John Calipari outlines reasons for the rise for the SEC as a men’s basketball conference
By Keith Farner
Published:
John Calipari has long seen the rise in SEC men’s basketball, even before the league had 5 teams ranked in the Preseason AP Top 25.
Calipari’s standard response is basketball coaches win games, administrations win championships.
“What’s happened here, all these schools have invested in men’s basketball, women’s basketball,” Calipari said. “They’ve invested in facilities. They’ve invested in arenas, coaches’ salaries, recruiting, all the stuff that you need to be good.”
Calipari himself said he’s been a benefactor of those investments throughout his career, at UMass, Memphis and now at Kentucky.
“We all know the commitment and what basketball means to the state of Kentucky. I’ve been a benefactor,” Calipari said. “What’s happened now, Jimmy Dykes said there were two or three teams when you first got in the league, now there’s 9, 10 or 11. I said, yeah, because the schools are committed to it.”
The natural next step to that talent upgrade has been crowds and the NBA Draft.
“It makes every game a hard game. I mean, arenas are packed. Players are getting drafted. It’s not just our players,” Calipari said. “Now you got other schools having draft picks. It’s an exciting time in the SEC.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
