This Week In Hot Takes for March 24-30., featuring John Calipari.
ESPNBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Welcome to another edition of This Week In Hot Takes. Here’s a look at the hottest sports media takes from March 24-30.

5. Gary Parrish uses preseason top four against John Calipari: Kentucky’s Elite Eight loss to North Carolina Saturday sparked plenty of criticism of Wildcats’ coach John Calipari. One of the silliest criticisms came from CBS’ Gary Parrish, who tried to say that Calipari should have made more Final Fours at Kentucky because of…preseason rankings?

ESPN Louisville’s Jason Anderson pointed out that this stat actually favors Calipari over everyone else:

Yeah, not such a great take there, Gary. Making the Final Four is incredibly hard, and preseason rankings are notoriously inaccurate. Three out of seven is actually a pretty great percentage there.

Rating: ??

4. Bob Ryan calls South Carolina leaving ACC “dumbest” realignment move: The Boston Globe columnist emeritus decided to argue that South Carolina leaving the ACC in 1971 was the dumbest realignment move.

Well, it’s led to South Carolina being in the SEC (since 1991) and making way more than they would have in the ACC. Ryan went on to say he wasn’t talking about money, though:

What “common sense” keeps South Carolina in the ACC, though? They left over arguments about recruiting restrictions, and what they saw as North Carolina schools dominating the conference. They eventually found a conference that makes just as much sense geographically, if not more, and one that’s much better from TV and financial perspectives. Ryan’s only real argument (apart from his coverage of Boston College) may be that it took a while for the Gamecocks to find their footing, but even that keeps it far from being the dumbest realignment move. And even Ryan himself eventually agreed to disagree with all the people criticizing him.

Not great, Bob.

Rating: ??

The latest

3. Robert Tychkowski bashes Blue Jays’ celebration, says Oilers won’t copy it: We go north of the border for some “please like my sport” action here (which does seem to come up most often with hockey), as Tychkowski delivered a whopper of a take in The Edmonton Sun Monday. He argued that the Oilers are going to be reserved when they clinch their first playoff berth in 11 years, unlike those frivolous Blue Jays:

Do not expect the Edmonton Oilers to go totally off the deep end like the Toronto Blue Jays did when they last clinched a playoff spot – dancing around in ski goggles and champagne like they won the World Series and cured cancer on the same day.

The Oilers’ celebration will be understated and reserved, as it should be, when they make it official, either Tuesday night against the LA Kings or later in the week.

Tychowski should probably realize that different sports have different traditions, that only 10 teams make the MLB playoffs, and that champagne celebrations at each step are important in baseball. But sure, just say that those are “totally off the deep end” and joyless hockey clinching is “as it should be.”

Rating: ???

2. Jason McIntyre blames LaVar Ball for UCLA’s loss to Kentucky: It’s apparently not just Kentucky that gets yelled at for underachieving, as Jason McIntyre delivered a whopper of a take on Fox Sports Radio this past weekend after Lonzo Ball and UCLA lost to the Wildcats in the Sweet 16. McIntyre blamed someone who wasn’t coaching or playing; Lonzo’s father LaVar.

There’s 10 whole minutes of terrible takes to listen to there, but the key line comes at 4:55: “His son got embarrassed last night on national television because of what his father did.” Correlation does not equal causation.

Rating: ????

1. Stephen A. Smith says John Calipari has underachieved: The Final Four always leads to some hot takes, as people go nuts over how teams do in small sample size elimination games, but Stephen A. delivered the hottest this time around. Here’s him weighing in on Calipari’s supposed lack of championships:

“When I look at you coaching 25 years, a quarter of a century in college basketball, with All-Americans and first-round draft picks and one and dones, I would expect more than one title!” well, first off, as Max Kellerman notes, drawing conclusions based off a single-elimination tournament is problematic. (Smith’s ESPN colleague Eamonn Brennan had an excellent piece on that point this week.) Beyond that, Calipari has reached six Final Fours (even if two were later vacated), and he’s won a title (recently, in 2012), so even by tournament-only standards, he’s done pretty well. Kellerman points out at the end that Smith would be fine with Calipari’s recent record if it was anyone else’s, and Smith even admits that.

Rating: ?????

Notable absences: Skip Bayless, Shannon Sharpe, The New York Post.

Hot Take Standings:

Stephen A. Smith – 64
Skip Bayless – 42
Phil Mushnick – 31
Shannon Sharpe – 20
JT The Brick – 17
Colin Cowherd – 12
Don Cherry – 11
Charles Barkley – 9
Jason McIntyre – 8
Bart Hubbuch – 8
Doug Gottlieb – 8
Ray Lewis – 7
Luke Kerr-Dineen – 6
Terry Bradshaw – 6
Greg A. Bedard – 6
Bob Ryan – 5
Robert Reed – 5
Rick Morrissey – 5
Pete Dougherty – 5
Dan Le Batard – 5
Marcus Hayes – 5
Rob Parker – 5
Kyle Turley – 5
Mike Ditka – 5
Erril Laborde – 5
Lowell Cohn – 5
Rosie DiManno – 5
Doug Gottlieb – 5
C.J. Nitkowski – 5
Frank Isola – 5
FanSided – 4
Cris Carter – 4
Kirk Herbstreit – 4
Tony Kornheiser – 4
Mike Felger – 4
USA Today op-eds – 4
Nathan Ruiz – 4
Robert Tychkowski – 3
Kristine Leahy – 3
Mike Johnston – 3
Mike Francesa – 3
Jeff Mans – 3
Danny Kanell – 3
Chris Broussard – 3
Joe Browne – 3
Dan Dakich – 3
Michael DeCourcy – 3
Mike Harrington – 3
Greg Mitchell – 3
Gary Parrish – 2
Michael Farber – 2
Andy Furman – 2
Donovan McNabb – 2
Seth Davis – 2
Jon Heyman – 2
Jason La Canfora – 2
Dan Wolken – 2
Booger McFarland – 2
Joe Schad – 2
Cork Gaines – 2

Tune in next week for more This Week In Hot Takes. As always, you can send submissions to me via e-mail or on Twitter.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz