John Calipari undecided on coaching Dominican Republic in the Olympic Qualifiers
Dominican Republic finished third in the 2011 FIBA Americas Championship that gives them another chance next summer to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics. This is the first time in the history of the Dominicans that they had won so many games during a tournament and are one step away from registering their first Olympic berth.
The credit for this achievement goes to the coach of the University of Kentucky men’s team, John Calipari. It was Calipari under whose coaching the Dominicans stunned everyone with their brilliant performance. However, the 52 year old coach is still undecided on the coaching of the Dominicans, when they will return next July to participate in Olympic qualifiers that will decide the three entrants of the 2012 Olympics.
On his return from Argentina, Calipari said in an interview to ESPN.com, that “The goal was to get them to the Olympics. Our goal was the Olympics. They had never been there in their history. We ended up finishing third. They had never won that many games.”
Calipari thoroughly enjoyed his voyage with the Dominicans and picked up several ideas too during the course of the FIBA Americas Championship. Now Calipari is looking to slot in these ideas with his Wildcats, which will be competing for the national championship this season.
Moreover, Calipari had shown the young Dominicans another door to make it big, even without playing baseball, which is their first love.
It is because of this reason, Dominican Republic is very keen to bring back Calipari for another summer, as the college level coach stood up to the expectations, which they were anticipating from him. This had now led the Dominicans to the recent discussion with Calipari, who told after the meeting that no decision has yet been made.
Because according to Calipari recent commitment with the Dominicans was pretty tough, as the training camps of the Kentucky Wildcats were also conducted in the past month. However, he also said that the next year the tournament will last for only one week, so it wouldn’t be as scary as the current schedule was.
However, if the Dominican Republic qualifies for the Olympics in that tournament than they would have to be ready for the real action, as the games in London will tip off by the end of July.
Calipari said, “We haven’t gone that far. The good news is that it would be the first week of July and I wouldn’t miss anything. I don’t know. At this point, I just got through this. This was challenging. The time element certainly was and we were on campus for the first half and then Brazil [for a pre-tournament] and then Argentina.”
Even if the dates didn’t work out between the Dominicans and Calipari, coach is ready to help the team in any way he could.
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