Last Season’s Players Say They Will Continue to Support Kentucky Following Calipari’s Departure, 'I’ll Come Back, For Sure'

Towards the end of his fifteen season tenure at Kentucky, many fans had mixed feelings about John Calipari. However, his players never wavered in voicing their appreciation and love for him as their coach, and still do.

“To me, he’s the best coach in the world,” Reed Sheppard said at the NBA Draft Combine last week. Sheppard, an in-state product and the son of two former UK stars, has his own pre-existing ties to Kentucky basketball. What about the other players, the ones who came to Lexington from across the country to play for Calipari?

Ben Roberts of the Lexington Herald-Leader asked three players from last year’s roster, Rob Dilligham, Antonio Reeves, and Justin Edwards. It should come as no suprise that they would support Calipari as heads to Arkansas, but they affirm they will continue to support Kentucky. In the end, that is the university that they represented and the fanbase they were supported by.

“I’ll go to the game where they play each other. That would be even, right?” Dillingham said with a laugh, when asked if he would attend any Kentucky or Arkansas games in the near future. “I love Coach Cal. I appreciate him for the opportunity. And you see him — he’s put so many players in the NBA. He’s done a great thing at Kentucky.”

As for where Dillingham will return, it will be Lexington not Fayetteville.

“I’ll come back, for sure, to Kentucky. Obviously, they protected me,” Dillingham said. “It wasn’t just (Calipari). It was the fans. It was the teachers. Everybody there. I love Mitch Barnhart, the Athletic Director. I love all of them. So I really liked the UK experience, because they helped me as a whole, and they treated me like family.”

Reeves, who will go down as John Calipari’s last All-American at Kentucky, makes the point that he played for Calipari and Kentucky, and will support both.

“I’d say both. I played for him. So, of course, I’m gonna cheer for him at Arkansas. Why not?” Reeves said. “The fans at Kentucky — I definitely can’t leave them behind. So I definitely gotta go back and just show them love whenever I get a chance. And I came from Kentucky. So I can’t just leave that behind.”

Edwards is one of the few that has had the opportunity to talk to Coach Pope since he took over at Kentucky.

“I’ve talked to Mark Pope. He was here (Draft Combine) today,” Edwards said, “I dapped him up. He told me if I was ever in town and needed a gym that I was always welcome to use the Craft Center. And Coach Cal told us the same: any alum or players that he had (at Kentucky), if they want to come work out, they can always use the gym.”

“Those guys are two genuine guys. You can tell that they’re caring people.”

Edwards’ quote summarizes it greatly. Both are good people and coaches that care about the program.

At the end of the day, Calipari did a lot of good for Kentucky Basketball and will be honored for it in the future. However it was time for a change, or as Calipari said in his departure video, “a new voice”. That new voice is Mark Pope, who is making an effort to bridge all the generations of Kentucky Basketball.

John Wall, arguably the face of the Calipari era, was seen meeting Pope for the the first time this past weekend at a Nike EYBL event in Indianapolis.