NCAA Basketball: 10 candidates to replace Chris Beard as Texas HC

John Calipari

With the resources available at Texas, the Longhorns are going to swing for the fences, which includes a number of candidates who will say no immediately or won’t even answer the phone. Surprisingly, John Calipari may not fall into that camp these days and immediately stands out as one of those elite-level coaches that could actually make the move to Austin.

Calipari’s coaching career has been well-documented. He led UMass and Memphis to vacated Final Fours and also led the New Jersey Nets before arriving in Kentucky in 2009. Over the last fourteen years, he’s renewed the Wildcats’ place as a national power, leading the program to the national championship in 2012 and four Final Fours. It’s now been nearly four years since Kentucky won an NCAA Tournament game, and that championship run gets further and further in the rearview.

Calipari will likely just stay in Lexington until he’s ready to retire and continue to helm one of the sport’s Blue Blood programs. He’s already arguably the game’s best recruiter, so why wouldn’t Texas try to land someone like that? Despite his ridiculous pay in Kentucky, he could likely finagle a pay raise and has a chance to make real history at Texas. It’s truly a swing for the fence, but Calipari is much more likely than someone like Scott Drew or Tony Bennett.