Kentucky started 3 Freshmen and 2 Two Sophomores this season, in typical Calipari fashion. It would be terrifically surprising to me if any of those 5 didn't jump to the NBA, those are the type of players that Calipari recruits - a style that has spawned the term "One-and-Done" to describe the uber-talented rosters he put together at UK and the University of Memphis before that. The Professional approach that Calipari has taken to recruiting has been oft cited as the reason that his teams failed to win it all on the biggest stage of all, The Final Four. That Calipari finally broke through with his most talent-laden roster ever in 2012 is nothing short of poetic (or perhaps ironic), as fervor against the NCAA and its hypocrisy in attempting to enforce the amateur status of its "student-athletes" (the word "player" seems to have been officially banned during NCAA press conferences in what would appear to be another move by the Association to deflect the kind of worker's compensation claims that continue to pour in against it) has mounted to an all-time high in recent years.
For a long time I personally never really liked John Calipari because of the way he conducted business, maybe simply because it just felt like that's not the way things should be done. However I've begun to come around on him. The NCAA is no longer fooling anyone, anywhere when it claims that amateur athletic competition is not a business. The most recent figures show NCAA basketball alone bringing more than $800 Million annually. The workforce responsible for at least 95% of that success, the players themselves, receives exactly $0 in (over-the-table) compensation. Sure these players get college scholarships but that doesn't really cost the university's anything except the potential income from a regular student but any loss incurred on their behalf is almost immediately nullified by their gains from major college sports. John Calipari understands that NCAA basketball is a business and, brashly as it may be, is one of the few coaches out their open about treating it that way.
Calipari has no scruples about bringing in the best talent in the country, knowing full well that his best players are going to leave after 1 year most likely. Players are not allowed to enter the NBA until a full year after their high-school graduation. Calipari is the guy who targets players who in the past would have gone straight to the NBA taking the stand of "who are we to prevent an adult from pursuing an extremely lucrative career in the NBA." There's no point in going into any underhanded tactics Calipari has used in recruiting (his previous 2 Final Four appearances were wiped away by the NCAA following the discovery of infractions involving illicit compensation for "amateur student-athletes." Every major college program in both Football and Basketball is guilty of some wrongdoing in this area, its simply impossible to succeed without doing so. Calipari is perhaps the most upfront about this but the results speak for themselves. Kentucky fielded the best team in the Nation from wire to wire and have been duly rewarded for their success. Like it or not this is what NCAA Basketball has become and it is only the NCAA itself who is at fault.
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