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John Calipari says 2 summer jobs made a ‘tough four weeks’

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Mike Miller

If the Dominican Republic is going to make a run at the 2016 Olympics – it just missed a spot in London after losing to Nigeria on Sunday -- John Calipari probably won’t be its coach.

Well, probably.

The Kentucky coach says he’ll have to think about if he wants to continue coaching the D.R. Even though it helped fuel some of the Wildcats’ recruiting efforts, the time commitment involved makes him a little leery of continuing.

“I’m not ready to say what I’m going to do,” Calipari told Andy Katz. “It has been fun but it takes a lot of time. I worked my team out as soon as I got off the plane and I’ll work them out again Wednesday before I fly to Vegas, come back and work them out Monday and Tuesday to work them out again. I ended up having two jobs. If we would have qualified for London that would have been, well, think about that. It would have been tough to get recruiting done.”

The London Games run from July 27-Aug. 12. If the D.R. had made the medal round, Calipari would’ve been in London for most of that time, which would’ve been tough on prepping his new team and preparing for a title defense.

Even a guy with boundless energy like Calipari needs a break now and then.

For that matter he has a hard time imagining what it would’ve been like if the D.R. hadn’t trained in Lexington.

“I wouldn’t have done it if we hadn’t trained here for two years,” Calipari told Katz. “That’s time away. We were training here and I was able to do two jobs. We had our camp, I coached their team and coached my team. It was a tough four weeks.”

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