John Calipari receives key to Ashland, Kentucky

Basketball is everything to those in the commonwealth. That’s why John Calipari is as big as he is overall in the bluegrass as the head coach at the University of Kentucky.

Now, after making a trip yesterday, one city in the state has given Calipari quite the honor. Following a visit to Ashland, Kentucky, a town that’s about 120 miles east of Lexington, to start this week, the mayor, Matt Perkins, bestowed the key of the city to Calipari.

During the time Calipari spent in Ashland on Monday, he spoke with the Appalachian Regional Commission, an important government project in that region of the state, along with Governor Andy Beshear.

Calipari also managed to squeeze in a visit to the home of Bob Marcum, the athletic director at UMass for the majority of the eight seasons with the Minutemen that started his coaching career.

There are few more prominent figures in the state, if any, than John Calipari. That’s why, considering his work in Kentucky off of the court as well, he earned this pretty neat honor from Perkins and the people of Ashland yesterday.

Calipari dishes on what Kentucky needs to return to the Final Four

The past few seasons haven’t been as kind to John Calipari as his first few campaigns at Kentucky were. The Wildcats will enter the upcoming season on an eight-year streak of not reaching the Final Four, the stage that is the expectation in Lexington, as well as a four-year streak of either not making the NCAA Tournament or failing to make it out of the opening weekend in March.

As head coach of one of college basketball’s premier programs, it’s now on Calipari to correct that. He’s well aware of what it’s going to take too based on what he said during an appearance on SportsCenter.

“Our league is way better so we’re going to be prepared to go into March. You’ve got to be healthy. Again, the talent where you have a couple guys who can just take over a game? Where you have great rim protection? Those have been my Final Four teams,” explained Calipari. “I’m looking at this group and our whole thing is let’s just get better every day.”

Thankfully for Calipari, he already has an idea about his team’s capability of accomplishing that goal. That’s because he has already seen them play after their games in the GLOBL Jam back in July. Now, from here, he wants that performance in Toronto to become the base that they’ll build on.

“We showed this summer what we can do. Now it’s let’s get stronger, let’s get more consistent shooting the ball, skill-wise,” Calipari said. “Young players are not sturdy enough to be real consistent. So that’s why the summer is really important and when they return to campus in the fall.”

“This is a good group that way. I mean they love being in the gym,” added Calipari. “I go in my office and I’ll look out and there’s four guys in there playing. They play a lot of pickup, which is really important too.”

It’s part of the job description for the head coach in the bluegrass to have Kentucky in contention. Calipari knows just how to get the Wildcats back in the race, though, especially considering the roster that he thinks he’ll have in ’22-’23.

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