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  • Cal seeking 40 minutes from team

    by
    Darrell KSR
    Published on 03-15-2017 09:21 AM
    2 Comments Comments
    By LARRY VAUGHT

    If there is one thing Kentucky coach John Calipari wants to see from his team in NCAA Tournament play it is playing all out for 40 minutes.

    "There are things that we’re doing in games that are letting people hang around. And if you’re going to do something in this thing we’re walking into and you give a team hope, and it’s life or death, they’re coming out clawing. They’re coming out like a cornered animal. You can’t give them hope," Calipari said.

    "We do that a lot. That’s where I say, we’re getting better, but what we’re doing we gotta try to do it for 40 minutes. Thirty-eight minutes. I would take 35 minutes, but right now we’re at like 30, sometimes less.”

    While Kentucky has a young team, Calipari said bad habits are as much to blame for not putting teams away as a lack of experience.

    "You can say experience, but not all experience is good now. I don’t want bad experience. That doesn’t help you at all. The experience is doing it on the court, creating new habits, whether you’re young or old, that are going to put you in a position to be more consistent in your effort, in your focus – are you locked in? – all those things that, when we are, we’re really good," Calipari said.

    "When we’re not, we’re really bad. So, that’s what it is. But I’m pleased with where all these guys are at this point. Now, we just got to collectively be totally locked in for a game and when the game ends we talk about it.”

    Kentucky plays Northern Kentucky University Friday night in Indianapolis. If the Cats win, they will play either Dayton or Wichita State on Sunday.
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    2. Basketball
    Comments 2 Comments
    1. Bakert's Avatar
      Bakert - 03-15-2017, 10:27 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by Darryl View Post
      Cal needs to coach 40 minutes; best 36 minutes a game coach in the country. Last 4 minutes we don't run offense and teams score at will. Been that way for 7+ years.

      Darryl
      Actually, I shall disagree, my friend. If anything, I believe he coaches *too much* in the final four minutes of a game. I will always believe that in the WI game he tightened up and became so much of a control freak over what was happening that it got to the players.

      What I'm hoping is that this year his end of game coaching in tight games is to turn Fox loose which is more or less not controlling things. But when he screams at them to run specific sets and tries to move people around, that is when we get into trouble.

      Regardless, I do agree that we look bad in the final minutes of games sometimes. It's not often that our 12 point lead becomes 19 over the last few minutes and much more the case that our 12 point lead becomes 6.

      But to respond to Larrys' column, Cal is exactly correct. And it's not just the final minutes of a game but in the middle when we have the opportunity to put a team away and we quite playing. Against Bama we went up 51-42 with 11:42 to go. The goal should have been to have increased the lead to 15 or so in the next five minutes and finished it off. Instead, with 6:49 to go it's a one point game. So I'm not as concerned as the final 4 or 5 minutes, particularly in a game where it goes from 15 to 10 in that time frame. I'm more concerned about that 4 or 5 minutes when we have a chance to step on a team's throat and don't, thus allowing that final 4 or 5 minutes to become far more important than it should be.
    1. Padukacat's Avatar
      Padukacat - 03-15-2017, 11:28 AM
      Playing 40 minutes will be the key if we are to win. Not good all 40 but at least play hard on the defensive side.

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