Andy Katz Article On Calipari Coming to NC State

NCS Basketball Sidney Lowe46

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The vote had been taken. It was unanimous. John Calipari was leaving. He was going to accept the NC State job.

Every assistant on the private jet flying through the spring night in 2006 from Memphis to Raleigh had his hand up. Assistant John Robic, who had been with Calipari at UMass, voted with his leg. It was their way of assuring the coach that they would all make the move to the new school with him.

John Calipari has had a rocky road at Memphis, but it is getting smoother as he’s turned the Tigers into a national championship caliber team.

“Yeah, we were gone,” Calipari said last Friday as he ate fried chicken in one of his many spots along Beale Street, within eyesight of the FedEx Forum.

Calipari was enticed by NC State’s commitment to the program, the financial considerations for his staff, and the challenge of facing the blue bloods at Duke and North Carolina.

Meanwhile, the Memphis Tigers were coming off an Elite Eight run ultimately ended by UCLA. It was the last game of Calipari’s sixth year at Memphis in what had been a bumpy ride to resuscitate a once nationally known program.

“The thing I can tell you about coaching is that we make decision and career moves when your nerves and emotions are still raw, right after the season,” Calipari said last Friday. “It’s the worst profession for that. Other professions, they have time to sit back and process and logically make a decision. … Emotionally, we don’t have a chance to decompress, to make a good decision. Thankfully, people got involved in the decision.”

When Calipari flew back with his staff, he took a midnight walk with the Memphis team minister along the golf course where Calipari resides. He later spoke with some of his new influential friends at FedEx.

“The NC State thing was the most emotional thing we’ve been through here,” said Calipari’s wife, Ellen.

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NCS Basketball Sidney Lowe

46 Responses to Andy Katz Article On Calipari Coming to NC State

  1. aevanee 10/21/2007 at 1:21 AM #

    [quote]
    Agree on Hickson. Physically, he is a man among boys. He is big enough and strong enough that he might be the only player in the conference who can matchup with Hansbrough. He is tall, strong, quick, athletic, coordinated, etc…we may not have had a player this NBA ready coming out of HS since Chris Washburn(at least I can’t think of any). [/quote]

    Me and my buddy went to the event. I told him that JJ was one of the top freshmen in the country. He replied, “I don’t believe you. That kid looks like a beast, no way he is a freshman.”

  2. ncsukyle430 10/21/2007 at 1:49 AM #

    “Agree on Hickson. Physically, he is a man among boys. He is big enough and strong enough that he might be the only player in the conference who can matchup with Hansbrough.”

    I thought McCauley (who is the best big man on the team right now) did a pretty good job on him last year. I looked forward to seeing him frustrated that mouth-breather again this year.

  3. Rick 10/22/2007 at 8:24 AM #

    After watching Georgetown I became convinced the PO can win at the top levels. But it has to be used to drive and create shots. Not as an excuse to pass the ball around the perimeter and heave up a three point shot. It will also require speed and quickness to win at the highest level. But that can be said about any offense.

  4. lush 10/22/2007 at 10:47 AM #

    my thoughts on ballin at the barnyard

    *JJ is the man. he looked more like brandon wright than handjobsborough. he is bigger and stronger than wright but he has those monkey arms and can put the ball in the basket without jumping.

    *i dont know about t. smith being the highlight in layup/dunk lines. it was definately simon harris throwing down some monster jams. he is probably the thickest player on the squad and was jumping through the roof.

    *m. johnson cant shoot for shit but he is big, quick and has those anthony grundy arms.

    *f. degand is as quick as advertised, can shoot better than johnson but still not all that good, hopefully he will love assists more than points

    *WE ARE GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!!!

  5. Rick 10/22/2007 at 11:39 AM #

    “*f. degand is as quick as advertised, can shoot better than johnson but still not all that good, hopefully he will love assists more than points”

    How can you possibly say this based on Friday night?

  6. lush 10/22/2007 at 11:47 AM #

    just an observation. i thought it was pretty clear that he wasnt on par with fells, costner, horner or even grant and ferguson. with all the other proven scoring options we shouldnt need him to shoot. drive and dish baby, drive and dish.

    from what you saw, you think he can shoot?

  7. packgrad93 10/22/2007 at 12:18 PM #

    “This kid needs to waste a year of eligibility and “wait his turn” just like…and… and…all did in the past. ”
    I think Ced should have gotten more minutes as a frosh, but who else? It’s a bashers myth that Herb didn’t play frosh.

  8. Rick 10/22/2007 at 12:25 PM #

    lush,
    How was it clear?
    All we saw was
    1) warm up shooting (he has good form and was hitting his shots)
    2) layup lines
    3) full courst passing drills

    I saw nothing in any of those things that made me think he “was not on par”

  9. lush 10/22/2007 at 12:37 PM #

    fine, your observation is different than mine. im not saying he was awful, im just saying he was not as good as other shooters on the team.

    we’ll have more info after saturday’s game and i’ll be happy to share my observations again.

  10. packgrad93 10/22/2007 at 3:08 PM #

    if JJ & Brandon leave next season we’ll be hurting in the post with Ben & Tracy. I guess Horner too.

  11. redfred2 10/23/2007 at 11:59 PM #

    “I think Ced should have gotten more minutes as a frosh, but who else? It’s a bashers myth that Herb didn’t play frosh.”

    No shit!!! This is getting tiring, but most recently, and for starters…how about BEN MACCAULEY MAYBE???

    I can go on, but hell packgrad, who really knows? All I know is, is that four years of experience beats the hell out of three. You can’t tell me anyone “wasn’t ready to play as freshmen”, like you tried to say about Bennerman. He definitely wasn’t ready to play systematic *machine ball* but he could have played, and contributed, and YOUR coach would have been much better off for it later on.

  12. Rick 10/24/2007 at 8:45 AM #

    It usually took a year to force them to squash their natural basketball instincts so they could learn the incomparably complex weave and heave. Think about it, most of players do not understand that threes are worth more than twos even when you do not make them.

  13. packgrad93 10/24/2007 at 12:01 PM #

    “how about BEN MACCAULEY MAYBE”

    i guess Ced should have sat for ben to get some pt huh?

  14. packgrad93 10/24/2007 at 12:02 PM #

    if the post is doubled then a wide open 3 is a good shot. that’s how it worked, inside out.

  15. redfred2 10/24/2007 at 8:03 PM #

    “that’s how it worked”

    Actually, that’s how meandered along, year after year, after year,…

    Are you actually saying, and do you actually believe, that the offense really worked for one, and secondly, that Cedric Simmons performance, while at NC State, was so impressive that he was untouchable?

    Ask the other teams and players if they were as intimidated by Cedric Simmons imposing figure, as they should have been.

    Wasn’t his fault, but he only dominated one big game.

  16. redfred2 10/24/2007 at 8:10 PM #

    packgrad93,

    Who is more physically imposing, and who has the best stats over those two seasons, Simmons or Tyler Hansbrough. There’s not much of a comparison stat wise, and not much of a comparson physically.

    Do you think it strange that those two comparisons directly contradict one another and how would you explain the reason?

  17. packgrad93 10/25/2007 at 1:06 PM #

    Ced got doubled a lot since that duke game he pimped. fact.

    Tyler is/was an all-american. Ced wasn’t. unc had much more talent on the floor than ncsu to help prevent doubles.

  18. redfred2 10/25/2007 at 9:27 PM #

    I was going to ask you to slowly re-read your own comment, and then pick it apart. But, since I’m already well aware of the way you think, your statement about the “all-american” Tyler being so much better than Cedric, and your statement about UNC having more “talent
    on the floor” would naturally be followed by a response something like, “Of course, that’s just the way it is, we can’t expect with play with them.” What you wouldn’t admit though is that either YOUR coach wasn’t that good of a recruiter, OR, he just couldn’t coach good enough in order to maximize the strengths of his own players.

    It’s one of the two, which is it?

  19. packgrad93 10/26/2007 at 11:34 AM #

    you were trying to compare the two, not me. just stating facts. how many programs have been recruiting like unc? like it or not, they have been one of, if not the, best programs in the nation for a long time. we’re on our way back to that point thanks in part to the foundation put in place by Herb. Accept it or not.

  20. redfred2 10/26/2007 at 6:38 PM #

    Look pg93, I have finally tired with your lack of knowledge about NC State basketball program’s past, and what it means to be a member of the ACC. The fact is that it was your coach who was always the beneficiary of having both of those factors at his disposal, to capitalize on and draw from. But somehow those FACTS just don’t seem to register in your brain. He couldn’t and didn’t capitalize on the name NC State, or the ACC, but the fact that he didn’t try to capitalize FOR the sake of the kids that he had under his wing, that was always the kicker for me.

    But you just sit back there and watch sonny boy, Sidney Lowe is about to provide an old school lesson in what this place should have always been and REALLY IS all about. From now on the kids who put their faith in the Head Coach at NC State University are going to be estatic to be playing in a Wolfpack uniform, they’ll live to play UNC and Duke, and they’ll love their coach for bringing it all back together again.

  21. packgrad93 10/29/2007 at 10:13 AM #

    “He couldn’t and didn’t capitalize on the name NC State, or the ACC, but the fact that he didn’t try to capitalize FOR the sake of the kids that he had under his wing”

    false

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