Genius Coach Cal At It Again - This Time Trying To Start A College Basketball Summer League

[Source] - Calipari estimates he’s been talking about the need for college basketball to create a version of the NBA’s Summer League for at least five years now. Gavitt says their initial conversations about it happened pre-pandemic. That got put on ice for a couple of years, though, as the game’s leaders focused all of their energy on figuring out how to navigate COVID-19 and play an actual season. But now they’re revisiting that big idea, and Calipari has whipped up considerable support for it among his colleagues.

The way Calipari pitched it: The players are already on campus working out with their coaches and teammates in July and August, so why not let them play a couple of exhibition games too? 

“Why not play games in Rupp Arena against good teams, maybe teams that won’t schedule you but now they’ll play you in a summer game and people get to see that, or against in-state teams, whatever?” Calipari said. “Have it televised on SEC Network.

Mama there goes that man again! Coach Cal is a certified genius and there's no way even the biggest Calipari hater (Rico) can argue against this. It's a fact that college basketball goes dark basically from May until October. We sit through the decision process after the NCAA Tournament and portal stuff to see who is coming back and going where. Great. That stuff is good for diehard fans. But this? This is genius.

I would love to be able to watch more games in the summer. There's a reason it's called the dog days with sports. I don't need to watch 162 baseball games. I can watch some college basketball games. Maybe we get like a Kentucky vs Florida State or something like that. A game between two teams that we know and typically in the Tournament. Now we get to see some of those freshmen/transfers come. 

There's simply no reason for this not to happen. I know some teams do the foreign trips but that's limited. You can only do it so many years. Why not let them play home games in the summer? You still get the bonding aspect. You still get your team out there in front of fans. Summer League college basketball is where it's at. We do it at every level besides college. There's NBA Summer League. There's high school summer league. Add it. 

Hell give me a Summer League tournament. Get like 8 teams, play 3 round robin games and then a tournament. Nice little week long action to give us something on TV during the day. Thank you Coach Cal for this genius plan.