Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
“But it never left,” you say. “The Memphis Tigers were 33-4 last year, and advanced to the Sweet 16.” Ah, but they lost the man that made that success possible, Mr. John Calipari. And with that whole Derrick Rose mess, many figured Memphis would gently recede into college basketball obscurity, saddled by investigations and a weak conference.
And those people obviously didn’t read this profile of their new 31-year old head coach, Josh Pastner. Oh him? Yeah, he’s superhuman.
Some excerpts:
Before he could even get into an R-rated movie or drive a car, Josh was traveling with his father across Texas and Louisiana, scouting games and making recruiting visits to the homes of players they felt could help [his AAU team]. […]
He had also began publishing the "Josh Pastner Scouting Report," a 50-page book of observations that he sent to college coaches across the country. […]
Think that’s extreme? How about this: To this day Pastner has never taken one sip of alcohol, a puff of a cigarette or a hit of an illegal drug. He swears he’s never even had caffeine.
It’s almost like success for Mr. Pastner has been preordained by some basketball God. And you, my son, will make everyone in the country look lazy and ignorant. Think that’s extreme? Take a look at Memphis’ recruiting class for next year.
They’ve got three 5-star players already signed up to play in Memphis, and today picked up a committment from Tarik Black, adding to what Fox Sports’ Jeff Goodman already calls an “insane class” for Memphis. Because Pastner’s clearly insane, you see? So it all makes sense.
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