Kentucky Head Coaching Search Begins

— Several reports indicate that John Calipari is heavily interested in the Arkansas Razorbacks' head coaching job.

How Did We Get Here?

When the Kentucky Wildcats lost to Oakland in the first round of this year’s tournament, the fans in Lexington were calling for John Calipari to be fired. The desire for Calipari’s firing stemmed from Kentucky’s sole tournament win since 2020, alongside two first-round exits to 14 and 15 seeds. At the time, if Kentucky had fired Calipari, they would have had to pay him $33M as part of his buyout. Now, it’s rumored that Calipari is out but on his own terms.

One of the reasons I believe Kentucky AD, Mitch Barnhart, kept Coach Cal was due to the lack of coaching options available, especially with the buyout that the university was going to have to pay to remove Cal and potentially buy out another program's head coach. We saw a similar scenario with Kentucky’s rival, the University of Louisville, who eventually settled for a mid-major coach, Pat Kelsey, once they couldn’t afford to pay multiple buyouts for a top-tier coach.

Now, Louisville's situation is far different from Kentucky's, with the Wildcats only having one losing season since 1990, which was the Covid year. The Cardinals were coming off 12 total wins in the past two seasons, and Kentucky is pretty much the head coaching job of college basketball.

The Domino Effect

This move is wild for the fact that a coach is leaving college basketball's most premier program after the school's AD had to convince fans that he was worth keeping. But it’s just as wild for the transition of coaches from these schools with new head coaches.

Andy Enfield leaves USC after 11 years to be the next head coach at SMU.

Eric Musselman leaves Arkansas after 5 years for the USC coaching job.

John Calipari is reportedly leaving Kentucky after 15 years for the Arkansas job.

Which eventually could lead to Dan Hurley, Scott Drew, or Nate Oats leaving their current positions to fill the Kentucky job, which inevitably spirals down into many, many coaches in college basketball leaving for the "better" job.

Some options that remain in a constant carrousel of top program searches:

Scott Drew: $4.5M Buyout
Drew has been a head coach for 20 years with 19 of those coming as the head coach of the Baylor Bears. Drew won the 2021 National Championship but hasn’t made it past the second round since.

Dan Hurley: $10M Buyout
It’s unlikely we see a Dan Hurley departure in Connecticut but he is a name that is being thrown around and with Kentucky basketball being the program that it is, nothing’s impossible, especially if UConn loses this title game. Since 2018, Hurley has made two title games is in route to become back-to-back championships.

Nate Oats: $10M Buyout
This fit is what makes the most sense and is realistic for the Wildcats. A coach that is proven in the SEC and has made a Final Four in only his 5th year at Alabama. He has proven his ability to recruit with Brandon Miller and his ability to use the transfer portal with Mark Sears.

Billy Donovan: NBA
Will the great Billy Donovan come back to college basketball for the NCAA’s most elite program? Donovan coached in the early SEC days before moving to the NBA but at Florida made 4 Final Four appearances.

Other names that have come into discussion: Jay Wright, Bruce Pearl, Rick Pitino, Kenny Payne (joke), Chris Beard, Will Wade, Brad Stevens, and Mark Few.

Good News

To be honest, this situation has become a win-win for most parties, which is very rare. Kentucky was looking to get rid of Calipari anyways and while they do have to take a "back-stabbing," they also get to avoid the $33M buyout. Calipari gets to move away from a university that didn’t want him and gets to make a move to a program that top recruits have shown time and time again they will attend. Not to mention Calipari will get to play the Wildcats each year and will reportedly have heavy NIL backing from the Tyson Foods family in Arkansas.