SMU fired Rob Lanier, and butterfly effects being what they are, it led to John Calipari leaving Kentucky for Arkansas.
This means the best, and worst, job in college basketball is open.
There are any number of top jobs for which Virginia coach Tony Bennett would be a natural add to the lists of potential candidates that sportswriters compile.
Kentucky ain’t one of them.
UK, coming off 15 years of Cal, and more than a decade of his parade of one-and-dones, isn’t going to hitch its wagon to a coach with a system that needs time for players to get acclimated to what he wants them to do.
Time is a luxury that Kentucky coaches don’t have.
For all we know, the ink isn’t even on the contract for Calipari that would bind him to Arkansas, and it’s already taking too long for UK fans to find their next guy, as far as Big Blue Nation is concerned.
They want Billy Donovan to return from the NBA, Jay Wright to return from the broadcast booth, Adolf Rupp to return from the dead.
The caveat to this analysis is, the butterfly effect could end up creating another opening at a school, say, Marquette, if UK gets down to Shaka Smart on its call list, that could be attractive to Bennett.
Actually, now that I’ve written that …
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Chris Graham
