Cal and the Bulls...

Gomez here...

As you well know by now, unless you're living in a pineapple under the sea, Coach Cal has been heavily linked to the Chicago Bulls job which was recently vacated by the fired Vinny Del Negro. I don't know how to feel about this. Part of me wants to shake it off as baseless rumors while part of me stirs with an unexpected dread that Cal could actually be thinking of leaving Kentucky after only one season. Perhaps all his talk about Kentucky basketball being the premiere job in America was just that... talk. Maybe the spotlight, the expectations, and the constant criticism is more than what even he can bare? It's certainly possible... but not likely.

Yesterday, Cal released this statement via Twitter...
"Throughout my career I’ve been mentioned for other jobs. Now that I’m here you won’t hear about other colleges because I’ve got the best job. Every year you will hear my name mentioned for NBA jobs because I coached in the league before. I’m very happy at Kentucky."

Shortly after that, Mitch released this one...
"I’m extremely proud of what Coach Calipari has done in just 1 year as the leader of our men’s basketball program …Cal has brought Kentucky men’s basketball back to its rightful place of national prominence and I’m excited about our future. We have begun initial discussions on restructuring his contract so that he’s the coach at UK until he retires. Go Big Blue!"

Now, Cal's statement was restricted by Twitter's limited characters per tweet rule, so he couldn't really elaborate. However, he didn't really say he wasn't interested in the Chicago job or that there's no way he'd take it. He just said he was happy at UK and from that, we can fill in the blanks however we like. I would have preferred something like this from Cal... "There's no way in hades that I'm taking another job in the NBA. I will retire at UK." But I probably won't too much. I guess we can take some comfort in the fact that Andy Katz is reporting that Cal has no interest in the Chicago Bulls job. Andy usually reports only what he knows.

Meanwhile, it was nice to see Mitch chime in with something positive, especially with these recent reports that him and Cal haven't connected and might have possibly butted heads at times in the past year.

In closing, I think there's little chance Cal leaves after one year unless there's something going on under the surface that we don't know about, which I guess is always a possibility. Still, my gut tells me Cal will be at UK for a while.

My gut is also telling me I need some breakfast... later taters.