Breaking down top candidates to replace John Calipari at Kentucky: Nate Oats, Billy Donovan, more

Now that John Calipari has left Kentucky, one of the premier jobs in college basketball is open. Naturally, in the early stages of the hiring process for Kentucky, there are more than a few candidates to take over for Calipari, including Nate Oats, Billy Donovan, and more.

With Kentucky saving money by not having to buy out Calipari to move on from him, the program has options, and while making an appearance on Andy Staples On3, James Fletcher broke down that list of candidates.

“It’s going to be interesting to see,” James Fletcher said. “They’re going to go big game hunting for sure. How extensive that list is because you don’t want what we were seeing early in the Arkansas search where fans start to get frustrated when one or two names doesn’t end up hitting that they hear right out of the gates.”

Fletcher pointed out that the list of candidates is likely going to start with Nate Oats at Alabama. This comes shortly after Oats signed an extension and took Alabama to its first ever Final Four in program history.

“So, how extensive they make this list will be interesting but Oats will certainly be on all the shortlists ahead of the search because you know they have that money to spend. You know that this is going to be a motivated fan base to rally together and find the next guy to move this program forward and Nate Oats has shown all the signs that he can be that guy. He’s done it in the conference. He’s done it in the way that they want to see the roster built. So, he is pretty much the perfect fit on paper,” Fletcher said.

“Now, it comes down to does he really want to leave Alabama. He does seem very comfortable there. Then, can they make the logistics work to make it worth his while? Those things are to be determined and like I said, there’s no guarantee that they end up going after him once they do their homework on those couple of base-level things.”

At this point, Andy Staples wondered about some of the coaches that Arkansas was interested in before hiring John Calipari. That includes Ole Miss coach Chris Beard.

“That will be interesting. I know there’s been some talk about that Chris Beard extension at Ole Miss. It seems like they added to that, potentially, to keep him at Ole Miss…what does that do to Kentucky’s ability to get in there with him? That is something that will be determined.”

However, one coach that Fletcher does believe is worth a look at for Kentucky and is worth being aware of is Scott Drew at Baylor.

“I think that early on, the one name that we’re going to see over and over is Scott Drew. There’s been connections in the past between him and Kentucky. The respect that he has for the program. The respect that program has for him. I think that’s a name that really stands out as the perfect kind of fit. What he’s been able to do recruiting five-stars and balancing that with veteran players at Baylor, you bring that to Kentucky, take it to another level of talent on both of those fronts and what he could accomplish, I think that’s one that really fits in there.”

Another interesting name is Billy Donovan. He’s currently the Chicago Bulls head coach, but things haven’t gone great there. However, he’s still a great, big-name coach at has won national championships coaching in the SEC.

“Then, the fun names that we’ve brought up in the past when we talked about potentially firing him, Billy Donovan. I mean this is the Kentucky job and if things with the Bulls aren’t looking up, what does he do if you give him a phone call?”

Another coach that Staples suggested was Bruce Pearl. He’s a candidate that Fletcher doesn’t think would leave for Kentucky. However, because of the stature of the Kentucky job, anything is possible.

“He’s very proud of what he’s built at Auburn, the community that he’s built around Auburn basketball. So, that would be a really tough sell. I’m not saying it’s impossible because, again, it’s the Kentucky job. We’re not gonna rule any of these candidates out. You can throw out any name and I’d have to consider it as long as they have the pedigree to earn a job like that,” Fletcher said.

“And that’s why I think that Dan Hurley, I’ll throw out another name…you can’t [leave UConn right now] on paper, but this is college basketball. You also can’t jump from Kentucky to Arkansas. You can’t do a lot of things that we’ve seen happen over the past couple of months in coaching searches across all sports.”