John Calipari’s toughest opponents may just be “reporters” like Jeff Goodman
By Paul Jordan
Last year. John Calipari’s Kentucky Wildcats breezed their way through the season with a 38-2 record. As much as the other teams tried, only two of them could take him and his Wildcats down. Coming into his fourth season at Kentucky, Calipari seemingly has more reporters gunning to take him down rather than quality opponents on the schedule. I know it’s a bold statement, but if you listen to the rumors there are plenty of reporters with an “anti Calipari” agenda and their real life actions seem to bring that to life. CBS’s Jeff Goodman seems to have set himself apart by coming out and admitting he has an ax to grind.
We have Pete Thamel and his perceived obsession with Calipari along with “fruitless exposes” on Eric Bledsoe, Enes Kanter, and Nerlens Noel. We have Pat Forde, he of the co-authoring a book for Rick Pitino and working with Thamel on the Bledsoe story. We have Bobby Knight, who can not even mention the word Kentucky for most of the season and who does not make appearances to Rupp for games or “GameDay” anymore. We even have Gary Parrish, Goodman’s CBS counterpart, who tries to be unbiased but lets it slip sometimes. He is also the co-host of a radio show in Memphis with Calipari nemesis Geoff Calkins.
All of these have at times denied their Calipari bias until now. CBS Sports Jeff Goodman came out and admitted he is biased against Calipari because Calipari tried to get him fired. I don’t know the details of the perceived coup attempt of Goodman and I wish I did, but all I have is Goodman basically airing his dirty laundry publicly:
This all came to a boiling point with CBS’s series that featured a whole day devoted to World Wide Wes and quotes from “anonymous coaches”. It all gets worse before it gets better whe todays CBS article will ask these same “anonymous coaches” about perceived cheaters. Just going by the energy on the site and how “anonymous reactions” oftern turn petty … I think we know where this is going.
In addition to being the new mancrush for the WBN’s James Streble, Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting NEws does not seem to be a fan of this whole polling anonymous coaches things. Seems he knows that general pettiness and bias will come out under the cover of anonymity and he sent out this tweet in response to the CBS series:
"CBS polled college hoops coaches on who are the biggest cheaters. Don’t want to hear it. When one of you turns somebody in, I’ll listen."
Like most of you, I assumed that Ryan Harrow would be written in ink as Kentucky’s starting point guard this season. Calipari seems to say that Harrow has the front runner status but he also admits that Ryan Harrow could be pressed by Archie Goodwin, who could take on a Tyreke Evans role. Check out the video below from Rob Bromley, if only to hear Calipari say the word “funzies”: