When the dvd was invented in 1995 it fundamentally changed the way we watched movies. Now, you probably have a stack of them collecting dust while you scroll through six different streaming services. Innovation is funny that way, if you don’t stay ahead of the wave it’ll crash right on your head.
John Calipari revolutionized college basketball recruiting first taking UMass to the Final Four with Marcus Camby in 1996, then leading Memphis and Derrick Rose to the 2008 National Championship game, but he took it to a whole new level at Kentucky. His one-and-done five-star hunting philosophy brought immediate success with John Wall and Kentucky's eighth national championship in 2012 with Anthony Davis.
Coach Cal fundamentally changed the way blue blood programs competed for national titles, even forcing Mike Krzyzewski to reevaluate the philosophies that won him his first four championships in Durham. Now, Calipari is heading to Arkansas, waving the white flag on his tenure in Lexington, the newest wave of innovation having swallowed him up and spit him out.
In hindsight, the day that the NCAA finally allowed players to profit off their name, image, and likeness was the beginning of the end for Calipari. If players can make money at the collegiate level, it's no longer a mad dash to the NBA. That’s great news for athletes and terrible news for the coach who turned his program into the country’s most powerful professional basketball tributary.
Throw on top of that the freedom of movement through the transfer portal and College basketball suddenly got a lot older and winning with the most talented 18 and 19-year-olds olds, a lot harder, especially in March.
Since Kentucky's run to the Elite Eight in 2019 with Tyler Herro, P.J. Washington, and Keldon Johnson, Coach Cal has just one NCAA Tournament win and no SEC Tournament titles since 2018 with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
This season, Calipari went all-in on his freshman philosophy and got burned. He appeared the have it all, the two most talented freshman guards in the country, Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham, playing next to Antonio Reeves, his new wave acquisition. Reeves played the first three seasons of his career at Illinois State before finishing with two years in Lexington.
Reeves represented an embrace of the transfer portal and the new direction of college basketball and when it came to the NCAA Tournament, he excelled, as did fellow fifth-year senior, Tre Mitchell. Still, the core of Kentucky’s roster was inexperienced and wilted under the bright lights, helpless to stop older and more veteran-laden rosters.
It was too little too late. It was Blockbuster finally giving in to the mailing DVDs while Netflix was already on to streaming. Calipari’s other contemporaries saw the writing on the wall and the same changes that brought an end to Calipari’s success at Kentucky expedited the retirements of Coach K, Roy Williams, Jay Wright, and even Nick Saban.
Calipari’s final two games of his 15-year tenure in Lexington will be a 97-87 loss to Texas A&M with an average age of 22.6 in the SEC Tournament and an 80-76 NCAA Tournament loss to 14-seed Oakland led by 24-year-old Jack Golhke with an average age of 22.3.
Rather than reinvent himself at Kentucky, a place where his seat is warming and his relationships are frayed, Calipari sought a fresh start. Considering the circumstances and the cumbersome $30+ million buyout the program considered paying to force a fresh start upon its head coach, it’s hard to imagine Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart was devastated by this decision.
In coaching, the parting of ways is never mutual, but this is about as close as it gets.
Now, with the slate wiped clean, Kentucky can find its next innovator and Calipari will face a crossroads in Fayetteville.
Netflix or Blockbuster.
Accept the new reality of the landscape he no longer views from the mountaintop and make Kentucky forever regret the day he walked out the door, or stubbornly cling to the remnants of a bygone era and fade into history, dominant in one generation, obsolete in the next.