04/02: Kentucky gives John Calipari a lifetime contract; Tom Izzo says he needs to win another title; top Final Four storylines

Eye On College Basketball

CBS Sports

Sports, Basketball

4.6 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2019

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Don't worry, we've got some Final Four chatter for you on this pod, but the episode starts with the biggest college hoops news of the past 24 hours: Kentucky and John Calipari have agreed to a lifetime deal for the coach, meaning he'll be there for essentially as long as he wants as coach -- and then will be an advisor/emeritus whenever he decides to retire. This is all in the wake of UCLA pursuing/botching its courting of Cal to Westwood. Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander open with thoughts on that, thoughts on what UCLA was doing -- or not -- and recap Cal's first decade with UK. From there, they talk Tom Izzo and Michigan State (23:00) and whether a second title is needed to validate his Hall of Fame career. The guys then run the gamut on Final Four storylines (30:00), including which is the best, and close with Norlander giving honor to the great Rick Byrd (36:00), who retired this week after winning more than 800 games.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, it's Gary Perish. It's Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019. Welcome back to the Ion College
0:16.6	basketball podcast where we sometimes discuss, gamble fighting and leaky black mat in Orlando
0:21.7	is here with me. And I want to start with the biggest college basketball story of the
0:25.0	past 48 hours. And that's John Calipari's lifetime contract with Kentucky. It was announced
0:30.3	Monday, just a few hours after our friend, Seth Davis, CBS Sports and the athletic reported
0:35.7	that UCLA offered Calipari a six year, 48 million dollar contract. And let's just stop
0:41.4	right here for a minute and laugh about how hilarious it is that UCLA tried to lure John
0:46.0	Calipari reportedly by offering him a pay cut. He makes 9.3 million dollars per season
0:52.9	at Kentucky and UCLA offered him 8 million dollars per year to take an inferior job in a
0:58.7	market with a drastically higher cost of living. I mean, I know there are smart people running
1:04.4	this thing. I think there are smart people running this thing. But offering John Calipari
1:08.7	a pay cut is about the dumbest thing I can imagine. What is UCLA doing, go on, Andrew?
1:14.7	Don't you know what? I don't quite get it. I do. I want to believe that the powers that
1:20.2	be at UCLA are smart enough to realize where the job stands and the greater landscape of
1:26.2	college basketball at this point. I don't think it's a top 10 job. I do think it's a top 20
1:30.9	job. And it's a top 10 all time program. If you're a UCLA fan that wants to say we're
1:34.5	a top five all time program, I think the legacy of John Wooden and the titles and all that
1:39.0	stuff. I think you still might have a case and UCLA still is a blue blood. It's one of
1:42.4	the six, you know, traditional blue bloods, you know, one of the six big houses, if you
1:46.9	will, in college basketball Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, Carolina, UCLA, Indiana. I'd say those
1:52.1	are the six. And then you've got other programs that are really knocking on the door of that
1:57.0	and have a valid case. One of them is playing in the final four. Michigan State, no doubt about
	...

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