Kentucky Wildcat Basketball Preview: The Coaches

Well, Wildcat Blue Nation will finish up our wonderful previews with the final preview of the month, the preview of possibly the most important position on the team, the coaches. Let’s get it poppin’.

Name: Kenny Payne

Position: Assistant Coach

A little about the Coach (from UK athletics):

Kenny Payne begins his second year with John Calipari and Kentucky men’s basketball as an assistant coach after spending six seasons as an assistant at Oregon.

Payne’s work with forward Josh Harrellson last season was one of the biggest reasons behind Kentucky’s historic run. In addition to Harrellson’s conditioning program, Payne helped Harrellson develop an interior game that led to a significant increase in playing time. Harrellson’s transformation was widely regarded as one of the national stories of the 2011 NCAA Tournament.

Nationally recognized as one of the game’s top recruiters, Payne’s ability to recruit has continued to flourish at Kentucky. He played a key part in John Calipari’s 2011 recruiting class, the school’s third consecutive top-ranked class. All four of UK’s freshmen are ranked in the top 25 of most major recruiting services.

Payne helped lead Louisville to the 1986 NCAA national championship as a sophomore when he appeared in 34 games and averaged 3.6 points per game. As a senior, Payne averaged 14.5 points and 5.7 rebounds and was named Second-Team All-Metro Conference.

By the end of his Louisville career, Payne registered 1,083 points and shot 40 percent from 3-point range.

Payne earned a bachelor’s of science is sport administration from Louisville in 2003.

He and his wife, Michelle, have two children, Alexis and Alexander.

Name: Orlando Antigua

Position: Assistant Coach

A little about the coach (from UK Athletics):

Orlando Antigua is in his third season as an assistant coach with the Wildcats after spending one season with Calipari at Memphis.

Known for his eye for talent on the recruiting trail, Antigua has helped UK pull in three straight top-ranked recruiting classes. In his initial season with the Wildcats, Antigua saw three of his recruits drafted in the first round of the 2010 NBA Draft. As a result, he was named one of Yahoo! Sports top 10 college basketball recruiters.

When he joined the Memphis staff in 2008, the Tigers were the winningest program over a three-year span in NCAA Division I history, recording 104 victories from 2005-08. So what did Antigua do? He helped coach the Tigers to a 33-4 record and a spot in the 2009 NCAA Sweet 16. For the fourth straight season, the Tigers took the regular season and tournament titles, going undefeated in C-USA three of the four years.

After graduation from college, Antigua was selected to play for the world-renowned Harlem Globetrotters, becoming the first player of Latin American descent to play for the squad. Nicknamed “Hurricane” for his dazzling moves, Antigua played with the Globetrotters for seven years until 2002.

Name: John Robic

Postion: Assistant Coach

A little about the coach (from UK Athletics):

John Robic is in his third season with the Kentucky basketball program but is a long-time associate of UK head coach John Calipari.

Beginning with their first season together at UMass in 1988-89, where Robic was an assistant under Calipari, the two are entering their 15th season together. It seems as if the Calipari-Robic duo is a proven combination for thrilling basketball seasons.

Similar to those magical years he assisted in at UMass in the 1990s, Robic helped lead Memphis to the program’s most storied era in school history in four seasons at Memphis (2006-09) as well as helping return Kentucky back among the nation’s elite.

Robic helped the Wildcats post a 35-3 mark in his inaugural season at Kentucky. The Cats made an appearance in the 2010 Elite Eight while claiming SEC regular season and tournament championships along the way.

He helped UK make history with five Wildcats were drafted in the first round of the 2010 NBA Draft. In 2011, Kentucky returned to the Final Four for the first time since 1998. Four more players were taken in the 2011 NBA Draft under the watch of the Calipari-Robic combination.

Before taking over at Youngstown State, Robic served as an assistant for 11 years at UMass for both Calipari and Bruiser Flint.

After a 10-18 mark his first season on staff, Robic helped lead the Minutemen to nine consecutive winning campaigns.

From 1990-96, the Minutemen averaged 26 wins per year and had six straight 20-win seasons, including two 30-victory campaigns. UMass made the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in 1992, Elite Eight in 1995 and Final Four in 1996. It was UMass’ first appearance on college basketball’s largest stage.

After Calipari moved on to the NBA, Robic remained at UMass and was elevated to the associate head coach post under Flint from 1997-99. During his tenure at UMass, the Minutemen posted a 247-111 overall record (.690 winning percentage) and earned nine postseason tournament bids (seven NCAA, two NIT).

A graduate of North Hills High School in Pittsburgh, Robic attended Walsh College in Canton, Ohio, before transferring to Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where he earned his bachelor of arts in speech communication and physical education in 1986.

At Denison, Robic garnered Division III All-America accolades as a senior and was a two-time all-conference performer. He was one of 10 former players to be named to the 10th Anniversary All-Decade Team in the league in 1994. In the fall of 2006, he was inducted into the Denison Athletic Hall of Fame. Robic was inducted into the North Hills High School Hall of Fame in 2004.

Name: John Calipari

Position: Head Basketball Coach, the guy who will hang #8

About John Calipari:

Upon being named head coach on April 1, 2009, Calipari [has] continued to work his magic of resurrecting once proud programs, taking an NIT team in 2009 to the 2010 NCAA Elite Eight. Along the way he led the Wildcats to a No. 1 ranking (UK’s first since 2003), the program’s 44th SEC Championship and 26th SEC Tournament title.

The honors continued after the season as Calipari became the first coach in UK history to receive the Adolph Rupp National Coach of the Year award. He then watched as five of his players were selected in the first round of the 2010 NBA Draft, the first time a school has ever produced five first round picks. Among those picks was the first Wildcat ever taken as the No. 1 overall pick, John Wall.

In his inaugural season as head coach of the Wildcats, Calipari posted his fifth-straight 30-win season, the only coach in NCAA Division I history to do so. In addition to the Rupp National Coach of the Year, Calipari was also named the Associated Press SEC Coach of the Year.

When he led Kentucky back to the No. 1 spot in the country, Calipari became one of only two coaches (Frank McGuire) in NCAA history to lead three teams to a No. 1 ranking. He led UMass to a No. 1 ranking in 1995 and 1996 and he led Memphis to the No. 1 spot in the 2008 season.

Much like he did at UMass, when his players graduated at nearly 80 percent, Calipari has stressed academics. Fifteen of his last 18 seniors that came through the Memphis program have earned their bachelor’s degrees and the four seniors under Cal at Kentucky have all earned their degrees.

The Wildcats posted a 3.14 grade-point-average (GPA) in the 2011 spring semester, the highest semester GPA in recent years, and an overall 3.015 GPA for the 2010-11 season.

Since the 2005-06 season, Coach Cal ranks as the winningest coach over the last six years. He looks to continue that success this year as he fields possibly one of the best teams he’s had at Kentucky yet…

And it just keeps getting better…#BBN

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