ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - Kentucky coach John Calipari has certainly learned a lot from Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown.
Maybe a little too much.
“It was funny because you end up dressing like him, walking like him,” Calipari said Thursday from the NCAA Final Four. “Now I’m having to have my hips replaced like him. Talking like him.”
The NCAA national semifinals are being played only about 30 minutes from the campus of SMU, which the 73-year-old Brown has led to the NIT championship game in his second season.
Calipari’s first college job was as an assistant at Kansas for Brown from 1983-85. After Calipari got fired as the NBA’s New Jersey Nets head coach, he briefly joined Brown’s staff with the Philadelphia 76ers.
“I just learned so much from him,” Calipari said. “Biggest thing is if you care about the kids and you truly care, you’ll always have a job. That was like the main thing that he would talk about. Aside from the basketball.”
- Stephen Hawkins - https://twitter.com/hawkaptexas
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NCAA Finals Watch follows the Final Four games and all the activities surrounding the event as seen by journalists from The Associated Press in North Texas - from the big stadium in Arlington where the games will be played to downtown Dallas. It will be updated throughout the day with breaking news and other items of interest.
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