Great Expectations: UK Basketball Never Changes

When Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations, he probably did not know it was going to be one of the great literary works in history. Of course he probably also didn’t know that a character named Ebenezer Scrooge was going to be the most recognized and famous of all of his characters. John Calipari does not have that problem. You see, he knows exactly where his place is in history, and he knows exactly who of his players and staffers and people affiliated with his program are going to be remembered throughout the history of the Kentucky Wildcats Basketball Program. Now, John Calipari is still John Calipari, so he is going to downplay, under promote, minimize, and generally try to make everyone believe that he is steering a ship who’s rudder is not yet attached. The hull is not yet sealed and ready for water, and the crew is not yet done training for their mission.

But remember John that this is Kentucky. We do not play for wins, we play for championships. We do not recruit really good kids, we recruit great ones. We don’t want to win by a bucket with time expiring, we want to win by 35 with all of the starters not seeing the floor in the second half. We are spoiled, and we are fickle, and we are proud, and we like it this way.

Pretty arrogant, isn’t it? We have brass like no other group in the world don’t we? So even when we saw a weekend like the last one, we just grab a Red Bull, wipe the egg off our faces with a towel, and suit up for another round. So, the Cats lost one on Saturday, they rebound with a vengeance on Tuesday and we start out on another winning streak again. We make more enemies in a week than most people do in a lifetime and we care nothing about it. And yeah, it is arrogant, but it is also what makes this program one of the great ones. It is also one of the reasons, along with John Calipari, that we get kids like Terrence Jones to suit up in Blue and White and put up over 30 points in a game as a freshman, it is why we put 5 players in the 1st round of the NBA draft last year, and why we have number one recruiting classes year after year since John Calipari’s arrival. Do WE have great expectations? You bet we do. If someone doesn’t understand that, and the whys and who’s and how’s of the whole Big Blue culture then they need to go be a Louisville fan so they can complain about the Kentucky’s of the world for a hobby.

But John Calipari is raising the bar even higher. He takes the unlikely and makes it the norm. Freshmen are not supposed to win like his do, but you have seen the results. Players like DeAndre Liggins don’t get labeled a malcontent one year, and come back later to be a defensive juggernaut who is capable of reaching from one side of the court to the other between the tips of his fingers. Guys like Josh Harrellson do not change from being sent to a bathroom stall at halftime of a game into an accomplished post player on a top collegiate team. College basketball teams do not raise 1 million dollars in an afternoon for people they don’t even know, just because it needed to be done. But there is more to all of this team, these kids, and this man than we have seen so far.

This team has something, and John Calipari is trying to coach it out of them. He has superstars that could be starting anywhere else in the country sitting on the bench who he has to turn into the difference between great players and a great team. Ask anyone who knows anything about John Calipari, and they will tell you that he is doing some of the best coaching he has ever done in his career since coming to UK. They will tell you that he has already accomplished more with the last couple of years of kids than he ever did at Memphis or UMASS. No, he has not won the Championship that has eluded him his whole career yet, but he has accomplished so many other things. Some are visible just by looking at the stats, and other are visible by looking at the man and his players, coaches, and the people he surrounds himself with.

Everyone is just waiting on pins and needles for that 8th Championship banner, and this team has the intricacies and the heart to do just that, assuming they will let Cal do what he does best, which is develop their talent. They are going to have to work hard, sweat, and force themselves to go beyond their limits each and every day. But see this is Kentucky, those expectations we spoke of are right there for all to see just by getting out of bed in the morning. You don’t come to Kentucky so you can be on TV, or so you can get your name in the papers or on a blog headline somewhere. You can do that anywhere. You don’t come here just to be a great player, you come here to be a legend. You come here to change the world and it’s expectations of you. You become part of what is so great about being at Kentucky. And that is why all of those banners hang in the rafters. That is why we line up for days for free tickets every year just to watch you practice. That is why an arena that holds over 23K people is not big enough to hold everyone that wants to watch you play. We definitely have our expectations. Great Expectations indeed.

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