Citizen Staff Writer
Wildcat blog
The dominos will start to fall soon.
First, there was John Calipari, who reportedly has agreed to take the Kentucky basketball coaching job. He couldn’t pass up the reported $35 million for eight years. And does the number of years really matter? It’s $35 million.
Now Memphis will have to make a decision on a new coach, which could affect Arizona’s search.
Some people might question why it has taken the Wildcats so long to name a coach for a vacancy that opened in late October. It’s because of protocol. The Wildcats had to wait until the end of the season. Good coaches don’t commit in midseason.
One of the knocks on Calipari is that he’s always looking for the next job. Well, Kentucky is a big job. How many are bigger? North Carolina. Kansas. I’ll stop there.
Arizona? In a story on Monday, the Sporting News ranked UA 12th in terms of the top jobs, open or not.
That’s no typo. No. 12. And to those UA fans who think it’s No. 1, good luck. Reality doesn’t come any easier to explain.
No matter who Arizona hires – Gonzaga’s Mark Few or UNLV’s Lon Kruger could be candidates – the new coach will have plenty of work to do to rebuild a UA program that likely will lose Chase Budinger and Jordan Hill, and possibly Nic Wise, to the NBA draft.