Pat Forde Turns On Calipari

A while back we posted a piece on John Calipari and his high-stress personality. We recalled his time with the Nets and how he thought his employers were bugging his phones, according to reports.

We wondered what would happen at Kentucky if things started heading south.

We may be about to find out.

As you may remember, at the beginning of the season, John Calipari openly speculated about going 40-0. His team, he said, could do that.

It was ridiculous hubris and hubris, as the Greeks taught us, is to be punished.

Kentucky is one lucky break from a three game losing streak, and the dribble-drive offense, no longer a novelty, is being planned for and dealt with fairly well by SEC opponents.

As we've seen over the years, Kentucky fans tend to be a bit obsessive and possessive and have a sense of entitlement that is the wonder of the college basketball world.

When things are going well, the support is incredible. When things are not, anger rises quickly to the surface.

This extends to the media which most intimately covers the Wildcats, and one of the main figures in that horde is Pat Forde, who thoroughly ripped Calipari in an article posted Sunday.

Where can you even start? This is like the journalistic equivalent of Jack Woltz waking up with Khartoum's head under his sheets. It's  warning, a shot across the bow.

It's not an offer he can't refuse, but losing Forde is huge. He was a longtime writer for the Louisville paper and a Kentucky apologist. Just look at a few of the things he says here, starting with the title: You made your bed John Calipari, now lie in it

After that, the rest is a list of hypothetical questions Calipari could have been asked in a press conference following UK's loss to (wait for it) South Carolina. Here is a sample.

• Is it still Ryan Harrow's fault? That poor kid – who you recruited – was the scapegoat last year. He was the point guard who didn't run the team the way you wanted, and thus was run off to Georgia State.
• Apparently we are reaching the Pontius Pilate stage of the season, where the coach washes his hands and turns an increasingly unpleasant endeavor over to the unpaid laborers.
• Did you know that the two Kentucky teams relying solely on your recruits as the major contributors are last year and this year? And that their record is 42-20, 23-11 in the SEC, with an NIT berth and four losses to teams ranked outside the Ken Pomeroy top 100?

Losing at home to Arkansas was bad enough, but the South Carolina loss was pathetic. UK shot 17.2% in the first half and 26.9% for the game.

At one point, a South Carolina player took down a rebound in a foul shot scrum, ran downcourt and no one from Kentucky did a thing to stop him.

Something is seriously wrong with Calipari's team. It'll be interesting to see what happens if the fans follow Forde's lead.