Unlike many New Jersey sports writers who dealt with John Calipari while he coached the Nets, I liked him. Yes, he’s slick, but he’s also funny and surprisingly honest for a coach (in other words, there’s no holier-than-thou Mike Krzyzewski fakeness).

With that said, Calipari is a moron.

He made excuses for his team’s free-throw shooting all year, never demanded that his ultra-talented players and should-be-national champions addressed it and then watched them blow the NCAA Championship game by missing four of five foul shots in the last 72 seconds. So much for the Memphis Tigers making them when they count, Calipari’s tired, season-long song.

Mario Chalmers hit one of the best shots in Final Four history at the end of regulation, but Kansas stole this national championship because Calipari let his team slide all season. Instead of drilling home the old-fashioned - and apparently out-of-date notion that free throws matter - Calipari went more insanely positive than Michelle Wie’s PR team. Apparently, Memphis’ coach thinks that McDonald’s All-Americans and other highly-pursed recruits who’ve basically been given anything they want since their basketball talents became apparent are lacking in confidence.

Calipari went as far as giving his NBA-lottery-pick-to-be Derrick Rose an article on Tiger Woods and telling him, “I want you to be the Tiger Woods of basketball.”

And I once wanted to be the Derek Jeter of dating, but neither’s happening.

Calipari is like one of those bad putters who think they actually have a shot winning the The Masters. See Vijay Singh, Sergio “two putters in the bag” Garcia and Adam Scott, just for starters.

None of them are winning the big one either. I actually feel sorry for Cal. Which is more than I’ll say for Sergio on Sunday.

This was Calipari’s one chance to be on the very top of the basketball world. It’s not coming around again and there will be no redemption in the NBA either. All because of free throws ignored.

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