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By LARRY VAUGHT
larry@amnews.com
Kentucky coach John Calipari had some interesting things to say about last year’s NIT team, as well as a look at what could lie ahead for this year’s team during an interview last month.
Kentucky will have Big Blue Madness Oct. 18 and plays its first exhibition game Nov. 1 before opening regular-season play Nov. 8 against UNC-Asheville. The Wildcats have added six McDonald’s All-Americans along with two other scholarship freshmen to this year’s roster and have been picked No. 1 in some preseason polls.
Question: What did you learn last year about having a young team that could help this year?
Calipari: “The No. 1 thing is that you have to have ... you can’t do what I did last year and have eight kids on scholarship. You just can’t. What happens is, people want to talk about just the competition of it, and it’s true. You can’t save these kids from competition. I can’t save my own children from competition. That’s the United States. That’s what we are about.
“What I tried to do is like, ‘It’s his turn, it’s his turn.’ We just won a national title, I don’t want to bring kids in and let this kid do ... well, you can’t do it that way. We had no competition. But more than that, there were guys that needed to be out of the game, and they knew it. Like Alex (Poythress) at times. It is kind of like you are playing golf and it goes south, so you try to play 27 more holes and it just gets worse. Your best bet is when it started to go south, go home, have a beer, laugh about it, and then go out tomorrow and you play better.
“Well, that happens if you have enough players. It is just not the competition. There were times Archie (Goodwin) needed to just sit for a while. ‘Kid, I am not mad at you. Just sit out.’ We couldn’t do it. We did it and I looked and went, ‘Oh, my gosh. Go back in.’ You can’t do it that way. I know there is a number that is too many, but you can’t do what we did a year ago. It’s what I did. It was my choice. You look back and say we put the kids in a bad position on a lot of fronts.”
Question: Will you approach the way players feel about themselves going into this season based on several players saying last year they were too high on themselves?
Calipari: “You had guys that were delusional, too, about who they were. When we started practicing we knew. After the Maryland game, I knew, like, ‘Guys, this is not how we have been coaching, this is not how we have been playing, and we don’t have a whole lot of good choices here.’ This team will be different. I worked them out the other day, and this is what I was used to seeing. So I don’t think that will be a problem.
“The issue for us is going to be how quickly can we come together? Can we get in the kind of shape you have to be in to compete at the level we are going to try and compete? They got along before they got here, kind of like other teams I have had where before you walk on campus, they know each other and like each other.
“Last year that wasn’t the case. Willie (Cauley-Stein) didn’t know Nerlens (Noel). Nerlens didn’t know Archie. None of them knew Alex. They had played together a little, but they didn’t know each other. This group, you can tell they are hanging around each other. They are following each other. Again, you can’t compare one year to the next.
“The one thing in gist, and then I would just rather move forward because that is how I am, is in a lot of ways last year was a total success. Four players, three guys graduate, 3.4 grade-point average. Two number one picks. Julius (Mays) gets a contract overseas. The two kids who come back were projected that they could have been first-round picks. Kyle (Wiltjer) is the (SEC) sixth man of the year. When you look at 20 games (won), if you beat Vandy in the (SEC) tournament you are probably in the NCAA tournament, even though we were not a very good team.
“There were things that happened for those kids that were really good. For me and us as a staff, it was really disappointing that we didn’t come together or guys weren’t able to elevate their games. Maybe they just weren’t capable. But aside from that, when I look back, for the kids, they can look back and was it a bad year for this guy or that guy. They can go, ‘Nope. It was a good year for me.’ But it just wasn’t what we expect a team to be able to do.”
Question: How hard was it to wait for twins Aaron and Andrew Harrison and James Young to finally get on campus, and did they miss much?
Calipari: “They had academic stuff they had to finish, which they did. Again, it was nothing crazy, but you have to understand our summer school, they overlap. I haven’t talked to our president about it, but we almost have to do something. I have never heard of two summer schools overlapping. Now why would that happen? We don’t even know why.
“Why wouldn’t you have a June summer session and then one that starts after July 4, which is what everybody in the country does. So if you are in Chicago, those schools don’t let out until the 23rd or 24th of June. Guess what? Those kids can’t even get in our summer school. Either one. You can’t come to summer school.
“The way we do this, we knew, ‘OK, I don’t think those two are going to get done, those three are going to get done with this class or whatever they had to finish up. And they didn’t. So that was the issue. We knew, and we were comfortable through. Somebody said there were all kinds of rumors, and I said there were always all kinds of rumors at this place. They are fine.”
Question: Did they have any problems meshing with the other players?
Calipari: “They all know each other. This group, they want to win and they know they need each other, and we have been kind of clear with individuals about what we are having to do and what we are trying to do. They’re good.”
Question: Is there anything that could speed up or slow down the chemistry mix?
Calipari: “Speeding it up is you just get in games and they start feeling it faster than they normally do. There is a process here. Don’t know how many freshmen we will start, but you could start anywhere from three to five. They have not played together.
“We are right now already showing them more of the dribble-drive than we have had since my first year here. I am showing them tape of some of my Memphis teams and how we played. But when I look at it, those guys had played three years except for Derrick Rose. But those other guys had played three years.
“It takes time for things to develop. You hope it is quicker than it should be. You hope your veterans, your sophomores, Alex and Willie, elevate so they can drag. But you just don’t know.
“The biggest thing is the conditioning, the toughness, the mental toughness. If that is not where I think it is, that will slow it down. But the other thing is just through experience. You have to get on the court, build your own self-esteem, your confidence through demonstrated performance and you have to get on the court and do it. “
Question: Has Alex Poythress made the strides you wanted since last year?
Calipari: “He is way better. Guys around him are way better. He has made strides, and I’m happy. This summer going against Julius (Randle) every day, that is a handful. That is going against a 6-9 Michael Kidd(-Gilchrist) every day where he is not slowing down and he is trying to dunk every ball.
“You don’t feel like playing today or embarrassing anybody? Well, the choice is you embarrass him or he is embarrassing you. How about not embarrassing anybody? You embarrass him or he is embarrassing you. Now all of a sudden you start changing. You are like, ‘Whoa. How do I do this? What do I do?’
“He has done fine. He has a hamstring right now, so he has not played since we have been back, but he will be fine.”
Question: What about some of the practice matchups you will have this year?
Calipari: “I am going to tell you who is better than I thought he was, is Dakari Johnson. His body fat is down, I think, to 7 percent. Now all of a sudden he is dunking everything around the rim, where before the question mark we all had was that he plays well below the rim, how do we do this? But all of a sudden I am sitting here watching him and all the stuff we are doing, he is easily dunking balls now.
“He is one of those bigs that we have had to play against that puts his body on you and you have to do something. One guy can’t do it. So he is better than I thought. That is really going to challenge Willie. It is almost going to make Willie mad. We did some stuff yesterday and Willie got mad, and then how he is going to have to play came out.
“It’s not like I want kids to play angry, but some kids it is all different for every kid. I think that Dominique (Hawkins) can do for Aaron and Andrew what they need to see. The guys they are going to go against, how big are they going to be? How big is the point guard on the other team? Six-six. He is going to be about 6-1 and be tough, hard-nosed, physical. Well, that is what Dominique is. So you go right after these guys. You physically, defensively show them what they are going to be facing.
“I think that is going to be good. I even think James (Young) and Alex having to go, because I think Alex looks around and says, ‘Maybe let me play the three some. I don’t have to play this one. Let me go against this guy.’ I think that is going to be there.
“We can play big, we can play small. It is back to where we were. I am watching right now and they are playing through bumps, naturally getting to the rim and they are banging each other. I went home and was singing to myself and ready to start talking crap again, ‘here we go,’ and then what popped in my mind? ‘Oh my gosh, these guys are all going to leave. Where’s my phone (to call recruits)?’ I made two calls before I got home, and I don’t live that far from here. It is the life we chose, I guess you could say.”
Question: How much more physical do you expect this year’s team to be?
Calipari: “Oh, man. I keep hearing they are going to call fouls this year. I just watched a whole season where people beat the living crap out of each other all the way through to the finals. So we are going to play like we are on the verge of fouling every possession. I have enough guys. So that is what I think others are teaching. Just play so you are on the verge of fouling, and I will complain about too many fouls called. We can play that way because I have more numbers.
“Then physically, you have to want to play that way and have the physique to play that way. And I think we do. We have that. Hopefully they start calling it. We can always back up. But it appears as though get body to body, hip check people, push them in the back. Just play, bang, do it. That was not one team. That was 50 teams last year played that way. That was how the game ended up being, and now they are all mad. The guys who were doing it are saying, ‘Yeah, we have to call more fouls.’ Are you out of your mind? You are the reason we are playing this way. You see how it is played. We can play that way.
“I want to press more with this team. I don’t know if we will press with a big on the ball. But you can with both Marcus and Willie. Dakari would have to go back and play a normal press. We played with Willie on the ball at times last year, and I kind of liked it. We have more players now. We have more toughness. That kind of stuff. More athleticism. We may press from 25 feet and down. In other words, in the quarter-court.
“How do you do that? Well, you are trapping certain passes, you are trapping areas on the court and scramble. So we may do that because of this team. At the end of the day, this team, like my teams ... last year’s team with Nerlens was one of the best defensive teams. With who we had, with Nerlens we were still one of the best defensive teams. After Nerlens left (with his injury), we were not the same.
“But this team should be like my teams where we should be one of the best defensive, rebounding teams in the country. Stopping drives, being physical, making it tough on people to score. Length. I think a lot of teams will play zone against this team if we really get going the way we like to play. I think teams will say, ‘Screw it. Play zone. Make them shoot.’ The difference is this team can shoot. So now all of a sudden you have four or five guys that can make shots. It’s a different ...
“I like size against zone because you can just look over it. When you’ve got smaller or weaker guys, they’re just trying to throw it to a guy next to them. When you’ve got bigger guys, they’re looking at a zone and saying, ‘Wait a minute, that guy over there is open.’ My best teams against zones have been longer teams. This team should be pretty long.”
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