OT - Calipari close to extension that will culminate in an 8 million dollar final payout.

I'm sorry, but is he really worth that? He has three final fours with one national championship, while signing by far the most talent of any coach in the recruiting rankings era. He has like 2 or 3 other elite eights. Besides the national championship, doesn't Bo Ryan have a pretty comparable big time resume?

UK will gladly pay $8 mill for another national title. sanctions or not.

Maaaaan, fuck that ninja.

Kentucky is desperate.  Plain and simple.

He keeps UK relevant and will continue to do so. Whether he does it 100% clean is debatable but he is absolutely worth $8 mil to keep the UK basketball machine humming. I, along with most posters here, said throw $10 mil at Harbaugh because it's worth it if it brings M back to winning tradition.

Might be a little high. That being said I would have paid twice that and then some for Harbaugh and I'll say the same thing about Mel when the time comes.

They have to do it. Huge NBA jobs opening up this offseason. New Orleans already offers the chance to coach Anthony Davis (former Calipari player), Chicago will likely be in play, and Cleveland could open up as well, and Calipari has always been rumored to be close with Lebron. Many people believe that had Lebron announced he was going to Cleveland before they hired Blatt, Calipari would already be the coach there.

How much does Coach K make? I was always under the impression that his total package was near $10M, tho that could include his salary as head coach of the men's Olympic team as well.

So then will he be the third or fourth highest paid member of the team behind Ulis, Lee and Johnson?

At some point doesn't the University have to consider how far it is willing to go to remain competitive in this environment? I think we have two great coaches in Harbaugh and Beilein, but as the years go on, Michigan will be challenged in its ability to do things the right way while also remaining competitive. I think we are currently very near the edge of the envelope.

He has to be thrilled to finally getting paid as well as his team.

Calipari cheats is the most worn out narrative there is. It's college basketball. We commend Bo Ryan and John Beilein for running programs as clean as you can in college basketball, but the rest of the leauge does the same stuff Cal does. That's the nature of the sport.

That's a lot of moonshine.