LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Leave it to John Calipari to eclipse an actual eclipse while getting the college basketball world to talk about something other than its championship game, which takes place on Monday night.
Coach Calipari is likely leaving Lexington after 410 wins over 15 seasons, four Final Four appearances, and a national championship (2012), trading Fayette County, it appears, for Fayetteville, Arkansas.
“I don’t think he feels as if he had the supports he hoped he had or felt that he had earned during his tenure here,” said Tod Lanter.
Lanter played three seasons for Coach Cal, reaching a Final Four in 2015. That team had a record of 38-0 before losing to Wisconsin in the national semifinals.
“He changed the trajectory of my life,” Lanter said in downtown Lexington across from Rupp Arena, where he appeared as a guest on multiple radio shows during the day.
Calipari did that for so many of the young men who came through this program, dating back to 2010, when he came here from Memphis, two years removed from a Final Four run with that program. Many of his players have become millionaires many times over on the NBA level, and others, like Lanter, are thriving in their post-basketball lives.
“I was looking at a Division II program, and he gave me this opportunity,” Lanter said while sharing that being a UK Wildcat was his boyhood dream. But Lanter no longer has to be a dreamer. He’s a realist and knows these things happen everywhere.
“Divorces happen every day. People change jobs every day,” he said. “I think this is something that’ll be good for both parties. Arkansas is getting a Hall of Fame coach.
Calipari was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015, the same year he won the Naismith Coach of the Year award. But that was also the last time he was able to coax a Final Four run out of one of his teams. In 2020-21, Kentucky missed the tournament. In the following three seasons, they failed to make it past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. You can’t do that here and expect the bloom to remain on the rose. Fans grew increasingly disenchanted with each early March loss, and many called for change.
They are on the verge of being granted a wish. But as is the case with anything you wish for, Lanter says, be careful.
“Coaching basketball is maybe fourth or fifth on the list of things you have to do in this position. Not only do you have to be able to recruit for next year’s team, but you have to recruit your guys to stay. You have to be able to handle the NIL stuff with contracts with 18-year-old kids. So all those things combined to change the landscape of college basketball,” Lanter said.
