Calipari's "ex" Memphis has a "Fatal Attraction"
By Staff
When it comes to “ex’s“, the Memphis Tigers are right up there with Glen Close from “Fatal Attraction. It’s gotten so bad that I am sure Mitch Barnhart now has the duty of looking for boiled rabbits. More on that in just a sec, but first….
I do appreciate the feed back I got from my blog a few days ago about “The Top 10 Moments of the Billy Gillispie Era” and I do agree with the emails and other messages I received. I was on the fence on adding a couple of items to the list but I will give them extra special “honorable mention”.
One of those was 1/12/2008 and UK’s thrilling 2OT win over #12 Vandy at Rupp. Instead I included UK’s win over UT a few weeks later for a couple of reasons. The UT win spurred UK to a fantastic finish to the season and UK blew a 16 point lead in the Vandy game.
I also really wanted to include UK’s 3/20/2008 74-66 loss to Marquette in the NCAA tournament. Of the 66 points, Joe Crawford and Ramel Bradley accounted for 54 of them and showed a never say die attitude. Instead I honored Joe and Ramel with the Senior Day win over Florida.
It’s just odd that there were so many “memorable moments” in a pretty dismal two year span of basketball. But now that we have Calipari, we can look for many more magical moments. If we can just do something about his “ex”.
As anyone that has gone through relationships know, just sometimes you have to deal with drama from the ex. With Calipari, it is no different. Calipari’s ex, Memphis, just really can not get over the fact that John has well, moved on. The latest example of ex’s not being able to move on comes from Dan Wolken of the Commercial Appeal and also the blog “the Memphis Edge”.
In it, he says he is tired of the “revisionist” history and attacks former Memphis assistant John Robic who said that UK’s number 1 recruiting class was due to the “allure of Kentucky”. Wolken takes offense to this and gives the same very tired argument that Calipari’s recruiting class is essentially Memphis’s class and that Kentucky really holds no allure or prestige over Memphis.
Seriously, are you kidding me?
In Calipari’s ex, UK fans have gained another “little brother” to compete with Louisville as Memphis fans have made UK public enemy number one while UK fans don’t even see the Tigers as a rival, so maybe instead of a little brother, we can just call them a jealous cousin. The Tigers do have a nice history as a mid major tournament team, most of that due to Calipari, but still play in mid major conference. But to say that Kentucky has nothing to do with the recruiting class and that it is simply stolen from Memphis?
Where to start? For beginners, Dodson and Cousins did follow Calipari to UK from Memphis. I give Wolken that point. But UK had already signed John Hood and Daniel Orton BEFORE Calipari arrived, and John Wall and Eric Bledsoe chose KENTUCKY as their school of choice. So the argument that UK owes all its success to Memphis is simply ludicrous. By the same stupid argument, doe Calipari get credit for Pastner recruits Latavious Williams or transfer Eliot Wiliams, or even the Barton brothers …. all players that Calipari recruited while at Memphis?
Or will Wolken praise Calipari for sending the greatest player that never played at UK, Matt Pilgrim, to Memphis. As we speak, reports abound that Calipari and Pastner are working with NCAA to smooth out the Pilgrim transfer and trying to get Pilgrim an exemption so that he can play immediately.
So shall we simply take half of Pastner’s wins total with these Calipari recruited players and add them to Cal’s total because Calipari is more inherently linked with Memphis that Pastner is.
Or should Memphis fans and writers (Parrish, Calkins, Wolken, the Commercial Appeal) staff simply grow up, learn to love their new man Pastner, and quit stalking Calipari?
To imply that there is nothing inherent about UK is simply hack journalism. UK has THE history, THE titles, THE Arena, THE training facilities, THE conference, and THE TV contracts. All of this was done before Calipari even stepped foot on the UK campus, so yes Mr Wolken, all of these things are inherent with UK. And UK has THE rivalries: UNC, Kansas, Louisville, Indiana, Duke, Florida, and Tennessee to name a few. Memphis has rivalries with Tulsa?
Now that we have THE basketball coach, we can expect all the fear and self loathing from Memphis fans for the next decade or so. And UK fans are learning to embrace the hate all over again.
But every now and then, we need to put little cousin out to pasture for talking too much smack and running their mouths.
And like Glen Close, they will “not be ignored”
Keep following www.http://wildcatbluenation.com for the best in Kentucky basketball and football news, rumors, and opinions. By Kentucky fans for Kentucky fans