John Calipari makes bold claim with his resolution to fix the NCAA transfer portal

Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari met with media on the final day of June, marking his first press conference since the season-ending loss to Kansas State back in March in the round of 32. It’s been a whirlwind offseason since then that’s been packed with a roller coaster ride of storylines and he had a lot to unpack in his first media opportunity.

The transfer portal was, of course, a major point of discussion since Kentucky just landed their only transfer of the offseason in West Virginia’s Tre Mitchell, who is now at his fourth school in four years as he enters his fifth and final season of college ball. And while Calipari was thrilled to land Mitchell, he does see an issue with these extremely old multi-time transfers.

He said at Friday’s press conference that college hoops should go back to its model of allowing guys to participate in four seasons across five years, regardless of the circumstances. Here was that comment and explanation from Coach Cal:

John Calipari: "First thing we could solve is the transfer portal. Easily. It used to be you have five years to play four — go back to it. If you want to transfer one time, do it. … We got guys playing at 26 and 27. This is about safety of 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds."

— Jack Pilgrim (@JackPilgrimKSR) June 30, 2023

“First thing we could solve is the transfer portal,” says Calipari. “Easily. It used to be you have five years to play four — go back to it. If you want to transfer one time, do it. We got guys playing at 26 and 27. This is about safety of 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds.”

It’s true and you can thank COVID for that. Every active D1 player was given an extra year to play in addition to the four they already have. So now, every player who wants it can have a full five-year career. For those who had to previously sit out or miss a year or anything like that, they now can have six or even seven-year careers.

After that statement above, according to Jack Pilgrim, Cal cracked a joke about some of these ancient college hoops players still around thanks to COVID. “Calipari said there are players on their second marriage with kids still playing college basketball,” Jack tweeted.

It was a pretty lively press conference. At two different points, Calipari referenced his relationship with rap stars Drake and Lil Wayne. He claimed he had the keys to Drake’s house in Toronto and might give his team a tour. Who knows if that’s based in any truth, but you can’t rule out with Cal. Then, per Pilgrim, he quoted the following compliment from Lil Wayne:

“Lil Wayne said to me… I like how you just keep it in house, what you do. It’s like my lyric, ‘Real G’s move in silence like lasagna.'”

Welp, didn’t have Calipari slinging a verse from Tha Carter IV on my press conference bingo card. You?