THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 25, 1996 TAG: 9610250785
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: 66 lines
``Refuse To Lose'' was the credo that John Calipari ingrained in his players at Massachusetts, and he even obtained a trademark for the catch phrase.
It's unlikely he'll get a trademark on ``Get Used to Losing.''
But that's what Calipari will have to do this season, his first as the head coach and executive vice president of basketball operations for the hapless New Jersey Nets, losers of 52 games each of the last two seasons.
Calipari lost just 26 times the past five seasons at UMass. The Nets could match that by the All-Star break, if not sooner.
``Hopefully not in the first 26 games,'' Calipari said before Thursday night's 112-108 preseason overtime loss to the Golden State Warriors at the Hampton Coliseum. ``I can live with it, as long as the team is doing their best and my staff is doing everything we can.''
Calipari has been down this road before. When he took over at UMass, the Minutemen had endured 10 consecutive losing seasons. By his second season, they were above .500. By his fourth, they made the NCAA Sweet 16. Last season, Calipari's eighth, UMass went 35-2 and came up one game shy of the NCAA tournament final.
New Jersey reportedly gave Calipari 15 million reasons over the next five years to walk away from one of the best programs in college basketball.
The parallels to the woeful Minutemen and woeful Nets are unavoidable.
``We were in the same situation, trying to change a culture,'' Calipari said. ``Accepting losing, being treated second-class - all the things that go with a losing environment we had at UMass, and we have here.''
There are some who would project the 37-year-old wunderkind coach could be in for culture shock as he tries to parlay the techniques and strategies that worked with college kids into success in the NBA.
Golden State forward Lou Roe, who played for Calipari in college and against him Thursday night, said he was surprised Calipari left UMass. And he questioned whether the coach is ready for the NBA.
``His `Refuse To Lose' type of hype he had in college will be hard to sell to some NBA guys,'' Roe said. ``We do play 82 games a year. For someone to come out and play with that type of enthusiasm for 82 games is kind of tough.
``He's a real hyper guy, real fiery. NBA players have different personalities, it's a business-type atmos-phere. He's going to have to learn to deal with that.''
The Nets, more than likely, are going to have to learn to deal with Calipari. He ripped into them after a preseason loss last week to Orlando, saying they caved in and telling them, ``That's the old Nets, and I don't want that.''
Forward Tony Massenburg said first impressions have been positive.
``He's a rookie, there are a lot of things he's learning,'' Massenburg said. ``He relates to people well. That's one of those skills that either you have or don't. He's won a lot of players over.''
Winning games could be another matter. The Nets have no star to put on a poster, and lost three of their better players from last season to free agency. Then starting forward David Benoit had surgery on his Achilles earlier this month and is out for the season.
Calipari knows success could be, at a minimum, a couple of years away.
Get used to losing.
``It will take him a little while to get used to the league and some of the personnel and personalities,'' Nets general manager John Nash said. ``But he's already established himself as one of the finest young coaches in the game.'' ILLUSTRATION: New Jersey Nets coach John Calipari on losing: ``I can
live with it, as long as the team is doing their best.'' by CNB