Aren’t We Overrating John Calipari a Little? Or a Lot?

ESPN’s Jay Bilas came out with his mid-season college basketball All America team this week, along with awards for best interior and perimeter defenders, coach and most improved player.  Before I go any further, I must admit that I think Bilas covers college basketball better than any other person covers their sport.  With that said, here is what Bilas had to say about his mid-season coach of the year:

Best Coach of the Midseason: John Calipari, Kentucky. The job that Calipari has done in Lexington is nothing short of remarkable. To have the Wildcats, a team so young it should be referred to as Kittens, still unbeaten is an amazing job. Kentucky is getting better and better, and with the talent assembled by Calipari, there is little reason to believe that the Cats will not be playing in the NCAA tournament’s second weekend or beyond.

Kentucky is currently undefeated at 17-0 and has been rewarded with the #2 ranking in all of college basketball in both the ESPN Coaches and Associated Press polls.  It also has the absolute best player in college basketball, John Wall, who will most likely win the Naismith Award this season as the player of the year, followed shortly by being the #1 pick in the NBA Draft.  In addition, Calipari brought DeMarcus Cousins with him to Kentucky, who was only rated as the #1 big man (and Top-5 overall) coming into college this season.  Meeting Wall and Cousins on campus was power forward Patrick Patterson, who averaged 17.9 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game last season as a sophomore.  Patterson’s stats are slightly down this season, with 16.6 points and 8.1 rebounds per game.

Now with these three players on the same team, any coach should be able to cruise to most victories.  However, Kentucky has struggled in a number of games that it should have won easily, beating Miami (OH) by two and Sam Houston State by ten at home (Kentucky gave up 92 points in the latter game).  Kentucky’s two signature wins, a 68-66 home win against then-#11 North Carolina and a 64-61 win against then-#12 UConn at Madison Square Garden, looked good when they happened, but both teams have recently shown that they may have been a bit overrated to start the year.  North Carolina has since lost to Texas, the College of Charleston and Clemson (by 29), whereas UConn has since lost to Cincinnati, Georgetown and Pittsburgh.

I am hardly arguing that Kentucky is overrated this year or that they haven’t beaten anyone of real substance (I save that argument for Syracuse), but to name John Calipari the mid-season coach of the year after leading the most talented team in the country to a 17-0 start, I think is a bit too much.

Who should be the real mid-season coach of the year?  Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon, who has the Panthers tied for first place in the best conference in college basketball and a 14-2 record overall after losing DeJuan Blair, Sam Young and Levance Fields after the team’s Elite Eight season a year ago.

How did that run end again?  Oh yeah…