NCAA Tournament presents Pittsburgh homecoming for Kentucky’s John Calipari, 2 players
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Results for the past three years have been substandard for John Calipari and the Kentucky basketball team.
The NCAA’s winningest men’s basketball program of all-time, Kentucky has been in a funk since going 9-16 during the covid-impacted 2020-21 campaign.
But the Wildcats will look to get back to the elite level of postseason success that has defined Calipari’s career starting Thursday in the NCAA Tournament, and they’ll do so in familiar territory for the Moon Township native and Clarion graduate.
No. 3 Kentucky (23-9) will play No. 14 Oakland (23-11) at 7:10 p.m. Thursday at PPG Paints Arena in a South Region Round of 64 matchup.
Sentimentality doesn’t seem likely to distract Calipari from the task at hand.
“I’ll lock into that game – obviously we’ve got to do work now before we go up there,” he told reporters after the Selection Sunday program. “But my high school coach, my college coach, friends that I grew up with, I mean, they know I’m on a business trip. It’s not for funsies.
“Most of my close relatives are not there anymore, so I’ve got some cousins and an aunt, maybe, or two, but that’s about it.”
The 65-year-old Calipari, at the helm in Kentucky since 2009, graduated from Moon in 1978.
After a season at UNC-Wilmington, Calipari transferred and played the next two years at Clarion.
An early stop in Calipari’s coaching career was Pitt, where he was an assistant from 1985-88 under Roy Chipman and Paul Evans.
That would lead into his first head coaching gig at UMass, with Calipari then taking over at Memphis in 2000 before his hiring at Kentucky ahead of the 2009-10 campaign.
While taking into account the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament because of covid-19, Calipari and Kentucky haven’t advanced past the opening weekend of March Madness since 2019.
Last year, the Wildcats were upset in the Round of 32 by 15th-seeded Kansas State. The previous season, No. 15 St. Peter’s defeated them in overtime in the first round.
Standing in the way this year is Oakland (23-11, 15-5 Horizon League), which won its league tournament and received an automatic bid. Kentucky never has never faced Oakland before but is 12-0 all-time against Horizon League foes.
If Kentucky wins, a Round of 32 game against the winner of No. 6 Texas Tech and No. 11 N.C. State would come next.
Calipari is also familiar with his opposing coach, Greg Kampe, now in his 40th year at Oakland.
“Greg Kampe and I are really good friends,” Calipari said. “We go way back. He’s not a good coach, he’s a great coach. He’s been doing it there for a long time.
“ … He’s good at what he does. He could be coaching anywhere. There are all these jobs open right now. I don’t know why someone wouldn’t say, ‘Let’s go get Greg Kampe.’”
The Wildcats are led by freshmen guards Reed Sheppard, the SEC Freshman of the Year honors, and Rob Dillingham, who was the conference’s Sixth Man of the Year.
Leading scorer Antonio Reeves (20.0 points per game) earned first-team All-SEC accolades, with Sheppard, Dillingham and fellow freshman D.J. Wagner earning second-team all-conference
Calipari won’t be alone in making a Pittsburgh homecoming.
Quaker Valley alum and former WPIAL standout Adou Thiero emerged as a starter for Kentucky as a sophomore, averaging 7.5 points and 5.2 rebounds.
Grad transfer Tre Mitchell (10.6 points, team-high 7.0 rebounds) has Pittsburgh connections, too, as he played his freshman and sophomore high school seasons at Elizabeth Forward. Before joining Kentucky, he played one season at West Virginia, one at Texas and his first two with UMass.
Calipari rejected feeling any pressure ahead of Thursday’s game.
“I think I got a good team,” he said. “But they’re going to have to go perform.”