Kentucky head coach John Calipari has a radical idea that involves moving the SEC Basketball Tournament to the start of the season.
Since taking over as head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats before the 2009-10 season, John Calipari has certainly been one of the most polarizing figures in the SEC.
Those in Big Blue Nation (for the most part) love what he has done, while fans and some coaches of the other 13 schools have anger with everything Coach Cal says and does.
Those fans are certainly going to be up in arms over Calipari’s latest idea, which involved moving the SEC Tournament traditionally played at the end of the season before the NCAA Tournament to a … well, an interesting spot on the schedule, according to ESPN.com:
"I’m not a big proponent of the league tournament.Let’s not have a postseason tournament. Let’s have a preseason tournament where you’re guaranteed three games. We go somewhere and all the fans come in and we celebrate our league. We’ll have great games to start the year, and we’ll do it prior to the year."
Now, some of John Calipari’s anger toward the postseason tournament might have to do with him still being salty over what took place last year. Kentucky defeated Texas A&M for the league crown, but the Aggies still were a number three seed while the Wildcats were seeded fourth in their region.
If Calipari wants more quality games at the start of the year, why doesn’t Kentucky schedule better games? True, this past season they did play Duke early on and faced decent teams like Louisville and UCLA, but there is plenty of room if you kick off such powerhouses as Illinois State, Boston University and the always dangerous New Jersey Institute of Technology.
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