Matt Jones outlines booster dichotomy within UK Athletics

John Calipari lost nine players since Kentucky Basketball‘s season ended in the NCAA’s second round back in March, and he has yet to add a new one in that span. As it stands now, Calipari can count on the five freshmen he signed out of high school and the two seldom-used sophomores who came back. Beyond them, every other scholarship player on the roster left Kentucky for other opportunities in basketball, leaving Calipari to scramble for pieces in the final hours.

The current situation might be easier to navigate if Calipari hadn’t lost some of Kentucky’s biggest boosters, too. Today, KSR host Matt Jones expressed his frustrations with Calipari’s booster problem during his morning monologue about the current state of Calipari’s program. Among the many issues Jones named around the Wildcats, he said, “I could do an hourlong podcast on the booster situation at UK.”

Considering that an hour-long booster podcast is unlikely anytime soon, Jones’ Thursday morning explanation will suffice for now.

He began by explaining how, since Mitch Barnhart became athletics director in Lexington, the boosters’ grip on UK Athletics loosened.

“Boosters have less impact at Kentucky than, probably, almost any other school in the SEC,” said Jones. “I actually think that’s good, by the way. I think a lot of these colleges, especially football schools, are completely run by their boosters and it makes it a circus. Mitch Barnhart long ago basically said that’s not how it’s gonna be and I think he deserves credit for that to be honest.”

However, according to Jones, Calipari lost touch with the few boosters who still funded UK Athletics, resulting in a shift of funds from basketball to football, where Mark Stoops’ program successfully filled positions of need in the transfer portal with the help of collectives and boosters.

Jones explained, “What happened is, Cal, when he got here, he cultivated relationships with about two or three major boosters, and you can guess who they are or were. And he had a great relationship with them. And he really didn’t cultivate many more but those, but it was okay because we won and when you’re winning, people want to be a part of it whether you talk to them or not. Winning cures everything.

“Mark Stoops came to town, knew the program was kind of in shambles, and said, ‘I’m gonna build up personal relationships with boosters.’ And he probably has 20 to 25 people that he is close to. And when they need something, they contact those people and that happens.”

“Now there’s nobody.”

For various reasons Jones couldn’t disclose, Calipari’s personal relationships with the “two or three major boosters” are strained.

“And now there’s nobody,” he said. “So now you’re looking around going, where’s the help? And when you only had two or three, if that has gone away, where do you go?

“These same boosters have said for 10 years, Mark Stoops and Vince Marrow and these guys have been our friends, have come to our weddings, have done all this stuff. I only have so much money. I’m putting it there. So why is it Kentucky is killing the football portal and doing nothing in the basketball portal? It’s that, to be quite frank with you, the football collectives are funded and the basketball collectives don’t even exist. And if they do, Cal’s not participating.

“Now, you can ignore that if you want, but that’s a fact.”

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