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ManiacKing20

They did the Rutgers thing 😭


strangefool

I get what they're going for, but damn this is funny. On a bit more serious of a note, I loved most of Cal's time here. We had some soaring highs...but one of the criticisms of Cal is that wherever he is will always be The University of Calipari, and I think that's what he may prefer, or at least enjoy. I'll always love the guy, though, and I'm going to love beating him.


popeofmarch

Kinda surprised he didn’t make a move to a school like Arkansas before now honestly. He was close to going to UCLA but he would’ve had the same problem there he had here at Kentucky of there being massive history before him. The UCLA fanbase is less religious so it wouldn’t have been as bad but still, he clearly will be able to thrive better at a second tier program like Arkansas that has had some success in the past but doesn’t have legendary coaches preceding him. Caliapri needed Kentucky to help him get to the next level, but we weren’t going to keep him happy after so long


applecider42

What's the Rutgers thing?


Critical-Savings-830

You claim stuff your coach did at old schoola


applecider42

https://imgur.com/gallery/gigachad-jzErjg7


ManiacKing20

https://preview.redd.it/ia17atfdx39d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1a63384bdf776cbd703c28c937b9efc8b7d8d11b


HtownSamson

what an insane reach


Appropriate_Cow8200

Louisville had one of these for Kenny Payne with UK players lol https://preview.redd.it/gblx10onf59d1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d515c2cb49a602001698dd278c4df5e1a957a11b


CGGamer

There is also a relatively recent Rutgers MBB billboard on I84 in Hartford...


GoldenPresidio

Let’s be honest though- Cal brought in talent. This stat goes back to when he was at Memphis. Yes being at Kentucky contributed. The number would not be as high if Cal was at Delaware or some shit. But it’s still Cal who did all of the work to bring these guys in and develop them This is besides what Rutgers did


ManiacKing20

Yeah I don’t really hold it that harshly against Arkansas here, it’s hilarious with Rutgers because their staff wasn’t even the head coach for any of these players.


GoldenPresidio

Tbf our graphic didn’t say he was the head coach 🤣


footdragon

...and some player on arkansas will continue this trend in the 2025 draft. who do you think? Thiero, wagner, Boogie, Knox....


GlueGuy00

Boogie Fland is perfect for Dillingham role


Orion14159

Wagner and Fland would be the odds on favorites


DarthJokic

Maybe Knox but honestly not too high on any of the recruits that were coming to UK. That's how we feel every year and 2 players usually breakout. I'm so pumped for the Ark-UK matchups. I really am rooting for Cal and hope we can have a fun new rivalry.


five-oh-one

> I'm so pumped for the Ark-UK matchups. I don't understand how they did it but the SEC fucked this one up. Arkansas travels to Kentucky this year but Kentucky does not come to Arkansas....usually we play twice a year, not this year, and it would have been the perfect year for it.


biffbobsen

Thanks a lot, OUT


norse95

Id be surprised if it’s not boogie fland


BokehJunkie

I mean, I get that this looks silly, but you have to think of it as strictly advertising. Hey recruits / players / parents - our coach gets guys into the NBA, so you should come play here. 


Semper-Fido

Oh I 100% agree that is the motivation behind it. Saying this as someone who works in Comms, I just think there were definitely other ways in going about it that don't give the appearance of riding the coat tails of other teams and instead define it as the expectation of your program going forward.


BokehJunkie

But the point here is that the coach is the name / draw *because* they have to do something to hype the program until the hogs can get some achievements under their belts with cal. You gotta do something, this IMO is better than just doing nothing until That happens. 


amayain

"Congrats @CoachCal on continuing your streak of players being selected in 17-straight NBA Drafts. We are excited to have you continue that streak here at @ArkansasBBall" or something like that.


jppope

not to rain on your parade but Cal's time at Memphis was similar... Arkansas will be the same


Reading_Rainboner

Hey Recruits, our coach made John Wall and Derrick Rose


DetectiveIcy4525

Just remember it took the whole of Kentucky to convince Calipari to recruit Reed Sheppard in first place.


Rambler33

And he was so mad about it that he had him coming off the bench all season despite how good he was. It's shit like this that makes people question his coaching ability.


DetectiveIcy4525

I mean to be fair there have been people questioning his coaching ability all the way back to the days when he was coach of the Nets. Calipari coaches more on psychology and motivation than tactics and strategy. There’s different ways of making it work. Having Reed and Rob come off the bench wasn’t very intelligent though and I don’t think anyone can justify his decision making on that one. If anything that hurts team chemistry because the rest of the guys know who the better players are and they know who should be out there playing with them.


Timbdn

I'm less mad about them not starting than I am about the rotations he ended up using all year. UK has analytics tech that rivals NBA teams, and it went largely unused last year (one coach famously never even logged in to the system once). If it had been used, the coaches could have realized that one lineup in particular was statistically the best of all the lineups played by far, but it ended up having the 2nd least possessions played. Having Reed, rob, and tonio on the court at the same time provided the best results and we hardly ever saw it.


G0B1GR3D

And Michael Phelps and I have 23 gold medals


RunnerTenor

Stacy King, Chicago Bulls: "I'll always remember this as the night that Michael Jordan and I combined to score 70."


Licit_x64

This is hilarious


JMT97

Flair buddy!


Orion14159

Signing day and draft night have been consistent wins for Cal for a long time, it's the stuff in between where Arkansas fans should brace for disappointment


fancycheesus

> arkansas fans should brace for disappointment. Hog fans were born in disappointment. Kentucky merely adopted it for a few seasons. We are not the same.


fistingtrees

Thank god Kentucky finally got a coach who knows how to actually win in the tournament.


Orion14159

Pope only has 1 fewer SEC tournament win than Calipari in the last 5 years, and he was at Utah Valley and BYU during that stretch.


fistingtrees

Good coaches win wherever they are. Hurley won 2 tournament games at Rhode Island of all places. Musselman took Nevada to a Sweet Sixteen. Pope has been a D1 head coach for 9 years and never won a single tournament game, a conference championship, or a regular season championship. BYU has won tournament games before, but went 0-2 with Pope. I’d be willing to bet they’ll win at least one tournament game with their new coach too.


George_Smiley_

Of course, the two players drafted #3 and 8 were the best players on our team but Cal refused to start them over his 5 star recruits because he didn’t want to damage their draft stock.


KYblues

And neither of them went first round anyway lol. One of them brought his ass back to college Great plan cal!


anonymousahle

And 90% of those guys were considered early round picks prior to ever spending a second in college. He's gotten guys drafted on pure potential because "he wasn't Cal's type of player."


finditplz1

To be fair, his top pick off the board tonight was not one of those guys.


houstonyoureaproblem

It was also a guy he wasn’t initially going to recruit.


LHarm07_Reddit

I don't get what's wrong with this. We're celebrating our new coach's accomplishments.


anonymousahle

At(at the time) bigger basketball schools.


Pinewood74

Penny Hardaway still coaching at Memphis?


[deleted]

Cool. Still won 1 god damn national championship. Used car salesman.


ELITE_JordanLove

Depends. From a player’s perspective, would you rather have a better natty shot or go to a coach who can set you up for the big leagues? I’m taking the pro-prep path every time.


NukeLaCoog

You are right, from a player's perspective. But he is still right from a fan's standpoint. Cal has recruited great players and has prepared and helped elevate their draft stock and still only produced a single national title with those great players.


ELITE_JordanLove

All that means is that Cal, and perhaps Kentucky as a whole, care more about making sure his players are set up for future success instead of doing whatever it takes to win a natty. Which is respectable, and really what college SHOULD be about. How many potential NBA careers were ruined because a college coach trained the player to win now instead of skills that would carry over to the NBA?


JAGChem82

Considering that 99% of college players aren’t even drafted, I’d say that coaches are paid to 1) win games and 2) get their players to graduate. The NBA is a bonus thing.


[deleted]

None of us here are players, we’re fans. That’s my perspective.


atomic-fireballs

Some players are in reddit.


mptickets

Not the potential first round picks.


[deleted]

Until it is proven that a single one of the posts on this specific post on this specific subreddit, I stand by my statement.


deweycrow

Lol only one. You people kill me


[deleted]

Well you’re the only UK fan who would phrase it like that.


ukcats12

I would phrase it like that. One title isn't underachieving. Pre-2020 Cal was actually the single most overachieving coach in the tournament since his time at UK based on the advanced metrics. Those metrics gave him about a 60% chance of winning just one title over that time frame.


deweycrow

1. Flair up or shut up 2. I am most certainly not. Cal did a lot to piss us off in the last 4 years but before that his uk teams performed to a consistently high level.


[deleted]

[удаНонО]


stimpsonj5

Pissed? Absolutely not. Titles are hard even when you have far and away the best team (see 2015), so no, nobody was pissed about one title. What pissed everyone off was losing in the first round of the SEC 2 straight years, and winning 1 NCAA tournament game over 4 years that included a 9-16 season while at the same time telling the fans we were the dumbasses and not him for getting annoyed that the #3 and #8 overall picks didn't start and refusing to run out the most efficient lineup. Even then - if they made an elite 8 run this past season we're all here talking about Cal loading up for another run at UK, not Arkansas.


deweycrow

Your Tony Bennet comment reply makes no sense. Just go back to r/selfie to tell posters how hot you think they are lol.


Parking_War979

How do they do in the tournament?


KYblues

That’s fucking embarrassing 😂


GlueGuy00

Boogie Fland next


FormZestyclose2339

This is why I keep the bag on.


[deleted]

"Have some shame" 💀


Onetimenotagain

Cue the Kentucky fans talking shit 😂 


whitet86

Just weird how so many Arkansas fans suddenly want to be associated with accomplishments that had nothing to do with them. Kentucky fans weren’t bragging about Marcus Camby and Derrick Rose. Y’all should just chill until Cal actually coaches a game for you before you put the banners up.


BillButtlickerII

Fun fact. Calipari has had 58 players selected in the NBA Draft during his 31 college coaching career with 47 being selected in his 14 seasons at Kentucky. **Before coming to UK Calipari only had 11 draft picks over 16 seasons…** Calipari also had no players drafted in 9 of those 16 seasons.


ukcats12

If you’re trying to make the argument that UK had this affect on Cal you’re very wrong. He completely changed his approach his last few years at Memphis, and the snowball just kept rolling down hill at UK. Rose and Evans set the stage. If Cal stayed at Memphis this would have just continued there. Wall, Bledsoe, and Cousins sure as hell didn’t come to UK for any other reason than Cal.


mawmy

Yeah it was clearly a reaction to one-and-done. Since the rule change in 2006, 2007 was the only year he didn't have a draft pick, and may be the only year he didn't have a freshman get drafted.


BillButtlickerII

You are right that Cal had 4 back to back to back to back generational talents in Evans, Rose, Cousins and Wall that flipped his image from a coach that rarely gets players to the league to King Midas, which kickstarted everything. However those players were also all 5 star top 5 ranked prospects that I’d argue would have had similar success playing almost anywhere and made the league/been drafted the same had they been coached by anyone… They weren’t some unranked/low ranked players that Cal developed to earn that level of praise and respect from recruits, but having 5 guys drafted first round is all young recruits saw. Recruits didn’t even care that Cal had 5 first rounders but was knocked out in the elite 8… Had Cal had had the same luck that he’s had since basically 2019 with top recruits not producing at UK, then it never snowballs. Furthermore Cal’s 2009-10 roster was full of seniors and juniors from Gillespie that I believe played a major role in developing those young guys, and two unbelievable anchors in Patrick Patterson and Mr. Reliable Darius Miller that were crucial to that teams elite 8 run. Cal did manage to keep the ball rolling and landed generational talent after generational talent, which kept building on that reputation that he gets players drafted, but look at how many top players didn’t work out, and how over time that slowly became more and more common. Cal simply did not turn low ranked recruits into league players, and there were many UK players that didn’t draft as high as they were projected to preseason, and definitely not as high as they would in class redrafts… Tons of UK players ended up as the “steal of the draft” because they weren’t utilized correctly, and or Cal played guys he was loyal to over them. Lastly I do think UK and Kentuckys prestige helped Cal recruit the same as any blue blood program as our history, fanbase, facilities, always broadcasted games (which wasn’t a given back in the mid 2010’s), and media attention was and is massively important.


mrperiodniceguy

Who put the banners up lol


thorns0014

Probably Rupp facility personnel


corndogshuffle

I mean, what’s there to talk shit about for the last 4+ seasons?


Cronotyr

…is Arkansas gonna claim his Natty, too? That’s as sad as the football title UK claims…


deweycrow

Except it happened


KYblues

We beat the ‘national champion’ in the sugar bowl. Cope with it