Statement from Kentucky Coach John Calipari, April 26, 2011

During the season, I was approached by the Dominican Basketball Federation to become involved in helping grow basketball in their country. Now that our season is over, I can give proper attention to other things, such as this.

My question to the Dominican Basketball Federation was, why are you calling me? Their response was, they liked what we are doing in China, including coaching their coaches and being involved in promoting grassroots basketball.

Not only would I help train coaches in the Dominican Republic and here in Lexington like we have with the Chinese coaches, but I would also coach their national team.

The commitment would mainly be from the start of August through mid-September. The Dominican Republic national team would train in our state-of-the-art facilities at the Joe Craft Center in Lexington prior to the start of the Tournament of the Americas, which would begin towards the end of August.

I wanted the Big Blue Nation to be aware of what’s going on in your program. If I move forward on this, I’ll be asking you to adopt the Dominican Republic national team as your third team behind your Kentucky Wildcats and Team USA. I also want to let all our friends in China know that we will continue our relationship with the CBA and their coaches.

-RTL-