Calipari

Tommy Amaker was about to shake hands with Eddie Sutton before their teams were to play in last season's NCAA tournament when the young Seton Hall coach was asked a question by his grizzled counterpart from Oklahoma State. "Did you know I've been coaching longer than you've been alive?" Sutton asked Amaker. Amaker, then three months shy of his 35th birthday, figured that Sutton, 64, was attempting to employ a little gamesmanship that he had learned during his nearly three-decade career.

PHILADELPHIA -- Kentucky needed something to get its second wind, to hold off an oncoming express train in ugly red uniforms. The Wildcats had watched their early 21-point lead evaporate, and Massachusetts was charging hard, trailing by two with a little less than six minutes left.That's when Lennie Wirtz, who was officiating basketball games before John Calipari was born, stepped in and stopped the Minutemen cold. He called a controversial technical against the Massachusetts coach, and Kentucky was able to breathe again.

Kentucky coach John Calipari doesn't agree with Bobby Knight that college basketball lacks integrity or that he is proof there is a problem. Calipari refused to get into a war of words Friday when asked about the pointed criticism from Knight that Calipari's continued employment proves the game has a problem. Instead, Calipari said he remains a "big fan" of the former Texas Tech and Indiana head coach. "I don't agree with what he says, but it doesn't change how I feel about him," Calipari said.

Kentucky center DeMarcus Cousins saw Rider's Brandon Penn pull up from well behind the 3-point line and stretched every last inch of his 6-foot-11 frame in an effort to get a hand on the ball. Guarding an opponent 22 feet from the basket isn't something Cousins does often. And he plowed into Penn as the ball clanged off the rim, but Cousins' effort was perhaps the surest sign that Kentucky coach John Calipari's message to his team that it needed to get serious about defense had come through loud and clear.

Among those in attendance for host Walbrook's 73-66 win over D.C.-based Cesar Chavez, Friday night was Memphis coach John Calipari, who watched the Warriors' Roscoe Smith score 35 points, grab 11 rebounds, block eight shots and dish out three assists. Smith is one of the most highly touted juniors in the nation, and he's drawn interest from most of the major college programs. Calipari was in the area because his Tigers were playing at Georgetown on Saturday afternoon. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.

Say what you will about John Calipari. Call him a sleaze-bag (he's been called worse) for his recruiting methods. Rip him for the vacated seasons and Final Four appearances at Massachusetts and Memphis when players and agents did questionable things on his watch. Mock him for how oily and unctuous he can sound in interviews.  But the man can coach. Anyone who watched Kentucky win its eighth national title last night -- 67-59 over Kansas -- and anyone who watched the Wildcats dismantle opponents all season long knows that.

The sniping between Kentucky's John Calipari and Louisville's Rick Pitino has been put on hold this week, much to the disappointment of the fan bases of their respective teams and the media assembled for the Final Four in New Orleans. It picked up in October, when Calipari talked about Kentucky's stature in college basketball. “It's a unique thing,” Calipari said at the time. “There's no other state, none, that's as connected to their basketball program as this one. Michigan has Michigan State, California has UCLA, North Carolina has Duke.

Maryland confirmed it will play Kentucky next season at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. The arena, scheduled to open in September 2012, is to be the home of the NBA's Nets. The Terps-Wildcats game on Nov. 9 will be among the first college basketball games at the venue. The Terps will be bolstered by a 2012 recruiting class ranked by many in the top 25. The game will be a reunion of sorts for Maryland coach Mark Turgeon and Kentucky coach John Calipari.

The University of Memphis gave Kentucky permission Monday to speak to John Calipari about the Wildcats' head coaching position, then made a final push to try to keep the coach. Some of Memphis' key boosters met with Calipari on Monday. One booster expects Calipari to go to Kentucky, though the person, speaking to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged the coach was torn between the two great opportunities. The Wildcats had a short meeting at their practice gym Monday afternoon.

SAN ANTONIO -- Because college basketball is a more fertile breeding ground for misperceptions and easy stereotypes than most sports, it might come as a mild surprise that Memphis' John Calipari and Kansas' Bill Self share a piece of their coaching background. Calipari's first college coaching job was as a volunteer assistant at Kansas. So was Self's. They missed each other by a year - Calipari left in 1985, just when Self was arriving - and both paid their dues in unglamorous ways. Calipari worked the training table: " `Would you like peas or corn?