tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1836164121345959749.post346750214077354939..comments2024-03-21T16:21:33.790-06:00Comments on Drive and Dish: Bennett to Virginia; Calipari to Kentucky: Done Deal?S.K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/15820860177527096826noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1836164121345959749.post-31080879854399744572009-04-01T19:02:00.000-06:002009-04-01T19:02:00.000-06:00Frank, I think Tony Bennett is a good hire for Vir...Frank, <BR/><BR/>I think Tony Bennett is a good hire for Virginia. He's a good, rising talent in the coaching biz. Hopefully, things will work out for him in Charlottesville. It will be interesting to see what kind of system he runs/how his teams play in the ACC. With this hiring, it appears that U.Va harbors no illusions of grandeur, or grand plans to challenge Duke & North Carolina for supremacy in the ACC.<BR/><BR/>Virginia has signaled that they hope to build a respectable program that's consistently competitive (i.e., regularly finishes in top half of the ACC/makes the NCAA Tournament), but also that they realize that they'll never out-recruit North Carolina, Duke or Georgetown (or even Wake Forest or Maryland, for that matter). <BR/><BR/>At Washington State, the Bennetts had some great guards. It's not hard to find good guard prospects in Virginia and the Mid Atlantic. They're everywhere. It will be harder to recruit good big men to U.Va, but the Bennetts have won a lot of games with great guards and competent, role-playing big men.<BR/><BR/>I like the hire. <BR/><BR/>As for Kentucky, John Calipari will bring World Wide Wes to Lexington, the recruits will follow (& leave after their obligatory year in college), and UK will return to the forefront of college basketball. Kentucky will be shady, but they'll win. <BR/><BR/>But at least UK isn't pretending to that they plan to uphold some kind of honorable, warrior culture of the "student athlete." Kentucky is pretty blatant about winning at all costs ... as they always have been. During a practice back in the 1930's, Adolph Rupp once famously complained to a player who missed an easy shot, "for what we're paying you, you better make that shot next time" (I'm paraphrasing, of course).S.K.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15820860177527096826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1836164121345959749.post-18686994706590079302009-03-31T08:07:00.000-06:002009-03-31T08:07:00.000-06:00At this point, I don't see how Calipari doesn't to...At this point, I don't see how Calipari doesn't to to UK. A lot of Memphis fans are saying the exact same things that a lot of Illini fans (including me) said when Bill Self was being wooed by Kansas a few years ago: he wouldn't leave such a talented team, he's able to recruit the top players in the country already so why would he leave, the fans aren't quite as insane (although that's debatable), etc. We all know what happened, though (and Illinois at least had the bargaining chip of being in the revenue and exposure-rich Big Ten along with a great recruiting location on paper as opposed to the purgatory of C-USA). The bottom line, though, is if one of the "elite of the elite" jobs opens up (which I would consider to be Kentucky, Kansas, UNC, Duke, UCLA, and maybe Indiana), a coach is almost 99% sure to take it if he's offered that job (with the 1% exception being guys like Tom Izzo and Billy Donovan that have so much entrenched success at their respective schools that they'd be crazy to leave what are virtual lifetime jobs where they have been able to reach the pinnacle on multiple occasions, which is why I laugh every time that I see those names get thrown around when a job opens up).<BR/><BR/>On your other point, the Tony Bennett move to UVA seems to be a good fit, but you're right to also mention that the school has a habit of chewing up young up-and-coming coaches at a rapid rate. I feel as though UVA basketball is a lot like how I feel about Illinois football - every advantage in terms of facilities and recruiting would seem to be in place to drive success, yet those programs are perpetually mired in mediocrity (with a great season every once in awhile that gets the fans' hopes up again). One would think that getting top level players to Charlottesville (one of the most spectacular college towns on the country) would be easier than drawing kids to Pullman, so Bennett now has that going for him, yet it may be a open question as to whether the Bennett-style of basketball will translate well to the ACC where the pace is dictated by UNC and Duke.<BR/><BR/>I also forgot that Bennett turned down the Indiana job, which I referred to earlier as one of those "elite of the elite" jobs and certainly higher on the prestige scale then the UVA job. I'd like to pick his brain as to why he would turn down one of the most prominent positions in college basketball (even with all of the wreckage left by Satan's Spawn, er, Kelvin Sampson) but then go to what would best be considered a historically underachieving program a year later.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com