AP awards Kaminsky PoY honors, Calipari CoY

Kentucky head coach John Calipari receives the AP Coach of the Year award at Lucas Oil Stadium on Friday, April 3, 2015 in Indianapolis , IN. Photo by Jonathan Krueger

By Kevin Erpenbeck

“To be here and be honored like this by AP is obviously awesome,” Kaminsky said. “I’m very grateful that a lot of people that put me in this position. I have to thank people like (Wisconsin senior guard) Josh Gasser and (head coach) Bo Ryan that helped me along the way.”

Calipari was named the unanimous winner of the Coach of the Year award. The head coach has led the Cats to the cusp of becoming the first team to finish a season undefeated in nearly 40 years. But Calipari said that throughout the entire season, his job has been to help his players develop into top-level athletes and put them in a position to win the program’s ninth national championship, not to further his legacy.

“The reason I’m not worried about now and how I’m evaluated, legacy, it doesn’t matter,” Calipari said. “Fifty years from now when we’re all gone, people will look back without emotion and say, ‘What has he done? What did he do for people?’ I’m not focused on changing people’s minds who don’t know me, their opinion of me. I’m doing my job for these kids.”