John Calipari reflects on how SEC Basketball has changed

There’s no question that SEC Basketball has taken a big step forward during John Calipari’s tenure at Kentucky. Even though the league as a whole isn’t quite living up to preseason expectations, eight SEC teams are currently projected to make the NCAA Tournament, which would tie the record. Add in the fact that Oklahoma and Texas, schools with strong basketball programs, are officially joining the conference this year and SEC Basketball continues to trend up.

On Tuesday night, Calipari reflected on how much the league has changed since he took the job at Kentucky in 2009. To him, the catalyst was the deal former SEC Commissioner Mike Slive struck with ESPN in 2013, which created the SEC Network and therefore exposure and led to millions in revenue for the league’s schools, which allowed them to invest in basketball.

“Mike Slive got that TV deal done,” Calipari said. “Now, you had a choice of where you put all that money. Put it into one sport or you could say, basketball needed it, and many of the schools said ‘We’re investing in basketball. We’re investing in baseball, we’re doing this, we’re going to upgrade football stuff.’ And now, all of a sudden, they got unbelievable facilities, they got the top coaches in the country, they’re able to go recruit.”

“Everyone in our league is in a private plane”

A good example of that is on the tarmac. Calipari recalled how few coaches would fly privately before the SEC’s deal with ESPN. It’s something he and Mike Krzyzewski discussed on Coach K’s podcast, which was taped earlier this week and should be released soon.

“I was on with Mike Krzyzewski and he said, in 2013, we would go to Augusta [GA for the Peach Jam] and he would be in a private plane and I would be in a private plane — matter of fact, Joe Craft’s plane, right? There would be two of us.

“Do you know how many planes are private there [now]? Everyone in our league is in a private plane moving around. To recruit, you can’t — if you think you are going to fly commercial during the year and do this job and recruit and then stay overnight and get a 5 o’clock flight back, you better be 30 years old.”

Subscribe to the KSR YouTube Channel for press conferences, interviews, original shows, fan features, and exclusive content.

Twelve teams in the SEC rank in the KenPom Top 100, six in the Top 50. Seven of Kentucky’s remaining games this season are in Quad 1, giving the Cats ample opportunity to improve their NCAA Tournament resume. That’s remarkable considering we’re not that far removed from a time when a loss to a bad SEC team could cost you on Selection Sunday.

“It is like the cool place to play now,” Calipari said of the SEC. “This is a hard league now. The bad news is, it’s hard to run the table or do anything like that anymore.

“But the other side of it is, I can remember Frank Martin apologizing to people in the room that he beat because ‘I ruined your season because we aren’t very good and we just beat you and knocked you out of the NCAA Tournament.’ That doesn’t happen now.”

I’d pull a Brett McMurphy and make a joke about Vanderbilt, the worst team in the league, but the Commodores have won two straight vs. Kentucky so I’ll refrain.

Got thoughts? Continue the conversation on KSBoard, the KSR Message Board. New members can try 1 month for $1.