No News Doesn’t FEEL Like Good News (3:55 Update)

General NCS Basketball155

Are we just pessimistic? Our 50/50 feeling this morning is starting to slide the bad direction.

We think that State has the ability to go to $2.0 million per year for Calipari despite, which is higher than Memphis’ best offer of $1.5 million to $1.7 million.

We won’t spend time crunching the negative side of the equation until we have to. So, please don’t run off thinking that we have inside scoop that we aren’t getting Calipari. We don’t have that scoop.

We do know that Memphis is working hard to keep him. Of course, we are concerned with the fact that he is currently sitting in Memphis around his family, his friends, and his team while we are all sitting in Raleigh. That is not a great bargaining position in which to be sitting.

The good news is that at this time (3:30pm ET), Memphis does not yet have an answer from Calipari, either.

Dave Glenn has updated his blog and is reporting that Calipari is currently meeting with the Athletics Director and key boosters (3;45 ET). A few thoughts:

* If he Calipari telling them Memphis that he is taking NC State’s job, then the wheels will be in motion, team meetings will be called, and the news should flush out quickly.

* If he is discussing Memphis’ proposed deal and not providing an answer to anyone, then we doubt that anyone gets an answer before tomorrow.

* If he is telling Memphis that he is staying, we don’t know if NC State will sweeten the pot or if it will matter (since Calipari has maintained from the start of his overtures to NC State that this wasn’t about money).

Let’s just say that NC State officials are…we’ll use the word “antsy”.

In the end, this will all boil down to how truthful Calipari has been with NC State from the beginning. If the pieces of the puzzle that he represented as most important to him (ACC’s stage, competitiveness on the national stage, University’s commitment to him) are truly the drivers of the decision, then there is nothing that Memphis can do about the situation.

If those issues are not the key drivers of his thought process, then this was all about money and NC State was played masterfully by a maestro.

We will find out in the next 24 hours, but we urge everyone not to jump to the negative conclusion until the news is official. Please behave the way that you did as the Rick Barnes talks dissolved.

…developing…

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General NCS Basketball

155 Responses to No News Doesn’t FEEL Like Good News (3:55 Update)

  1. Pack92 04/10/2006 at 3:59 PM #

    Man, I hope he’s coming. You don’t fly your guys to see the next job unless you plan on living there.

  2. WestCoast 04/10/2006 at 4:00 PM #

    Hey, at least Farve can score.

  3. Jeremy Hyatt 04/10/2006 at 4:00 PM #

    omg i just peed my pants

  4. roon7723 04/10/2006 at 4:00 PM #

    i think we should have a rally at the RBC center in case he shows up there

  5. waxhaw 04/10/2006 at 4:00 PM #

    That is great news!

  6. NY Statefan 04/10/2006 at 4:01 PM #

    That sounds great to have him in Raleigh. I think he will be really impressed with the facilities. Is Cal into golf? Let’s get this guy some extravagant gifts to sweeten the pot. Like a Pinehurst Membership. Hopefully, he’s a big college football fan too, because we got the edge there too. Come on Cal!!!!

  7. Jeremy Hyatt 04/10/2006 at 4:01 PM #

    he’s doing it as a courtesey to the guys he is bringing with him.. i bet..

  8. DavidThompson 04/10/2006 at 4:01 PM #

    Its like someone said this morning….They always annouce it at the place he is going to coach not the place he last coached. My old barman message board frienf seems to be right on track. He siad he met with his staff last night.

  9. primacyone 04/10/2006 at 4:01 PM #

    First two years at state, but a 94 Campbell University grad. Most of my family went to Campbell. I wanted to go to state. My parents had set precident with my older brother who had taken the same route. State fan since birth. My father had season tickets for 29 years. My uncle still has the WPC rights/priority established with those origional tickets.

  10. Jeremy Hyatt 04/10/2006 at 4:02 PM #

    Calipari, NC State talk, will meet again in Raleigh
    By Andy Katz
    ESPN.com

    Memphis coach John Calipari was set to visit North Carolina State with his staff Monday, a source close to Calipari told ESPN.com.

    Calipari has been in negotiations with Memphis about adding more value to his current contract. But N.C. State is making a strong push for Calipari once it got rebuffed by Texas’ Rick Barnes. The source told ESPN.com that Calipari and his staff were on their way to Raleigh Monday to check out the facilities.

    NC State officials began their wooing of Calipari by visiting with the Memphis coach Sunday night, The Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.

    The meeting, which included NC State Chancellor James L. Oblinger, athletic director Lee Fowler and other university officials, lasted for about two hours, the paper reported.

    “We were aware of the meeting,” Memphis athletic director R.C. Johnson told the paper Sunday night. But beyond that he declined comment while continuing to attempt to rework the contract of Calipari.

    Fowler, who once worked for Dana Kirk at Memphis, has strong ties to the area and has had intermediaries working Calipari for weeks.

    If Calipari takes the NC State job then it would go against what he told ESPN.com last week. When directly asked if he would be interested in replacing Herb Sendek (who went to Arizona State), Calipari told ESPN.com “No.” He said he wouldn’t want to put himself in the position of dealing with all that goes into being in the Triangle with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and North Carolina’s Roy Williams. Calipari is the king of Conference USA and essentially rules that conference as the marquee program.

    But taking a trip to Raleigh certainly is a bold move that shows he could be ready to take the job. Memphis is doing whatever it can to match NC State’s offer. NC State reportedly offered Barnes a deal worth more than $2 million per year.

    If Calipari backs out of NC State, then the Wolfpack are expected to turn to LSU’s John Brady. If Calipari leaves then look for Memphis to seriously consider Colorado’s Ricardo Patton, a native of the area with strong ties to the region.

  11. JimmyVguy 04/10/2006 at 4:02 PM #

    Have ya’ll seen our facilities??? If its down to that then we’re a lock. Furthermore…he’s got his whole staff with him. This thing is gonna go down today. We’ll be getting reports that he has been hired and there will be a press conference tomorrow. All the damn Tarholes and Dookies I talked to this weekend were downplaying it. You could smell the fear on ’em…they are hatin’ it.

  12. Chief93 04/10/2006 at 4:02 PM #

    Doesn’t Katz hurt his credibility with that last paragraph still flying the John Brady banner?

  13. cfpack03 04/10/2006 at 4:02 PM #

    And the fog lifts! I’ve been waiting for this all day.

    grad 2003

  14. monte kiffin 04/10/2006 at 4:03 PM #

    ok, thats just bad…i will not settle for Brady

  15. BJD95 04/10/2006 at 4:04 PM #

    Katz’ “scoop” has been crap all along. No surprise he’s still clinging to the Brady smokescreen.

  16. Jeremy Hyatt 04/10/2006 at 4:04 PM #

    RBC is pretty sweet.

  17. audhumla 04/10/2006 at 4:05 PM #

    Semi-alum (on campus 86-90) but finished at Pfeiffer. Won a national championship while I was at State too, but in a non-revenue … non-sport, come to think of it. But heck, got me on the Jimmy V show as State’s Scholar-Athlete of the Week! (Had a sub-2.7 GPA at the time, and weighed in serious Tab Thacker range, so arguably I was neither “scholar” nor “athlete”…)

    Dad graduated in ’40, taught at State before World War II. Claimed to know Everett Case personally, but Dad tells some tall tales…

    So yeah, alum and die-very-hard fan.

  18. cfpack03 04/10/2006 at 4:05 PM #

    Kind of ironic that this Katz ass is breaking the story.

  19. JimmyVguy 04/10/2006 at 4:05 PM #

    Calipari gets to have that shiny new office that we just built. He’s gonna love it.

  20. Mike 04/10/2006 at 4:05 PM #

    Class of ’89 here. And BTW, I finished the article, said if he says no, then Brady is a leading candidate. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

    Hope is not lost yet. Visit to Raleigh should seal the deal. If he were going to say no, it would be on his turf. Hey, I am stretching here, trying to stay away from the Brady bunch. Our luck, Brady would bring Greg, Peter, and Bobby instead of Big Baby.

    Come on John, Raleigh is best place in America to live.

  21. Pack92 04/10/2006 at 4:05 PM #

    Every pissant pansy blue fan is scared to death right now we will have a Chuck in basketball. Talkin’junk talk and walkin the walk despite what they all say. Come on Cal!

  22. jncope 04/10/2006 at 4:06 PM #

    When Ralph Sampson visited Virginia on a recruiting visit his senior year of high school, some UVA students put a big sign on UVA’s gym that said “Ralph’s House” and Ralph is reported to have decided to go to UVA at that point.

    Maybe we can do the same?

  23. JimmyVguy 04/10/2006 at 4:06 PM #

    My grandad gave Everett Case his first car and took him to get his license. Case didn’t even have a drivers license when he came to raleigh.

  24. wolfpacker420 04/10/2006 at 4:08 PM #

    this is awesome news we didn’t even get ricky b to come to town! I feel the monkey tring to get off the back? do you?

  25. roon7723 04/10/2006 at 4:08 PM #

    i’m up for the sign. and i’ll even give you a boost to climb to the top of the rbc center

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