UMass's Kellogg meets his mentor Calipari tonight

First-year UMass coach Derek Kellogg is installing the offense Memphis's John Calipari favors. (File/Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

Derek Kellogg will peer down toward the other bench tonight shortly after tip-off - by which point bourbon will have long supplanted barbecue as the preferred order on Beale Street in Memphis - and see an unusual sight: John Calipari as his opponent.

Kellogg first met Calipari nearly 20 years ago, when he was a high school star in Springfield and Calipari was building the University of Massachusetts into an unlikely college basketball force. In the years since, while he played for and coached under him, Calipari became "my mentor, father figure, the guy who's taught me the majority of stuff I know about coaching and life in general," Kellogg said.

In his third game the as head coach at UMass, Kellogg will face Calipari and No. 12 Memphis, national championship runner-up last season. And that might not even be the oddest subplot. The tip will be at midnight - 11 p.m. local time - as the opening game of the made-for-TV 24 Hours of College Basketball.

For Kellogg, there is no doubt which storyline stands out. He will be returning to the city where he lived for eight years, to challenge the man most responsible for his life in college basketball.

"It's going to be kind of strange to see Coach Cal as kind of my adversary for the first time," Kellogg said.

Calipari and Kellogg speak every day on the phone, sometimes more than once. They talk about basketball first. They share information about players they've seen recruiting. Kellogg solicits advice about what's working and not working at practice.

Before long, the conversation turns to "what's really important," Kellogg said. Calipari asks about Kellogg's newborn son. Kellogg asks about Calipari's daughter. The idea of opposing one another has been broached, too.

"There's been many nights where we've talked about looking at the other guy at the other end," Kellogg said. "When the game starts, you can't look at the face of the person. You just have to look as it's another game as an opponent."

Abounding connections between the programs will make that difficult. UMass assistant coach Vance Walberg - the creator of Memphis's dribble-drive motion offense - taught the system to Calipari and served as a Memphis consultant last season. His son, Jason, is now an assistant to Calipari at Memphis.

UMass forward Hashim Bailey, who is redshirting this season, transferred from Memphis. UMass director of player personnel Shyrone Chatman played for Calipari at Memphis and served as one of his recruiting coordinators. Kellogg also brought with him Memphis director of basketball operations Andy Allison.

"There's a lot of intertwining," Kellogg said. "It's kind of a homecoming of sorts."

That UMass is playing in this game illustrates Calipari's influence on Kellogg. Calipari built a reputation at UMass for playing any team at any time to raise the stature of the program. Kellogg remembers several games at the Mullins Center that began at midnight. "This is like the norm for me," he said.

His players, though, will have a new experience. Calipari planned on holding practice last night at 10. Kellogg pushed UMass practice back an hour or two, but nothing "that extreme," he said. "I'm just worried about our team getting better right now. I just have to get our team tougher, better."

"When we found out we were playing at midnight, we were like, 'What?' " forward Tony Gaffney said. "It kind of took us by surprise. But then when we realized we were the first game, we loved it."

Said point guard Chris Lowe, "That's going to be very weird. A lot of times at midnight, you're sleeping. You're not playing basketball."

Kellogg said he is not worried about the Minutemen arriving at FedEx Forum unready, that the national television stage and playing in front of roughly 20,000 people will amp them. Once the game begins, though, he admitted the competition might not match the buildup.

"I'm not sure that the game is going to be so exciting with the level of talent they have," Kellogg said. "I'm not sure our guys understand playing a top-15 team on the road [that] has experienced and [future] NBA players on their roster."

Still, no matter the result, the game will be valuable for the Minutemen as Kellogg is trying to implement the offense Memphis used to get to the national final last season, and watching a team as experienced and as skilled as the Tigers will help them learn its intricacies.

It will land UMass on national television. It will allow the Minutemen to test themselves against one of the country's best teams.

And afterward, Kellogg and Calipari will have something new to talk about. Kellogg knows Calipari will have compiled a complete scouting report on the Minutemen. Kellogg will ask to see it, to see what his former coach thinks of his new team. There is no one else he trusts more.

"That's like a big dad, little son," Lowe said. "But they're coaching against each other now. They're going to be friends, but I know Coach Kellogg wants the 'W.' Once the game starts, we're not friends."

Senior center Luke Bonner will not play tonight and could be out for "at least a couple weeks" with a knee injury he sustained Wednesday against Southern Illinois, Kellogg said. He hurt his knee late when a Saluki dove for a loose ball and rammed his head into Bonner's knee.

Adam Kilgore can be reached at akilgore@globe.com