LOUISVILLE – John Calipari has guided Kentucky to the Final Four, a 35-win season and helped nine players land in the NBA Draft in his first two seasons as head coach. What’s in store for his third act?

Make no mistake about it, he wants to win Kentucky’s eighth national championship.

“Let’s be the best in the country,” Calipari said Wednesday at the Greater UK Alumni Club’s annual Wildcat Kick-Off Luncheon in Louisville.

The luncheon, which featured Calipari, UK President Eli Capilouto and Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart, signals the start of the 2011-12 season. Only a couple days removed from tipping off the season at Big Blue Madness, Calipari told the 1,000 or so alumni at the Marriott in downtown Louisville to “think like kings.”

“When I talk about the Kentucky Effect, that’s thinking like a king,” Calipari said. “The Kentucky Effect, it not only affects the outcome, it affects how you perform and how you practice and how you prepare, which affects the outcome and the things that happen for our players.”

Calipari’s “think like kings” message derived from a story from golfing great Arnold Palmer.

The way Calipari tells the story, upon completion of building a golf course in Bahrain, the king of the country offered Palmer a gift. Surprised by the offer, Palmer responded by saying he wanted a golf club. Palmer thought the king would send a jewel-encrusted driver, putter or iron, but a couple of weeks later Palmer received a piece of mail from the king that contained a deed to an actual golf club in Bahrain.

Hence, “Kings think different than we think,” Calipari said.

It’s a message Calipari said he’s shared with his team on numerous occasions during the preseason.

John Calipari spoke to the Greater UK Alumni Club on Wednesday at the Wildcat Tip-Off Luncheon in Louisville.

“Let’s chase that national title and see if we can get six guys drafted,” Calipari said. “Why don’t we think like kings?”

Calipari was the man of the hour at Wednesday’s luncheon. The third-year coach circled the ballroom upon his entrance to sign autographs and take pictures with fans.

When he took the dais and spoke to the fans, he told them to ignore the naysayers that try to knock the program down.

“When anybody comes to you and says, ‘You can’t recruit the best players and win a national title,’ don’t you look at that person and say, ‘Are you hearing yourself? Do you want us to recruit bad players and then win national titles so I can say I’m a genius?’ Think about that,” Calipari said. “We want to recruit the best.”

Calipari also wants to be the best academic team in the country. He reiterated to the crowd that his team had a 3.015 grade-point average last year and tied for the top Academic Progress Rate in the Southeastern Conference with a score of 974.

But Coach Cal wants to do even better in his third year. He wants to continue to move the needle.

“Let’s have the highest APR in the country,” Calipari said.

Recalling a message he brought to Kentucky on his first day on the job, Calipari said the program remains about the players.

“This is a players-first program,” Calipari said. “It is about those young people. I will be disappointed if we win a national title and no one is drafted. This is about those young people. This is about helping them reach their dreams. This is about them dragging us to moments that last a lifetime, not us dragging them. We’re trying to create a selfless team through hard work and togetherness.”

Not that he was trying to dispel a national secret, but Calipari admitted his squad is loaded with talent. Coach Cal said he’s got “six or seven” starters and possibly a nine-man rotation. He called all of them “wonderful young people,” who want to work together as a “family.”

“You know me well enough (to know) that I don’t make big promises or outlandish things, but I really like my team,” Calipari said.

Calipari said the team is “unconventional” in the sense that all the players look the same and play similar positions, but he said his 1992 Massachusetts team was the same way. That squad went on to win 30 games en route to the Sweet 16.

“My vision would be at the end of the year we’ll be one of those teams that’s up at bat slugging it out for the whole thing and that’s who we’ll be,” Calipari said. “I’m convinced of that because the more I’m around these young people, the more I’m convinced they really want this.”

Freshmen long, athletic

After his speech, Calipari answered questions from lucky alumni. The first question involved the freshman class.

Calipari said, “They’re really long, they’re athletic, they’re really pretty skilled,” but he also offered some specific comments on each player.

Here is what he had to say about each:

Anthony Davis – “Anthony grew from 6-3 to 6-10. When we recruited him, I went in and you’ve got to build trust right away. So I looked at him and said, ‘What position do you want to play, Anthony?’ He said, ‘I want to be a shooting guard.’ I really wanted him and you can’t lie and have to tell the truth, so I said, ‘OK.’ But I followed it up with, ‘I want you to know we post up our shooting guards a lot.’ ”

Micheal Kidd-Gilchrist – “If you thought DeAndre (Liggins) played hard and fast, wait until you see this young man. … (Former Coach Joe. B. Hall) watched Michael Gilchrist, and when he had seven blocks in one practice, he said, ‘This kid is unbelievable.’ Great kid. Just a wonderful young person.”

Marquis Teague – “Physical. (He’s) different than Brandon (Knight), different than John (Wall). He’s different. He’s physical. When I talk to him, he is so zeroed in on me, whatever I say he does. He wants to be coached. He wants to do what we’re asking him to do.”

Kyle Wiltjer – “He is a skilled big man. We brought in a speed coach to work with him. He’s finishing in the top one, two or three when we do running. The reason is because his strides are from here to the camera. The legs aren’t moving as fast; they just don’t have to go as many times. He can really shoot the ball, and he’s a wonderful young person, who, he’s like a seventh starter. Kevin Durant came up to me after (playing in a pickup game) and he said, ‘Hey, that big kid there can play.’ ”

Video replay courtesy of the Courier-Journal: