The SEC’s annual Spring Meetings are happening this week in Destin, Florida. When the SEC makes a sound or move, it makes waves. It’s a big reason Paul Finebaum hosts his show alongside the meetings’ hotel every year. It was something on Finebaum’s show that fired up Matt Jones of Kentucky Sports Radio.
This week, amongst the noise, Finebaum welcomed to the show’s set Kentucky head basketball coach John Calipari. It turned out to be the largest forum that Calipari had used to discuss his team since the Wildcats’ first round exit of the NCAA Tournament.
Matt Jones began his show with a series of quotes from Calipari’s appearance on Finebaum. He, along with the show’s co-hosts, agreed with all of the Calipari’s sentiments in the quotes read on air. Then, a caller named ‘Dan-O’ prompted Jones to discuss the coach’s lack of willingness to come on the show.
“Why go to Paul Finebaum? I don’t listen to Paul Finebaum,” the caller said. “I want Coach to talk to me (referring to Jones’ show)”.
“They don’t want to (come on),” Jones said. “They are frustrated with us and they believe that we – probably, specifically me – but I do think it is we, are too critical. That’s why they haven’t come on.
Jones would continue, “I hate that. I think we’ve had twelve years of showing how loyal I’ve been to him – but I’m also like, we are the voice of the fans. When the fans are frustrated, we’re going to be frustrated.”
The Kentucky host continued to dig. “Lets be real, if it wasn’t for Maggie (Davis, a Lexington TV reporter that was live-tweeting a thread of Calipari’s answers) having listened to that would anybody have even known what he said?
It was then that Matt Jones addressed what he felt was the biggest issue of Calipari ducking Kentucky Sports Radio: “I did not see that he was going to be on there. There is a sense of ‘who are you talking to?'”
Co-host Ryan Lemond was adding to his and Jones’ agreement with Calipari’s quotes from Finebaum and asked if that same message was better served on a statewide audience.
“But, wouldn’t it have been better to hear it here?”
