Say what you will about the man, but John Calipari knows how to recruit. The man has turned the green room at the NBA Draft into an annual family reunion for Kentucky basketball, placed Kentucky in the Final Four three of the past four years and is on a personal run of seven Elite Eight appearances in the past nine years, dating back to his tenure at Memphis.
It takes many aspects to form a winning team, but having better players than your opponents is at the top of the list. This man knows how to find them.
Posted on his website CoachCal.com (the man is nothing if not a self-promoter), here are Calipari's 20 questions every recruit should be asking (and, obviously, with a basketball-heavy slant):
- Does your program offer multi-year (four-year) scholarships?
- How many players have graduated from your program over the last four to five years?
- How many players have graduated from your school and gone on to the NBA?
- How many players have come back to finish school after they have left to pursue other dreams? Who pays for it?
- How many of your players were insured through the disability program last season? If none were, why not?
- What is your team grade-point average?
- Where does your Academic Progress Rate retention rank among other schools?
- What type of media training do you offer?
- What kind of social media training program do you have in place? What are your social media policies?
- How many double-figure scorers have you averaged in the last four to five years? If you only have one or two a year, what does that mean for me?
- Have you ever coached anyone like me? If so, who?
- How many McDonald’s All-Americans have you coached? How many of them went on to the NBA?
- How have your teams fared with three or four McDonald’s All-Americans on the same team?
- How many freshmen have you started within the last four to five years?
- How many draft picks have you had over the last five years? How many drafted were not McDonald’s All-Americans? How many of the total were first-rounders and were any of them No. 1 draft picks during that time?
- How many of those players have gone on to make the NBA All-Rookie team?
- How many games will my family be able to watch on national television?
- How many of your home games are sold out? How many of your road games are sold out?
- How have you done in postseason play? Any Final Fours?
- What is your core philosophy?
The goal of any good recruiter should to not only have answers readily available when these questions come up, but to provide this information so cleanly and clearly that the questions never even need to be asked.
(HT SI.com)