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imsoblue
11-02-2012, 01:23 PM
This year’s team has some really good, thoughtful talkers. For this, the scribes (and TV dudes) are enormously thankful. You fine folks benefit, too. These guys are good at explaining what they’re learning and describing what’s happened on the court. Here’s a good example:

C WILLIE CAULEY-STEIN

ON THE EXHIBITOIN OPENER: “It was fun. It was good to get out there and actually play against a different team than ourselves. I think it was good for everybody to see where we’re at, out(side) of ourselves. Cal preached to us about breaking barriers. We were here (hands low), he thought, before we came in. Now he says we’ve gone up a little bit more but we still have a lot to go before we’re at where we want.”

ON PLAYING WITH NERLENS NOEL: “It’s fun playing with Nerlens, because now instead of trying to make sure you’ve got a man, you can kind of gamble a little more because you know you’ve got another shot blocker behind you. So it’s real fun playing with him.”

ON ALL THE LINEUP COMBOS: “I’ve never played in a game with that many substitutions – well, I mean, that many substitutions but not that many different lineups. We were playing five 6-6 and plus guys on the floor at one time. Then we went small. Then it was me and Nerlens. He’s just trying to find a matchup that he can feel comfortable with.”

ON WHETHER IT GOT CONFUSING, ALL THE SWITCHING: “I don’t think it was awkward. It was more we’re just learning how to play; like me and Nerlens together, we just learned that this week. So now instead of me just learning the five, I have to learn the four, too. Which is not a problem, but I never got the chance the first couple weeks to learn how to do it, so now learning it in this one week and having a game, it kind of like opens your eyes, like, ‘Oh, I didn’t really know how to do this yet.’ But doing it in a game is good.”

ON WHETHER HE CAN ACTUALLY HEAR WORDS WHEN CALIPARI IS YELLING AT GUYS DURING A GAME – OR WHETHER IT JUST SOUNDS LIKE LOUD NOISE: “You’ve got to just relay it, I guess. One person hears it and you just all say it so then you know what he’s talking about. Like tonight, it was loud. But in some times, when we were up by so much, it was more quiet and you could hear him. But for the most part you can tell what he wants.”

ON USING THE HUGE LINE UP WITH HIM, NOEL AND WILTJER ALL PLAYING: “That was the first time we’ve ever done it. I didn’t know we were going to do it. He’s talked about it, but we never did it in practice or anything, so it was weird. But I like that lineup, too. That’s a long lineup.”

ON HOW MUCH DIFFICULTY UK’S VERSATILTY MIGHT PRESENT TO OPPONENTS: “It’ll be real difficult, just because of how big we are, but how smooth and quick even our bigs are. Me and Nerlens, we’re not like regular 7-foot dudes. We can move and we can guard the guards, so it just gives you more matchup problems for other teams.”


C NERLENS NOEL

ON ALL THE LINEUPS: “You’ve just got to be ready for the lineups he’s going to put out, whether it’s me, Alex or me, Kyle, or me, Willie and Kyle like it was at the end of the game. You’ve just got to be aware and know what spot you’re at. It’s very diverse.”

ON WHETHER HE KNOWS WHAT LINEUPS CAL WILL USE IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS: “Right now, I don’t know what lineup he’s going with at any time. In practice, he’s always switching it up, whether it’s me, Willie or me, Kyle or whatever. But Coach Cal knows what he’s doing, and when you’re on the court you just gotta play hard.”

ON WHETHER HE’S EVER BEEN PART OF SUCH A MIX-AND-MATCH TEAM: “No, I’ve never been on a team as diverse like this, with another 7-footer and guys that can really go.”

ON WHAT IT’S LIKE TO PLAY WITH CAULEY-STEIN: “I feel more free just to maybe even guard on the perimeter a little bit more, knowing that I have Willie back there helping me out. Because one of us has always got to be at the rim, protecting the rim. If I’m not, then he’s there. So it’s always interchanging. That’s something we like.”

ON CAL’S ORDERS BEING IF ONE BIG IS ON THE PERIMETER, THE OTHER MUST GET TO THE PAINT: “Yeah, it’s constantly moving, all interchanging things. We always go through it in practice. You get used to it with the good communication we have with each other. We just keep it up, always talking and moving and communicating.”

ON FEELING GOOD OFFENSIVELY VS. NORTHWOOD: “I thought I played well offensively, could’ve done a couple more things. But everything’s going to come in time, offensive development and everything. I thought it was a good effort. I’m just looking forward to getting better by the season.”

ON WHETHER THIS WAS THE MOST HE FELT LIKE HIMSELF OUT OF THE THREE TIMES FANS HAVE SEEN HIM PLAY IN RUPP: “Yeah, definitely. Just a game setting, and this is what I live for – just to come out and just to show up when it’s time.”

imsoblue
11-02-2012, 01:23 PM
PG RYAN HARROW

ON SEEMING CALM ABOUT THIS SEASON: “I don’t know. I don’t want to say I’m calm, because Coach says he doesn’t want me to be that cool guy. But I feel good about it. I’ll say that.”

ON GETTING USED TO CALIPARI YELLING AT HIM: “Yeah, I’m getting used to it now. This was the first week where I’ve actually been adjusted to it, really, and just taking it in.”

ON CALIPARI NEVER LETTING UP: “No. He says he’s just going to keep on bringing it every day; he’s not going to let up.”

ON WHETHER HE HEARS CAL’S YELLING IN HIS SLEEP: “Do I hear it in my sleep? Nah, I don’t hear it in my sleep, but I get mentally prepared before every practice just knowing that he’s going to do that yelling. I just have to be ready for it.”

ON WHAT SETS CAL OFF: “Everything. Everything. Like, he could just be talking like this, normal, and then something could happen that wasn’t even dealing with me and he’s just like, ‘Ahhhhh! Why didn’t you make this happen?’ I know it’s because I’m the point guard and he’s trying to get the best out of me.”

ON WHETHER ALL THE DIFFERENT PLAYER COMBINATIONS UK USED AGAINST NORTHWOOD WERE CONFUSING: “Nah, because we do this in practice. We actually do four- and five-minute increments where we set up different combinations and we know what we need to do with that team. So we’ve been working on that in practice and Coach told us what was going to happen.”

ON CALIPARI SAYING THERE MIGHT BE A CATCH-UP LINEUP, AND WHETHER THAT SMALLEST LINEUP THAT WENT ON A 7-0 RUN IN THE FIRST HALF : “Was that me, Archie, Julius, Alex and (Nerlens)? Yeah, that’s us. (Calipari) knows that we can get out on the break fast and we can defend; he says Archie, Alex and Nerlens can switch players on defense, so he knows we can all defend. Then we can all get to the basket and make an opportunity to score.”

ON WHETHER HE WAS VOCAL ENOUGH AGAINST NORTHWOOD: “I can’t remember. I know I was talking, but I probably wasn’t as vocal as Coach wanted me to be. That came from just trying to make sure I didn’t mess up on defense and make sure he didn’t yell at me. But Coach always says you can’t worry about that; you’ve just got to go out there and play.”

ON WHAT HE DID WRONG IN STRETCHES THAT CALIPARI WASN’T HAPPY: “He’s just talking about on defense, bouncing and playing your man and not stopping on defense when the ball goes to somebody else. If I don’t stop on defense, then he’s pretty much set with everything else that I’m doing.”

ON WHETHER CALIPARI’S YELLING IS DIFFERENT THAN WHEN HE WAS JUST WATCHING LAST YEAR: “Yeah, it’s different when you’re getting yelled at, because nobody ever thinks they do something wrong. So you’re always like, ‘Aw, man, he’s yelling at me for no reason.’ But he’s yelling at you to get you better and to get you going. That works for a lot of us out here; when he starts yelling you, we start playing better. So we’re used to it.”

ON HOW MUCH OF THE TIME CAL THINKS THEY’RE DOING IT RIGHT: “He says 70 percent of the time we’re going to do things wrong. The other 30, we just have to scramble and make a decision and go out there and play basketball.”

SG ARCHIE GOODWIN

ON CALIPARI STEPPING UP HIS INTENSITY IN A GAME: “He’s been giving us a high level in practice, but just to see him do it in a game, the whole time, it is a little different. But it’s not hard to adjust to, because we know what he expects from us. He gets on us pretty hard in practice. When he’s not getting on you, he’s getting on someone else. It’s all for the better of us. He never tries to put us down, just constructive criticism. We know he’s in our favor, so we just say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and keep going.’ ”

ON PLAYING POINT GUARD VS. SHOOTING GUARD: “I feel comfortable at both positions. I just know at point guard, it’s more of a change of speed. You’ve gotta change speed a lot more and look at lot of things. Coming off screens you’ve got to look to get the big man involved. One thing he’s been preaching to us is the skip pass that he wants us to do a lot. That’s something I have to get accustomed to. I have to learn how to do it.”

ON CAL’S ASSESSMENT: “He thought we’d be a little worse than we were tonight. It feels good that we were actually a little better than he thought we were.”

ON REALIZING THE SEASON IS SO CLOSE: “I don’t know about the other guys, but speaking for myself, I’m too wrapped up in all the other things he has us doing. He makes it so easy for us not to have that pressure on ourselves because we stay so wrapped up in practice and schoolwork and all those things. So that’s just something that happens and we’re ready to play, instead of us having to think about all those things, the negative things that could happen in that short span of time.”

ON THE BEST LINEUPS: “I think all the combinations worked well, just in different ways. Like when we played with the two big men, it helped us out in the post. Then with the guards, we ran them through a lot more and were able to kick it out for a couple jumpers. So it’s just different ways that we have and different combinations that we play with to help us in each way.”

ON CALIPARI SAYING HE’S GETTING TIRED OF SCREAMING: “I would, too. That’s not too good to lose your voice. But yeah, he’s been doing a lot of screaming at us. He told us he was going to continue to scream until he didn’t need to scream. But right now he’s doing a lot of screaming.”

ON HAVING TWO TOWERING SHOT BLOCKERS IN THE GAME TOGETHER: “Man, that’s spoiling us, I’m just telling you. Two 7-footers … both crazy athletes with great timing, quick feet, good footwork, it helps us out so much. It enables us to push up on three-point shooters and make them take hard shots because knowing you have two guys back there, they’re our relief if we need it.”

link (http://blogs.courier-journal.com/ukbeat/2012/11/02/cats-react-to-rout-in-exhibition-opener/)

BigBlueJoe
11-02-2012, 02:14 PM
Good stuff. They all seem to have figured out that Cal's yelling is to better themselves and not just to harass them for petty stuff. That's a hard thing to learn at such a young age and these youngens seem to have a tough clear mindset. They all just want to learn and know that Cal is the right person for that job. I think this team is going to surprise a lot of people with how much they improve by seasons end. We're going to be better than the '10-'11 squad.