If you want to find relative calm in college basketball, late June is the time to find it.
The portal is closed, Peach Jam doesn’t kick off for a few more days, if the IARP deigns to hand out any sort of punishments they’ve probably already done so and aside from a quickie scandal, coaching staffs are locked up and so are rosters. I’m as jazzed to see Rocco Miller’s latest non-conference schedule scoop as the next addict (shoutout Tulane hosting Northwestern State on November 9), but right now shit’s good and no one should worry about anything through the holiday weekend.
Naturally, it is time to consider which coaches might lose their jobs this year.
Now—some coaches are perpetually a three-game losing streak and a poorly-thought out Tweet from getting their walking papers. Some have shown the ability to flout NCAA rules and not have it affect them, their program or their status as university titan too terribly much; others do not have such comforts in their HR profiles. Some have been torpedoed by lackadaisical recruiting, while others have developed poorly once they’ve attracted top talent. Some are basking in the warm adulation of recent successes or even more recent hirings; they don’t much factor into this discussion (except for one guy, who we’ll get to later) and, frankly, neither do the guys who tiptoe through the torpedoes with no trouble; Bill Self ain’t going anywhere. But some of these guys are.
Did we do these in stages in which relationships crumble? Dear reader, of course we did. Because we care.
Please Break Up: John Calipari (Kentucky)
I’m already on wax about this; the marriage between Cal and Kentucky is reaching “sleeping in separate rooms but telling the kids it’s just because we like our space” portion of the event.