April 07--INDIANAPOLIS -- Two days after suffering his first loss of the season, Kentucky coach John Calipari received the honor of a lifetime.
Calipari, whose Wildcats were bounced from the Final Four with a 38-1 record, was elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
He has reached six Final Fours, including four in the last five seasons, and won the 2012 championship. Two of those Final Four appearances -- 1996 with Massachusetts and 2008 with Memphis -- were vacated by the NCAA.
Ten others were also elected to the Hall of Fame: JoJo White, George Raveling, Dikembe Mutombo, Spencer Haywood, Louis Dampier, Lisa Leslie, Tom Heinsohn, Lindsay Gaze, John Isaacs and referee Dick Bavetta.
Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, who led the Badgers to Monday night's NCAA tournament championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium, did not receive enough votes to earn Hall of Fame election.
The enshrinement ceremony is Sept. 12 in Springfield, Mass.
No surprises: Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, whose team faced Wisconsin in an early nonconference game this season, said he wasn't surprised to see the Badgers advance to the championship game.
"I wouldn't have been surprised about them," he said. "I would be a little bit about us with all the young guys we had. I mean, we're a young team. ... They weren't at full capacity" in the first meeting.
The Blue Devils beat the Badgers 80-70 in Madison, Wis., but Krzyzewski said that should not fool anyone.
The most significant difference was that Wisconsin forward Sam Dekker was recovering from an ankle injury and didn't have much impact.
"We won the game, but I also knew that Wisconsin wasn't their best," Krzyzewski said.
Flashbacks: Ryan won his first of four Division III national championships while coaching Wisconsin-Platteville in 1991. He reached the Division I title game for the first time on Monday night but was asked to compare the experiences.
"Training table meal was hot dogs," Ryan said. "The morning of the game, I had a cream doughnut and a diet pop. Now we have the best French toast, pancakes, omelettes. I think we had one (reporter) from the Madison paper actually show up and cover the game. So you ask me what it was like. It wasn't like this."
sryan@tribpub.com
