As was the case with many of its predecessors, the 2024 Champions Classic will feature no shortage of storylines.
Kansas, the preseason No. 1 team in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll, will be competing in the event. Duke, led by freshman phenom Cooper Flagg and a top-ranked 2024 recruiting class, will be playing its first big game of the season. Michigan State, early in hits 30th season under Tom Izzo, will be there, as well.
Then there’s Kentucky.
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What might be college basketball’s most accomplished program historically will be one of the most fascinating to follow during the 2024-25 season. The Wildcats will not only feature an entirely remade roster, but they’ll be led by a new coach.
Over the offseason, Mark Pope left BYU to take over at his alma mater, where he played on Kentucky’s famed 1996 national championship team, considered by many to be one of the best squads in the sport’s history.
So where does that leave John Calipari, the man who coached the Wildcats from 2009-24? Here’s what you need to know about Calipari and where he is now:
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Over that time, he rebuilt and remade the Wildcats. After taking over a program that underachieved in its final seasons under Tubby Smith and during Billy Gillispie’s ill-fated two-year run, Calipari led Kentucky to the Final Four in four of his first six seasons, a run highlighted by a national title in 2012, the program’s first in 14 years.
Along the way, he helped reinvent not only the identity of Kentucky, but the sport as a whole, turning over his roster annually and restocking it with a parade of top-ranked recruiting classes filled with players like John Wall, Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins and Devin Booker who would spend one season at the school before departing for the NBA, where many of them were top draft picks.
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