Kentucky Sports Radio
[Moderated by Matt Jones, Drew Franklin and Tyler Thompson]
[Moderated by Matt Jones, Drew Franklin and Tyler Thompson]
In today’s installment of “How the Schedule Turns,” John Calipari spoke to ESPN’s Andy Katz and pitched his latest idea about beefing up the nonconference slate:
3. The latest scheduling gimmick John Calipari threw at me was to get what he perceived as the top Kentucky nonconference opponents — Indiana, North Carolina, Kansas and Louisville — to agree to a scheduling rotation in which each team would play two home and two road games against the group each season so that all four teams were on each team’s schedule. It sounds great, but it would be almost impossible to pull off with those other schools having other high-profile commitments with tournaments, neutral-site agreements and conference-mandated challenge games. UK is playing only Louisville on that list of teams next season.
First of all: Indiana, North Carolina, Kansas, and Louisville every year?! Wow. Secondly: notice Cal said two home and two road games, not neutral sites. After criticism over next season’s weak nonconference schedule, is this Cal’s way of fighting back?
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July 30th, 2012 at 9:11 am
Now that we got by that date with a loaded Hooiser team this year, it’s time to add them back to the schedule? Kinda makes things look even more obvious than they were. I’m glad we’re not playing them, but I think we should give the whole series a rest for a bit…
July 30th, 2012 at 9:11 am
CAL’S SKEERED
July 30th, 2012 at 9:25 am
Hold up, I thought Cal was against the home-and-home series? Why the sudden change of tone?
July 30th, 2012 at 9:26 am
Looks to any objective observer that it was IU who was afraid to play us on a neutral court. Crean says it “owes it to the students” to let them see the Hoosiers “play Kentucky at Bloomington”? How flimsy and fake an excuse can you get? That’s just totally lame and unbelievable. Crean knows he can’t beat Kentucky without “home cooking”, and he basically admitted to it by his actions.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:27 am
Oh, and Duke should be in the pool as well.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:30 am
Well, this schedule does look like a preseason tuneukp package except for Louisville and DUKE. The home schedule cannot be called anything other than what it is ‘lame’.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:32 am
I mean, technically there is still a “Home” and “Away” team even in neutral site games, right? So a neutral set up with Indiana could still technically fit Cal’s idea. He’s crafty, this one.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:38 am
No change of tone. Seems to me that Cal has been changing the schedule around to make money for the university. Yeah we would’ve played IU at home this year, but we also would’ve played at UNC and at Louisville. So his new proposal would give us another home game – in this case Kansas – which would make more cash for UK. He’s smart, not cowardly.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:40 am
Seems Cal is finally realizing what we’ve all been saying this entire time… We are UK and need to embrace our history and tradition of playing other historic rivals.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:41 am
and yes, I know the Cats will sell out at home no matter who we play. But what better way to even out 2 hyped road games than with 2 hyped home games.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:51 am
Cal is calling IU bluff. He knows Crean would never schedule the power house teams we have to play every season. They were scared to take on the dirty birds. No way he would add UNC and Kansas to that…
July 30th, 2012 at 9:53 am
As bad as I hate to admit it, Louisville is going to be a better team than IU this season. IU will have a solid squad but has some real question marks on the defensive end that will bite them come tournament time.
July 30th, 2012 at 9:59 am
No way in hades does Louisville agree to play 1 of IU/UNC/KU let alone all 3. They still act like the Big East in basketball is the equivalent of the SEC in football.
July 30th, 2012 at 10:20 am
I was just kidding in my first post. I was saying something corny just to be the first poster. Also, I have a terrible hangover.
July 30th, 2012 at 10:21 am
It would be interesting to see which programs actually have the balls to agree to this idea.
July 30th, 2012 at 10:55 am
We’re National Champs Trolls. So STFU and kiss Cal’s ring.
July 30th, 2012 at 11:38 am
I think his point is that if everyone else is willing to play four traditional home-and-home games then we will too, but if not, neither will we. He’s stated that before. I like it but the other schools won’t go for it but of course the haters think Kentucky should do it anyway w/o the others agreeing to it.
July 30th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
You didnt win squat bluey so eat a thick one.
July 30th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Easy for cal to put something out there that he knows won’t ever happen.
July 31st, 2012 at 12:28 am
Cal is just trying to make up for the indiana debacle. He knows he screwed up when he ended our best rivalry game. He also knows that you can!t get all these teams to agree to this. It is a way of trying to make him look good by telling the fans that he tried to schedule iu thru this ridiculous set up.