John Calipari should be a very happy man tonight.

He earned it.

Calipari worked long and hard to secure a commitment from Derrick Rose, and it paid off on Saturday when the 6-2 point guard announced at a press conference in Chicago that he will be a Memphis Tiger.

There’s plenty of time between now and 2007 to discuss how Rose’s arrival will impact what already projects to be a pretty good team and how the Memphis program continues to climb the national ladder.

But for now, the key thing I want to talk about is why Rose chose Memphis, what it says about what high-level recruits look for, and how it validates the things Calipari says about his program.

If you read a lot of the stuff posted on message boards for Indiana and Illinois fans, most of the chatter has been in this vein: “Why would Derrick Rose choose to play at a school with relatively little tradition and in a sub-standard conference?”

Sure, compared to Indiana and Illinois, Memphis doesn’t measure up in terms of conference affiliation and tradition.

But what matters most to recruits like Derrick Rose?

1) Getting to the NBA
2) The chance to play in a Final Four
3) Playing on national TV
4) Facilities

That’s the list, right there.

Given those four factors, I imagine it wasn’t too difficult for Calipari to build the case that Memphis was Rose’s best choice.

It’s now well-established that Calipari sends players to the NBA, Memphis is an NBA city and playing at Memphis offers tons of exposure to NBA people. It’s now well-established that Memphis can contend for the Final Four. It’s now well-established that Memphis will be on ESPN or ESPN2 as much as any team this side of Durham, N.C. And it’s now well-established that Memphis plays in an impressive NBA building and has an above-average practice facility that is scheduled for even more improvements.