Tom Crean writing a "Twitter check" his Hoosiers can't cash
By Paul Jordan
Love it or hate it, Twitter is here to stay. And it has brought us some of the most memorable nerd fights in a while. A couple of weeks ago, we were treated to the bizarre war between former Texas coach Tom Penders and CBS’s Jeff Goodman. Now our very own John Calipari has been goaded into a twitter war by Indiana’s Tom Crean.
If we recall, Tom Crean is the one that got coach Cal into Twitter and challenged him to see who could get the most followers. Calipari zoomed into the million plus followers club while Crean remains stalled around the 45,000 mark.
Undaunted, Crean fired some open salvos at Calipari across the twitter bow this week:
We have to keep them out of the paint. You need to keep the fans out of our seats. Dominate this building with cream and crimson.
To Which Calipari fired back with some tweets of his own:
It’s cute to start fights over twitter but another thing to be able to back them up on the court and lately, the Hoosiers have not. Over the last three seasons, Indiana has been 16-9 before their annual beatdown at the hands of Kentucky and 12-57 after that. And even though the Hoosiers are 8-0, they have built that record at the cost of technical colleges, a shell of a team formerly known as Butler and an average North Carolina State team. Expect Calipari’s Wildcats to speak for his tweets.
I know that James touched on this in his 12:00AM post today, but I wanted to touch on it as well. There has been quiet an upheaval over the recent speculation that Kentucky may dump North Carolina from the schedule and I, for one have to say I get Calipari’s point.
No other school in the SEC and very few schools nationally play a pre-conference schedule the caliber of Kentucky’s. Just look at Indiana and their schedule if you want proof of that. And next year, Kentucky faces a pre-conference schedule of games at Louisville, versus what should be a tougher Indiana team, a road game in the SEC/Big East Challenge, and a game in New York against Duke, plus whatever big name early season tournament they may play in. Now when you add a road game at UNC, it gets insane.
I don’t think Calipari is advocating dumping UNC permanently, but just moving it aside a year or so until they can get the UNC and Louisville games on a different home/away schedule from the Big East Challenge game. Three heavyweight road game in the opening months is a tough test for any team. Calipari expounded on this more on his website last night.
A few days ago, I kind of took 2013 recruit Chris Walker to task for his tweets about Kentucky not recruiting him. If you recall, I advised Walker to chill out and wait for the eventual offer, which should eventually come. Walker continues to work Twitter, but his time took his question to LeBron James and asked for advice on where he should go to college:
“I’m a top 5 player in the country in class of 2013. Where should I go to college Mr. James?”
Walker has said recently that his top three schools are Kansas, Florida, and UConn and that Kentucky was in his “top ten”. Walker may want to reconsider after hearing Jame’s reply. James did not reply to Walker on Twitter, but addressed Walker’s question in an interview with ESPN:
“Of course Ohio State and Kentucky are my two favorite programs for many reasons. They have great basketball programs, great coaches, players and are two of the best colleges in America. But with that said, Chris, you will know where you want to go when the time comes. I’m looking forward to seeing you make the decision and take your talents to that program and shine.”
The most lasting image from Kentucky’s win over North Carolina has to be Anthony Davis’s block of John Henson, but the C-J’s Kyle Tucker came away with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist making the biggest impression.
We talked last week about the rumors and speculation that Tennessee may try to steal UK WR coach Tee Martin from the Wildcats. According to Mr. SEC, that is not going to happen and Martin will remain a Wildcat:
FootballScoop.com is reporting that Kentucky receivers coach Tee Martin will not be heading to Tennessee. Reports from the Volunteer State say Martin was never officially offered a job with his alma mater.