UK head coach John Calipari has officially been named as coach of the Dominican Republic national team.

The Dominican team will have a mini-camp at the beginning of August, featuring young national talent and including Eloy Vargas, and then veterans will join for the official training camp.

A team of former UK and Calipari-coached players will hold an exhibition against the Dominican team in Rupp Arena. The date was not announced. The Dominican team will play in a Continental Cup on Aug. 24-26 and in the Olympic qualifying tournament Aug. 30 through Sept. 11.

Calipari said he wants to re-energize the Dominican basketball program, which has never made the Olympics, and build a grassroots program to promote basketball in the country.

“This will be a great learning experience for me to be able to coach against some of the best minds in international basketball,” Calipari said in a release on CoachCal.com. “I know that being in the NBA helped me do a better job of preparing our young men to reach their dreams and this opportunity will do the same. I see no downside in this, especially knowing that I’m able to do a majority of the training here in Lexington at the state-of-the-art Joe Craft Center.

The 2009 Dominican Republic team included players such as Al Horford and former Louisville player Francisco Garcia.

“Coach Cal’s commitment to our team, and our country marks a definite ‘before and after’ for Dominican Basketball,” said Eduardo Najri, a board member of Southgate, the company that runs the Dominican Team. “I can guarantee that the University of Kentucky has just increased its fan base by about 10 million basketball loving fans.”

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