A Group of college-basketball types were sitting around a table at 21 Club recently talking about trends in the sport when the focus shifted to the reigning national champion — Kentucky — and its marketing genius, coach John Calipari.
“Cal is so far out in front of everyone else,’’ one former ACC coach said.
Calipari slew whatever demons he had left in April when he led the Wildcats to the national championship. Until then he was a slick recruiter who had stayed one step ahead of the NCAA regulators at UMass and Memphis.
Now Calipari is at the top of his game because he has proven he can get the best prep players to subjugate their games and egos for the good of the team and their futures. Now the door is wide open.
Calipari has 1,213,336 followers on Twitter. Kansas coach Bill Self has 57,397.
Calipari has over 368,000 likes on Facebook. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has a shade under 40,000.
Calipari opened his gym to ESPN for three All Access episodes. Some coaches prefer no access.
Calipari, with a Kentucky team so young they would fit in at your local Chuck E. Cheese (if they weren’t around 6-foot-8), is opening his season tonight against a formidable Maryland team at Barclays Center. LIU Brooklyn battles Morehead State in the opener.
“I have to protect this program and our schedule and what we do — but I enjoy playing neutral games anyways,’’ Calipari said yesterday. “I think they are good for the game and my team.’’
Barclays should be sold out tonight for its first college basketball games. Calipari said yesterday he was hoping to present a check for $1 million for the rebuilding of New York in the days after Sandy.
Which brings us to another a guy who knows the importance of branding: Brett Yormark. The CEO of the Nets and Barclays Center hasn’t rolled out a red carpet in Brooklyn, he’s rolled out a Persian rug adorned with diamonds and gold.
He could have opened with a nice matchup of, say, St. John’s and Fordham, but when you have already had Barbra Streisand, you don’t want a nice game, you want the game.
So Yormark asked his longtime friend, Calipari, the former Nets head coach, if he would bring his team to Brooklyn to open the building for college hoops. This was a big request because Kentucky traditionally has played in the Garden when it visits the Northeast.
“The people at the Garden are mad at me,’’ Calipari said.
No, they’re not. The Garden’s brand is secure, it’s the mecca of college basketball.
Perhaps Barclays will come to be known as the Battleground. There are six top-25 teams scheduled to play at Barclays this season, including No. 1 Indiana.
Every college hoops fans in the nation will flip on ESPN tonight to get its first glimpse of Calipari’s latest monster recruiting class, led by center Nerlens Noel and forward Alex Poythress.
“I did major in marketing in college,’’ Calipari said.
No surprise there.