Calipari: Cats have a "will to win"

By LARRY VAUGHT

LOUISVILLE — As Kentucky kept piling up wins this season, often coach John Calipari said he wanted his team to get “punched in the mouht” to see how it would handle adversity.

Some might think UK took a punch here Saturday when it had to battle a physical Cincinnati before prevailing 64-51 in the NCAA Midwest Region to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.

“I just want to stay on the course we're on, which I keep saying they're not going to do it on their terms. If you want to do something unique and special, ... we shouldn't be saying the things that we've been saying from the beginning of the year right now. But this team has a will to win. They have a heart,” said Calipari.

“What they learned today is we don't have to shoot the ball well (20 of 54 for 37 percent), and we can still survive. You just want them going into every game saying, it doesn't matter what happens. We can still win. And that's the mentality I want them in. But I got a great, great group. They handle things that are coming at them. People play them physical. No one's going to surrender. They're not going to surrender. So if you have to fight, you got to fight. I mean, I'm not going to lose going down not swinging. That means the games get physical.

“We had many physical games like this. This wasn't like the most physical. I could go through your league and tell you there were physical games. But they're learning each time out. I still have the youngest team in the field, and I would say one of the ways is try to get after them physically and see if you can rattle them. They have handled all this stuff with class. They've done a great job. They don't respond. They just have an even keel about them, which is kind of nice.”

Calipari was especially pleased with the way freshmen Trey Lyles and Karl-Anthony Towns handled the play.

“We put him (Lyles) next to the basket, I thought he was really good. I thought Karl did some good stuff, and in the second half, Willie did it,” the coach said.

He also called his guard play “solid” in the win and wasn’t down on Devin Booker despite his 3-for-9 shooting that included 0-for-5 from 3-point range.

We told him after the game, hey, you've got to keep shooting because there's going to be a game we need him to make shots or we can't win. It just didn't happen to be this one or the first one. You can miss all these ones. It doesn't matter. The next one's coming up, we may need you to make some shots. We play around the goal pretty good,” Calipari said.

Aaron Harrison was 5-for-11 from the field and had 13 points while Andrew Harrison was just 2-for-7 but hit consecutive drives in the second half to help break the game open.

“They're getting so much better. Everything about their games in the last year. They've been with us two years. It's ridiculous how much they both improved. They're both winning players now. They're both winning players. They both are not afraid to make game-winning shots because they're not afraid to miss game-winning shots,” Calipari said.

“They'll make free throws. They're both defending better. Now, Aaron gave up a layup at the end of the game. He just stopped playing. Andrew gave up a 3 during the game where he just stopped on a guy, where the guy moves and gets a three. Reality is those are few and far between. Those two right now are playing as well as any guards in the country, and they're 6-6. They're 220. They're good athletes.

“They're really skilled, both left and right. You can't say force them left. Guy will go left. You can't say force him right. He'll go right. They're both really skilled. Again, I don't think they get the credit. They carried us to the final game last year, those two. You watch the tapes. Those two carried us to where we were. Struggled a little bit in the final game. We never would have gotten into the final game without those two. Now they're starting to do the same thing again. It says something about who they are as players in their heart to win and their will to win.”