Texas 'In Contact' With Kentucky Coach Jon Calipari

The Texas Longhorns might be taking the ultimate home run swing to replace Chris Beard

Matt Galatzan | Jan 9, 2023

If you were wondering whether or not the Texas Longhorns would consider anything less than a homerun hire to replace now-fired head men's coach, Chris Beard, those questions have now been answered.

According to reports, Texas has contacted Kentucky head coach John Calipari in regard to the head coaching vacancy.

However, it doesn't end there.

Branham also believes that Calipari would indeed leave Lexington for Austin, should the offer fit what the future hall of fame is looking for.

Calipari led Kentucky to a win in the National Championship in 2012, has been to six Final Fours, has won six regular season and SEC tournament championships, and has five 30-win seasons under his belt

Before his arrival to Lexington, he led the UMass Minutemen and Memphis Tigers to Final Four appearances in 1996 and 2008, also winning 5 A10 regular season and conference championships with UMass, five Conference USA regular season championships, and four Conference USA tournament titles with the Tigers.

Calipari has also been named the Naismith College Coach of the Year three times, and AP College Coach of the year once (2015)

Calipari currently holds a 374-105 all-time record as a collegiate head coach and is clearly still one of the best to do it in college basketball despite the fact that unranked Kentucky is currently “underperforming” with a 10-4 record so far this season.

Granted, leaving a program where he had so much success understandably sounds a bit farfetched.

But when it comes to the Longhorns, it’s hard to rule out any active coach as a potential target.

The No. 10 Longhorns (12-3) will visit the No. 17 TCU Horned Frogs on Wednesday at 8 p.m. CT.

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Published Jan 9, 2023

MATT GALATZAN

Matt Galatzan is the Managing Editor and Publisher of Texas Longhorns On SI and Texas A&M Aggies On SI and a long-time member of the Football Writer’s Association of America. He graduated from the University of Mississippi, where he studied integrated marketing communications, with minors in journalism and business administration. Galatzan started in the sports journalism industry in 2014 covering the Dallas Mavericks and SMU Mustangs with 247Sports. He then moved to Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation network in 2020, eventually being taking over as the Managing Editor and Publisher of the Longhorns and Aggies sites a year later. You can find Galatzan on all major social media channels, including Twitter on @MattGalatzan.