Kentucky Coach John Calipari expressed confidence on Tuesday that the NCAA will rule transfer Olivier Sarr eligible to play this coming season. But he added that the high-profile nature of the decision is a reason the NCAA has yet to announce its decision.
“We feel confident,” Calipari said on a Zoom teleconference. “But you never know till you hear it’s good to go. He’s got a great case. But we’ll wait to hear.”
Calipari said he could not comment on the elements of UK’s appeal that Sarr not have to sit out the 2020-21 season as a transfer. Sarr transferred from Wake Forest, where last season he was named to the All-ACC Third Team and was runner-up in balloting for the ACC Most Improved Player designation.
Sarr, a 7-footer and native of France, is seen as key to giving Kentucky a big man presence. For Wake Forest last season, he scored 30 points and grabbed 17 rebounds against Notre Dame, scored 25 points in a game against Duke and posted a double-double (20 points and 13 rebounds) in an ACC Tournament game against Pittsburgh.
Experience with players transferring elsewhere (most recently Johnny Juzang this offseason) gives UK a sense of how the appeal process works, said Calipari, adding that a high-profile case can slow the process. Sarr is considered one of the best transfers this offseason. And Kentucky is Kentucky.
“They’ll want to make sure ‘Let’s really make sure we have this right,’” the UK coach said of the NCAA, “and they may take more time. . . .
“I know they don’t treat it any differently than any other case. But it is more of a high-profile case, so they’ll look at it.”
UK players have returned to campus. Without directly saying so, Calipari seemed to say no players have tested positive for COVID-19.
“Everybody is practicing,” he said.
Calipari said the men’s basketball players are in a “tight bubble” with no outsiders allowed in Wildcat Coal Lodge and the practice facility a short walk away.
To enhance safety, weight training and conditioning drills are being done outside, he said. Players are served boxed meals.
Calipari, who suggested the SEC had imposed stringent guidelines, said he has remained off campus.
“I’m not allowed to be in my car waving to them . . . ,” the UK coach said. “They keep asking, when are we going to see you? I can’t work with them until the 20th (of July).”
UK announced Monday that three individuals with ties to the men’s basketball, women’s soccer and volleyball teams tested positive during the most recent round of COVID-19 testing for that group. The school, citing privacy concerns, did not say whether the individuals were athletes or staff members.
Calipari said the hope was the players could start playing three-on-three and five-on-five within a week or so.
“I said to them, let’s use this time to separate from everybody else,” Calipari said. “Let’s use this time to get in the greatest physical condition.”
Players — one at each basket — are using a shooting machine to practice shooting.
“We should be a great shooting team because it’s all you can do right now is shoot,” Calipari said.
Kentucky’s in-state archrival, Louisville, announced last week it had temporarily suspended men’s basketball workouts after two individuals in the program tested positive.
In saluting how the state of Kentucky has reacted to the coronavirus pandemic, Calipari offered advice on masks.
“Wear a mask,” he said. “It’s not a statement. Just wear the mask. It protects you. It protects somebody else. . . . Everybody has got to do what they can. But we also have got to follow the science. I mean, you know, you’ve got to follow the science. What it says.”
Calipari detailed how UK will implement the Minority Leadership Initiative that was announced on Monday. It is designed to create access and opportunity for minority applicants to get practical work experience in college athletic departments.
UK will have five such employees in each of the next six school years, said Calipari, who suggested he would enthusiastically support a means by which some could shadow Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart and school president Eli Capilouto.
Calipari said his role might be to invite the employees to dinner at his home at least once a month and arrange for speakers. He said he had spoken to filmmaker Spike Lee and actor-comedian Jamie Foxx.
When asked how he could define success in the program, Calipari said athletic departments would be more diverse in 10 years and that in 20 years there would be five times as many minority athletic directors.
Calipari said his biggest worry with the program was an avalanche of applicants.
“What if a thousand applications come in,” he said. “Who the hell is going to go through those? Like, I don’t have time to do that.”
ProLink Staffing, a job search company, has donated $250,000 worth of work hours to staff a crew to handle applications. The company said it would need about three weeks to handle the hypothetical 1,000 applications, Calipari said.
Applicants turned down will get guidance on how to better prepare for reapplying the following year, the UK coach said. Some not hired will go into a data base for possible recommendation for job openings elsewhere.
On July 3, five-star prospect Makur Maker committed to Howard over UCLA and Kentucky. At No. 16, he became the highest-ranked prospect to commit to a Historically Black College or University since ESPN began its recruiting database in 2007.
When asked if the fear of losing prospects fueled the support coaches and schools have pledged to the Minority Leadership Initiative, Calipari said, “I just hope they do it because it’s the right thing to do. That they see we lack diversity, not on fields but in athletic departments.”
