Winning isn't everything... or is it

On Tuesday the University of Kentucky made an investment that may change their program around. By signing John Calipari the University of Kentucky made a statement. They said "We are not going to sit around and let our program go down the tubes". After winning the National Championship in 1998, the wildcats have not made the Final Four since and have missed the tournament all together this year for the first time in 18 years. John Calipari on the other hand has been in the Final Four as recently as last season, building up the Memphis Basketball program. Over the next 8 years John Calipari will be returning Kentucky back to where the program used to be. In case you were wondering the program has 7 NCAA titles second most in the history of the NCAA behind UCLA. 

As you can imagine the program will need an overhaul. However John Calipari has no intention of making this a gradual process. He has come out and said that he will meet with every player individually to assess their worth to the team.  This does not mean that the players will be evaluated to see how they play together. No. What he means by this is that those players he deems "good enough" will remain with the team and those who he deems not "good enough" will  no longer be with the program. Weeding out the weak players will most likely prove to be an effective strategy for rebuilding the program. However this process is not very fair to current players. Essentially what Calipari is saying is that those players who are just happy to be playing for Kentucky may not be playing with Kentucky anymore. For these players who have no NBA aspirations a coaching change may prematurely end their basketball careers. Put yourself in their shoes. The player doesn't get closure on their season with the last game. No time to say goodbye to their school in their last home game. These players may have to end their basketball unceremoniously in a meeting with the coach who had no affiliation to the program, player, or even the state. 

Calipari has not made any official decisions yet on the players. He may even keep all the players on the current roster. Although given the way in which he was talking about the team in his press conference it seems he will be making a splash in the coming offseason. Lets all hope Calipari does this the right way, through recruiting and being a solid coach which we all know he is capable of doing.