The coach met the outsized expectations in Lexington for as long as anyone, but eventually he and the fan base grew weary of each other.
andOn the day Connecticut easily won its second straight men’s title and the solar eclipse captivated millions worldwide, the entire basketball world was stunned when news leaked that Calipari was considering leaving Kentucky to become the coach at Arkansas.
He was 29 when he took over a U-Mass. program that had had 10 consecutive losing seasons. He completely turned around the Minutemen, making the NCAA tournament five years in a row and reaching the Final Four in 1996. And amazingly, the Wildcats haven’t been back since. They have been to two regional finals and an additional Sweet 16, but that isn’t nearly enough for Kentucky’s fans, who consider Final Fours a birthright and national titles bonuses that should arrive at least every few years.
And he also can rub people the wrong way. A couple of years earlier, he so infuriated Temple coach John Chaney that Chaney burst into Cal’s postgame news conference repeatedly yelling, “I’ll kill you,” before security restrained him.One month later, at the Final Four, I was talking to Cal in the lobby of the coaches hotel when Chaney walked up. I stepped back, not wanting to get in between the two. Chaney threw his arms around Calipari and said, “Cal, you are a pain in the a--.
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