USA Today should fire Dan Wolken

He is a poor journalist that has no idea about how to assess a college basketball coach. His articles are poorly done. As he said in his article today about John Calipari.

“It’s over.”

“It needs to be over.”

While I am sure he won’t, I wonder how he would feel if he read that first few paragraphs. Look – I really don’t want anyone fired. But I hate it when journalists in a sad attempt to build chatter say horrible things and then put it as an “opinion” piece. The worst part is that Wolken isn’t alone. I read similar pieces on ESPN and CBS Sports. I am just picking on Wolken since his was the one I read first (and quite honestly, some of his statements were more ridiculous than the other stories).

I understand that a school as storied as Kentucky losing to a 14 seed like Oakland gets people talking about all the things that the coach did wrong. And Calipari makes a ton of money – one site lists him as the second highest paid coach in college basketball only behind Bill Self. But calling for a Hall of Fame coach to be fired because they finished the season 12th in the polls and in 2nd in the SEC one game behind a team coached by someone who has won 800+ games is such a ridiculously high standard. 67 of the 68 teams are going to lose over the next 3 weeks – sure, you would prefer it not to happen to a 14 seed but it happens.

Here is one of the quotes that really pushed my buttons.

“It was a good run for Calipari at Kentucky. Not a great run, but a good one: 15 years, four Final Fours, one national title. Not bad. Also, not what was expected or what it should have been given the turnstile of five-star prospects he brought in and sent on to NBA stardom.”

4 Final Fours is not bad but not great. Here is the list of coaches who led a team to 4 Final Fours since 2009 – Jay Wright (Villanova). We can add Bill Self to the list if I can go back to 2008.

If we look at entire careers (and exclude Calipari), there are only 21 coaches who have gone to 4 Final Fours. Hell, there are only 27 schools that have made it to 4 Final Fours – so Calipari in 15 years has been to more Final Fours than 335 Division 1 schools over their entire history – but that is just good. We should expect more.

Well, it should have been better because of all the talent he had. There is one fatal flaw in this statement. This is making the assumption that talent is there because they wanted to play for Kentucky. That is horribly misconceived. That talent is there because Calipari recruited that talent. If Kentucky had a different coach over these 15 years, I guarantee you they would not have had the turnstile of 5-star recruits.

The following 6 schools have won the most national championships – UCLA (11), Kentucky (8), North Carolina (6), Connecticut (5), Duke (5), Indiana (5). So these 6 programs can be considered “storied’” programs that under this assumption should be a turn-style of talent.

Here are the recruiting class rankings according to 247 sports for Indiana and UCLA.

2023 – UCLA – 13, Indiana – 18 (Kentucky – 1)

2022 – Indiana – 10, UCLA – 13 (Kentucky – 5)

2021 – UCLA – 37, Indiana – 39 (Kentucky – 2)

2020 – Indiana – 15, UCLA – 52 (Kentucky – 1)

2019 – Indiana – 56, UCLA – 76 (Kentucky – 2)

2018 – UCLA – 6, Indiana – 10 (Kentucky – 2)

Indiana fired Tom Cream in 2017 and went to Archie Miller, who was fired in 2021 and Mike Woodson took over as the Hoosiers searched for the person who would bring them back to greatness.

UCLA fired Steve Alford in 2018 and moved on to Mick Cronin because Alford didn’t win enough for their storied program. There is probably some irony in the fact that Alford has led Nevada to the NCAA Tournament the last 2 years while UCLA is sitting at home with a 16-17 record.

Both Indiana and UCLA are great basketball schools – and they are still getting some talented players who want to be the next star on the list to lead the school to greatness. But neither of those schools are getting the recruits that Calipari is bringing in – there is a skill set needed to be a great recruiter, and that is one of Calipari’s greatest strengths.

If you fire Calipari, who are you going to get. Bill Self certainly isn’t leaving Kansas. Dan Hurley certainly isn’t leaving Connecticut. Ask Indiana how things went when you get the amazing up and coming guy like they did taking Archie Miller from Dayton. I don’t think Jay Wright is interested in coming out of retirement – but maybe.

You are not going to get a coach who is better than one of the coaches who sets the bar for how greatness is measured. Hall of Fame coaches are already happy and established at the program they have built – why would they leave what they have created where they are viewed as amazing so they can go to a school that just fired a similar caliber coach for getting upset in one game.

So you say – well it isn’t one, it is two – they lost to St Peter’s as well. Indiana has missed 4 tournaments and won 2 tournament games under their 2 last coaches. But you know what – if you want, go ahead and roll the dice – I am sure you will do better. After all, you are Kentucky (to be fair to Kentucky, I would be shocked if the Kentucky AD follows the advice of the media).

I don’t even like John Calipari – there is something that bothers me about him. Maybe it is the fact that both his Final Fours at other schools (Memphis and Massachusetts) had to be vacated due to NCAA sanctions. But there should be no journalist out there who knows anything about the game of basketball that should be making the ridiculous statement that Kentucky should fire him. That shows a lack of knowledge about the sport they are covering. And if the only way you can get people to click on your article is to request people lose their job, it seems fair to say the same about the journalists.

Wolken did provide a relevant quote from Calipari after the game that shows he can be a journalist. He also wrote an article today that I haven’t read yet about the SEC commissioner staying away from expanding the tournament – which was something I was eventually going to comment on. So maybe he is a better journalist than this one article suggests. But that is exactly the point – imagine getting fired for one mistake in a career filled of great moments – because that is exactly what Wolken said should happen.

Calipari said, “Our team shouldn’t be defined by that game, but it will be.” Even he understands that everyone, including obviously everyone in his locker room, are going to forget about all the great things they did and call this season and those players and coaches failures for losing to a 14 seed. It doesn’t matter that over 72 percent of the teams don’t even make the tournament. And that 50 percent of the remaining teams will lose in the first round.

Kentucky should not be defined by losing to a 14 and a 15 seed. It becomes such an amazing moment for those schools because they played against greatness and they won. It is one thing to criticize greatness for losing when it was unexpected, but to define them based on that diminishes what they accomplished and what the 14 and 15 seed accomplished.

It is great when Cinderella wins at the dance – allow that moment to simply be great.