USD Men's Basketball 1996-1997

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By L. Jon Wertheim arely two months after reaching the Final Four for the first time in the school's history, the UMass basketball team suffered through three days of ill-fortune. First, the team's All-America center Marcus Camby, already having declared his intention to pass up hi s senior year and defect to the NBA's greener pastures, admitted that he accepted gifts from two prospective agents. Three days later, the team's charismatic coach, John Calipari, perhaps smelling an impending probation, made

like Camby a11d also bolted for the pros, tak– ing the New Jersey Nets head job. Just like that, many suspected, a budding basket– ball dynasty was dismantled. When Calipari arrived at Amherst in 1989, he inherited a team that boasted the sixth-worst winning percentage in the 1980s. After a lackluster first season, the slick, ambitious coach led a miraculous turnaround, doing for the Minutemen program what Lee Iacocca had do11e for

Chrysler. He convinced top high school talent that west– ern Massachusetts was a hoops hotbed, he convinced the school to build a brand spanking-new gym, and he convinced alumni from all over New England to pledge their support to the team. In short, he built one of the hottest basketball pro– that Calipari took pains to construct will collapse as though it were made of cards. Not a chance, says the school's athletic director, Robert Marcum. "I am not the captain of the grams in the country. Now, it remains to be seen whether the house

The secret to winning and staying on top

is right here in CHI's five-step program to erect THI PfRfICl DYNASTY

Continued

John Calipari laughed best before he laughed last, taking UMass from laughing stock to the Final Four in only seven years. Of course, having All– American and Player of the Year Marcus Cumby as the foundation helped accelerate the Minutemen~ building