Quote Originally Posted by elnutsmalljaws View Post
Has anyone considered that Calipari can sell Ice to an Eskimo? All I have heard is Calipari is a Cheat, Calipari broke out the checkbook, Calipari did this illegally and that illegally..... BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!! When somebody shows me where the NCAA implicated Calipari in any wrong doings then I will agree that he is a cheat. Climb a snow covered mountain and roll a snowball down the hill then see what happens at the bottom. If he has a big checkbook them all he has is checks because there is not enough money in the State of Kentucky to pay for next years class, not to mention still in the running for Wiggins. 8 - 30 win seasons, 3 time National Coach of the Year and with just as many titles to his name as Pitino plus guarandamtee will have more than Pitino when he retires.

As far as Cals coaching ability on the court, do you think Pitino could have gotten Davis and MKG to buy into getting the 4th and 5th most shots on the team ? Could Pitino have won the title last year ? Cal developed Teague over the season to lead the team as point guard to the title. Pitino doesn't have to worry about coaching all Freshman because he can't recruit good enough to get the best that leave after a year. It takes just as much talent to coach a new team into contenders as it does to develop players into contenders. Siva and Smith were NO WHERE NEAR ready or able to make the run Louisville has the last 2 years back when they were Freshman. Pitino had done a good job in developing them into the winners they are. That takes talent just as coaching Freshman and Sophomores to the title.

Until Calipari is IMPLICATED in a cheating scandal then he is clean. What happened to innocent until proven guilty?? But I guess that does not apply to The Kentucky Basketball Coach. If this is true, then Pitino was the absolute biggest cheat in the history of sports in 1996. That team was LOADED and he must have drained his bank account to pay them to come to Kentucky
I would disagree on player development. In fact, his "player development" is mostly myth. I can think of one player he actually made noticably better and that was Jorts. I can think of a few top ranked recruits he had at Memphis that never improved.

IMO this is where Pitino far outshines Cal. Has Cal ever taken an unranked player and turned him into a first round pick? Has Cal ever taken a two-star player and developed him into a potential first round pick? Has Cal ever taken someone who has only played basketball a short time and turned them into a first round pick? Pitino has done all of those, just while he was at U of L.

Has Cal ever taken a team with only one future NBA player to the Final Four? Pitino has done that twice.

When it comes to player development and coaching players up, I think Pitino wins hands down.