Calipari's best Memphis win has not come in a game

Sporting News, The, Dec 18, 2000 by Mike DeCourcy

If everything had gone smoothly, the John Calipari revolution gradually would have transformed Memphis basketball into an entity that better reflects his competitive, combative approach to the game. If everything had gone smoothly, though, this would not have been Memphis basketball.

Instead, it was one of those weeks for the Tigers: two players suspended, one injured, one quitting and then returning and close games lost to rivals Tennessee and Mississippi.

Strange as it sounds, it became the week Calipari genuinely took control of the program's future.

He had been handed just about everything he wanted after accepting the Memphis head coaching job last March. Calipari obtained access to private planes for many recruiting trips and funding for enhanced locker rooms at The Pyramid and for a new practice complex. But to gain command of the direction of Memphis basketball -- which means the entire city's game, not just the Tigers -- he had to grab it.

Marcus Moody presented the opportunity. A senior guard from Memphis' Overton High, Moody very publicly quit the team December 1 over his dwindling court time. Calipari immediately made it clear the Tigers would proceed without Moody and that the only way an athlete could play for Calipari was to follow instructions, defend with tenacity and sacrifice one's body when necessary. Within a few days, Moody was back on the squad, conceding he had no choice but to meet Calipari's standards.

"We never had to adjust to anybody like Coach Cal before," Moody says. "I really don't have a choice. I want to play. I have to do what Coach Cal asks."

This is Calipari's first college team since the 1995-96 Massachusetts Minutemen, who reached the Final Four and propelled him to a short but lucrative stay with the NBA's New Jersey Nets. He has not immediately turned the Tigers, losers of six of their first eight, into winners, in part because he ambitiously overscheduled a young team facing a dramatic change in style. Each loss came against a team that spent at least a week in the TSN Top 25.

However, demonstrating that the program will not be held hostage to local talent could become the most significant victory he achieves in his first year. When it again becomes cool for Memphis players to be Tigers -- and that will happen -- they will have to be Calipari's breed of Tigers.

The city's reputation for producing great talent is widely established, thanks to such NBA players as Penny Hardaway, Cedric Henderson and Lorenzen Wright. What is not as well known is how problematic Memphis players can be. Area products often joined the Tigers with a sense of entitlement, and their families frequently pressured the coaching staff over playing time and shots.

Moody's brief separation from the team had plenty of precedent. Deuce Ford quit in 1994. Dorian Davis temporarily quit in 1996. Paris London, a junior power forward on the current team, flirted with leaving the team in 1998. The most amusing episode involved former guard Marcus Nolan, whose family walked a picket line in front of The Pyramid to protest his lack of playing time one Saturday night while the Tigers were inside battling DePaul.

The program's long-standing dependence on Memphis talent was reinforced when the key prospects in the great class of 1997 went elsewhere. Losing Cory Bradford to Illinois, Robert O'Kelley to Wake Forest and Tony Harris to Tennessee knocked the Tigers off the NCAA Tournament track. In a sense, access to local talent was at once the program's greatest strength and most obvious weakness. This conundrum was something Calipari needed to solve in order to stamp his identity firmly on the program.

He started by excusing the Tigers from the pursuit of gifted guard Earnest Shelton from White Station High. Memphis recruited Shelton through the summer and was on his original list of top choices. When Shelton decided to expand the list, the Tigers pulled out of the running.

It wasn't a repudiation of Shelton's talent; it was a line that had to be drawn. If a Memphis star did not long to play for Memphis, Calipari's reputation and hard work would attract a suitable prospect from somewhere else. The Tigers wound up adding Georgia wing Anthony Rice to a recruiting class that ranks among the nation's top 15. Shelton signed with Alabama.

Calipari has several Memphians on his team, and that includes London, who has undergone an impressive transformation in the past few months. He was overweight during a disappointing sophomore season, but he slimmed down during preseason conditioning. On December 5 at Tennessee, London hustled through a pregame practice, obeying every directive. This earned him an opportunity in the second half of a 10-point loss to the Vols, and he broke out with 11 points in only 12 minutes.

Four nights later, with point guard Courtney Trask and reserve small forward John Grice suspended for team violations for a game against Ole Miss and reserve forward Shamel Jones out with an injured hand, London scored 15 and helped keep the Tigers competitive in an eight-point loss.