Golden State. That's not to say the Doncic fallout didn't have a profound impact on the 72-year-old Welts, who had come out of retirement to replace Cynt Marshall just a month and a half earlier. It just means he has weathered a few storms.

    And now the Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer isn't so sure he's ever seen the sun come back out so quickly.

    “The thing that I learned through all of this experience was what I knew was like this amazing emotional tie between this team and these fans was even stronger than I think anybody who hadn’t lived here and been a part of it could ever imagine,” Welts said. “Just the outpouring of pure joy and the idea of a generational player that could change our fortunes for the next 15 years would land with us by pure luck.”

    Part of what made the Doncic deal so hard to believe was unloading a 25-year-old superstar in his prime nine months after leading Dallas to the NBA Finals for the first time in 13 years. The Mavs lost to Boston in five games last June.

    Harrison's reasoning was prioritizing defense, and his belief that Davis and Irving were a good enough tandem to keep Dallas as a championship contender. Flagg's potential gave that notion a boost.

    “I feel like I’m a broken record, but the team that we intended to put on the floor, which you guys saw for 2 1/2 quarters, that’s a championship-caliber team,” Harrison said. “And so you might not like it, but that’s the fact, it is.”

    Welts, who believes the Mavs have work to do to bring their basketball and business sides together, will spend plenty of time during the early days of the Flagg era sharing his vision for a new arena.

    It's a big reason Welts took the job, after spending seven years with Golden State on an arena plan that moved the Warriors across the bay to San Francisco from Oakland. He says all the talks are focused on keeping the team in Dallas.

    While the casino-centered Adelson and Dumont families of Las Vegas, in the middle of their second full year as owners of the Mavs, wanted gambling to be part of the formula for a new arena, the political realities in Texas have shifted the focus away from that idea for now.

    There's a new focus for Welts in what seems certain will be the final stop in an eventful NBA career: building everything around another potentially generational star after the Mavs jettisoned the one they had.

    “Don't make this sound like I'm suggesting that everyone is forgiven,” Welts said. “Luka will always be a big part of what this organization is. But for a large number of fans, it is a pathway — it's not a pathway, it's like a four-lane highway into being able to care about the Mavericks the way they cared about the Mavericks before.”

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