John Calipari surpassed another significant career milestone Tuesday night, securing his 800th career on-court victory with an 82-74 overtime victory over Mississippi State.
He is just the 13th Division I head basketball coach to surpass the 800-win threshold. Jim Boeheim, Coach K, Bob Huggins and Jim Calhoun are the only other active head coaches with 800+ wins on their respective resumes.
Following the historic victory, Calipari gave all the credit to his players, current and former, for helping him reach rarified air in college basketball.
“It means I’ve been doing this a long time, had a lot of good players and publicly I’d like to thank all of those players from UMass, all of those players from Memphis, all those players here that have won all of these games,” Calipari said.