GLENDALE, Ariz. — Arguably the biggest job in college basketball is set to open on the day of the national championship game, setting the sport abuzz.
John Calipari is planning to take the job at Arkansas, leaving Kentucky after 15 seasons with one national championship and four Final Four appearances.
Everyone now wants to know who will replace him in Lexington.
St. John’s coach Rick Pitino’s name has been thrown out there as a long-shot possibility, although that is not expected to happen, according to multiple sources close to the situation.
Pitino, 71, is focused on making St. John’s a winner and adding up to five impact transfers to a core that includes sophomores RJ Luis and Zuby Ejiofor and freshmen Brady Dunlap and Simeon Wilcher.
Pitino, of course, coached at Kentucky from 1989-97 and won it all in 1996. But the reason he took the St. John’s job in the first place was being able to stay in New York after coaching at Iona University for three years. Pitino has said St. John’s will be his last job.
Kentucky is expected to make a run at a number of high-profile coaches, from Dan Hurley at Connecticut to Nate Oats at Alabama and Scott Drew at Baylor.
It is likely also going to swing for the fences with big names Jay Wright and Billy Donovan, the current Bulls’ coach.
Donovan worked as an assistant under Pitino at Kentucky from 1989-94 and is the last coach to win back-to-back titles, doing so at Florida in 2006-07.
As for Wright, it is not believed he would return to coaching after retiring in 2022 from Villanova. He currently works as a television analyst.
It is unlikely Hurley would make the move. He’s never coached outside of the northeast and has it rolling at UConn, with back-to-back trips to the national championship game.
The two candidates that make the most sense are Drew and Oats, two of the game’s big coaching stars. Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart is said to be a fan of Drew, who led Baylor to the 2021 title and has led the Bears to 12 20-win seasons in the last 13 years.
Oats is an appealing candidate after leading the Crimson Tide to the first Final Four in school history and has shown the ability to make basketball matter at a school devoted to football. He has expertly navigated the transfer portal, something Calipari struggled to do.
Oats does have an $18 million buyout, significantly higher than Drew’s buyout of $4.5 million.
Another potential name to watch is Bruce Pearl of Auburn. Pearl has the kind of big personality that would appeal to Kentucky’s rabid fan base and has won big at the SEC school, reaching the Final Four in 2019 and winning 27 games this year.
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