Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari keeps pushing for 'Taj Mahal' practice facility

John Calipari’s push for a new practice facility has come to shove.

Frustrated by the University of Kentucky’s failure to commit to a state-of-the-art campus basketball facility, Calipari signaled Thursday he is prepared to personally clear obstacles out of the path of his pet project.

In an interview with multiple media outlets during his team’s preseason trip to the Bahamas — the Wildcats improved to 2-0 with another blowout win Thursday night over Mexico’s Tec De Monterrey — Calipari reiterated his desire for a state-of-the-art structure worthy of UK’s stature in college basketball and free of the leaks that caused him to stop practice last week at the Joe Craft Center.

Though Calipari was not directly quoted to this effect, The Athletic's Kyle Tucker wrote that the Hall of Fame coach was no longer willing to wait for athletic director Mitch Barnhart to approve the project and was prepared to raise the required funds himself, if necessary.

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“Everybody should be behind this,” Calipari was quoted as saying. “If this is the University for Kentucky, and it’s the basketball program for the state, which it is, how about the state says, ‘We’re in. We’re gonna invest?’”

Though the 2022-23 athletic department budget submitted to the university Board of Trustees includes no money earmarked for men’s basketball facility improvements, university spokesman Jay Blanton said improvements to the Craft Center are among the university's legislatively authorized construction projects.

"Every program is a priority for us," Blanton said. "This past year, we had our highest ever ranking in the Director's Cup, a top-10 finish. This is a direct testament to our collective excellence as a program and our focus on every team and every athlete being successful and supported."

The Craft Center opened in 2007 at a cost of $30 million. Calipari, who took over the UK program in 2009, has been calling for facility improvements since at least 2016, and has recently been ramping up his rhetoric.

Barnhart's budget:Kentucky's athletic budget includes no funds for basketball facility improvements

“Before you visit Kentucky, what would you think? It’s Kentucky basketball, the premier program in the country, at a school that understands what basketball is,” Calipari said in a June 3 appearance on Lexington’s WLEX. “You would expect it to be Taj Mahal. Anything less than that, what are you? You’re disappointed.”

It's not as if the basketball facilities haven't seen recent upgrades. The Central Bank Center and Rupp Arena is near the end of a $310 million renovation. And the university spent $4 million in 2018 to upgrade the Craft Center locker rooms and recently replaced the practice courts.

Calipari envisions a complex that would include an interactive museum of Kentucky basketball, a sports science department and a nutrition center in addition to practice and training facilities.

“How about (NBA) players interviewed about their experiences here, their recollection of their time?” Calipari said, according to The Athletic. “Anthony Davis, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins — there’s 50 of them! — where you could see them talking about their experience, where you go to the wall and press their picture and they talk. They will give to something like that. These kids will.

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“Why wouldn’t the state come in and say, ‘We’re in. We’ll earmark.’ Because this is the basketball program for the University for Kentucky and everybody can enjoy this and come see it and be on campus and look at what it is. I think you would have people give to it. That’s one thing people in this state will give to: men’s basketball. Oh, they’ll give.”

In a previous response to Calipari’s lobbying, Barnhart told the Courier Journal he recognized “what Kentucky basketball means to this institution,” but cited UK’s men’s tennis team as one of his programs that has sought a new facility for 15 years.

“I told (Calipari), I said we’ll always look,” Barnhart said. “But I think we’ve got a really good landscape, we’ve got a lot of really good things in Kentucky basketball.”

Good enough? That’s subjective.

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“This is a basketball school. It’s always been that,” Calipari said Thursday. “Alabama is a football school. So is Georgia. I mean, they are. No disrespect to our football team. I hope they win 10 games and go to bowls. At the end of the day, that makes my job easier and it makes the job of all of us easier. But this is a basketball school. And so we need to keep moving in that direction and keep doing what we’re doing.”

UK football coach Mark Stoops provided some pushback on that point, taking issue with Calipari’s comments via social media.

“Basketball school?” Stoops tweeted. “I thought we competed in the SEC? #4straightpostseasonwins”

Stoops later retweeted comments critical of Calipari’s statement, then followed up with another of his own:

"#BBN begs to differ!" Stoops tweeted. "Don’t disrespect our great fans like that."

Tim Sullivan: 502-582-4650, tsullivan@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @TimSullivan714

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari renews push for new facility