John Calipari’s best quotes from preseason Q&A
Head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats John Calipari is all smiles during second half of the Sweet 16 of the 2015 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament against the at Quicken Loans Arena on Thursday, March 26, 2015 in Cleveland , Ky. Photo by Jonathan Krueger
October 1, 2015
By Josh Ellis
After losing a record-setting seven players to the 2015 NBA Draft and falling just short of achieving the pursuit of perfection, head coach John Calipari was able to get away from the crazy game of basketball this summer — but not for too long. This is Kentucky, where basketball never stops — and neither does Calipari, having restocked the UK roster with the No. 1 ranked recruiting class in 2015.
Here are some of Coach Calipari’s best quotes from his preseason meeting with the media.
Calipari: Well, I wasn’t coaching a team and we didn’t have everyone on campus, Alex being hurt, so a lot of it was different stuff in what we were doing. But, for me personally and the family kind of got away a little bit for the first time in, geeze, for the first time in a long time. I took some time.
Q: Some ESPN analysts said Tyler is, or will be, the best point guard in the country this season. What do you think about that?
Calipari: I hope they’re right. I have a lot of faith in him. The last time we went through this, where we lost this many guys, the issue we had is our guard. We didn’t have any guards. So you come back, and you’re trying to figure this out with all guys that have no experience. Well, we’ve got a couple with experience and we have a couple really skilled guards. Skilled guards. They’re there, so I feel pretty comfortable because of that. And I think Tyler should be that guy. I mean, what he went through last year and how he was.
Q: What does it say to you that Isaiah Briscoe said he’ll text Tyler at 1 o’clock in the morning, say ‘First one to 10 points, let’s go,’ and Ulis says, ‘Give me 30 minutes, I’ll meet you in the gym’ and they come in here in the middle of the night and play each other one on one? Those two — where some people might have said, ‘How are they going to coexist?’ — they’ve already hit it off?
Calipari: It all depends on how you are. When I had John Wall and Eric Bledsoe everybody said, ‘How are they going to coexist? How will that work? That won’t work. They’re too this, and they’re the same.’ Well, first of all we play position-less is what I’ve said this summer. We don’t really — We could play with three point guards. We could play with three centers. As long as you can play basketball. And guys like Tyler and Isaiah and Jamal and those kids who are comfortable in their own skin, they’re not in competition with the guy on their team. They are but they’re not. So good kids like that, they’re not worried about the other guy. They’re comfortable with how good they are.
Q: As good as you guys were, as much talent as you had and all you did even after he got hurt, when you think about that Wisconsin game if you have an Alex Poythress…
Calipari: The year before he was good in that game and made plays that they couldn’t stop. I just want for him. You’re talking about someone who has grown as a person. He graduated in three years. He’s grown as a player. Then he gets hurt and he’s set off track. Now you just want this to work for him. I want this to — obviously I want our team to win, but I want this to work for him, that he walks away knowing that even though this happened and that happened, you know.
Q: How does Mychal Mulder help? It’s his first year in your program, but he is a third-year college guy. How do you see him helping?
Calipari: He’s a first-year guy. I mean, you walk in this place it doesn’t matter if you’re 20 or 17, like one or 21. He’s a first-year guy. What he does is he can shoot the ball. He’s a catch-and-shoot guy. He’s a good athlete. And he’s got to find his way, just like Charles Matthews has got to find his way. Derek, I hope, and Dom look at this and say, ‘This is the best opportunity since I’ve been here to play. I’ve got to take advantage of this.’ But they’ve got to find their way. They’ve got to create their space. It’s not — It’s by what you do, not by how you act. It’s what you do, how you play. How do I create that? He’s one of those guys.
Calipari: Because that’s — when someone deserves to play more they play more. Someone deserves to get the most shots they do. I want everybody to eat, but this is not communism. This isn’t the eighth grade league. I did what I did last year because I had no choice. Everybody deserved to play. There was not a whole lot of difference between guys, and that’s what I did. I did that for the players. Some of my best teams, I’ve played five guys, six guys. I mean, my best teams. Last year was a good team.
Calipari: He’s not that. Believe me, Anthony Davis is a freak of nature. I mean, Anthony Davis I’m guessing within the next few years will be the best player in the universe. Like, the universe. OK, so like Skal — all these kids are different. They have different mental makeups. They have different work capacities. They have different toughness about them because of how they were brought up. They’re all different. All I want him to do is be the best that he can be. I’m not comparing him to anybody. I’m telling you he’s got a ways to go. He knows it though. He’ll be the first to tell you. But he’s a great kid. He really is. He’s trying to find his way. Now, for us to be what we can be as a team, he’s got to have a presence. Like people got to know, ‘Oh man, look at this kid.’ And then he makes a jump hook, he makes a jump shot. He’s really skilled. But you start saying, ‘This kid’s for real.’ He’s basically like Karl. He’s learning how to run. How about that? Just, ‘You don’t run right. Let’s teach you how to run.’ That’s what we’re starting.Isaac is the same thing. I mean, Isaac played — Tyler came in yesterday in the pick-and-roll, because he is so skilled. He’s 7-foot. Tyler I guess put him on the line, like eight or nine feet, and was doing pick-and-rolls and anytime his man left he threw it to him and the kid made that shot. Tyler’s like, ‘This guy’s really going to help us.’ Yeah, ‘He’s going to help your game in the pick-and-roll. If you don’t have a lob man, then you throw it to him and he can make that shot.’ But he’s not physically near ready to play in a game where it’s like, ‘Go get balls, go defend, fly up and down the court.’ He’s not ready for that.
Calipari: That’s the biggest thing. It gives you some depth at big. You know, God forbid Alex doesn’t come back the way he needs to, we didn’t have enough guys. We just didn’t. So, but Jamal played with him and Jamal told me what he was. Then I see him, and the kid is really skilled. Like, he can make 15-footers. He’ll make his free throws. Anything around the goal, like 5-footers, two, he makes. And if he shoots it you’re thinking it’s going in. Now we’ve had a lot of guys that shoot that shot and shoot air balls. They’re skilled, they’re running and all that, but they can’t make that jump. Sometimes we forget we’re playing basketball. That’s what we’re playing. That is what makes him what he is.
Calipari: I don’t really care where they’re from, if they have a tattoo, what color they are. None of that ever — like you saying that gets me like, ‘Huh?’ Like I went in a home one time, ‘How many white players you have?’ Let me think. I don’t know. Is he white? Or not? I don’t know. Does that matter? So, when you say that I don’t think so. They’re players.
Calipari: That’s a pretty good comparison. And then DeAndre ended up being a pretty good scorer for us too. But it took him time. You know, Charles, he could be one of those finishers where we’re all making plays and he is the guy getting the ball in the basket. His mid-range is not bad. His ability at the basket is good. He’s an offensive rebounder and as a defender and as an energy guy.
Calipari: Well, again, it’s, you know — his skills are better. His confidence is better. I think, again, — you think about this. You walk in the gym and there’s Willie Cauley, there’s Karl Towns and there’s Dakari and you, and you’re fighting for time. There are days you’re confident, and there are days you’ve been crushed. So now, I think he looks out there and he’s well beyond Skal physically, conditioning and being able to stay up with the game. Like he and Tyler in pick-and-rolls, he knows. He’s been through this. So, he’s shown a confidence level. Now he’s got to go in and be able to make 15-footers, because they’re not going to play him out on the floor. Make free throws. You know what I mean? Things like that. Be a consistent kind of kid. I think he’s up for that. I think that’s what he wants to do.
Calipari: Yeah, I have, but we haven’t talked in those terms as much. But I would tell you this one is, because Alex obviously has been trained as a three and is playing four. Even Skal, who is not a true five, but a five, he’s so big. He’s 7-foot. What you would like to have is a bunch of guys that are from 6-6 to 6-9, 7-foot and can play every position. Because we’re playing basketball. We got into, ‘Well, the way I coach, this kid has to be like this. This kid has to be like that.’ That’s not what we do. Let’s figure out who we have. I’ve told them I still don’t know how we’re going to play pick-and-rolls. I don’t know exactly what we’re going to do in transition, what we’re going to flow into. I don’t know how much zone we play, if we play zone and how we’ll play against zone. Don’t know yet. I mean, will we press? This could be a good pressing team. Not would it be a good pressing team because your guards can just pick up and play? Or do you press with one of those big guys on the ball like a Marcus Lee or Skal, who can move their feet? Do you put Alex on the ball or do you just say, ‘Let’s all pick up our guards and we’ll look to run and jump or run and trap just off…’ I mean, that’s why a summer trip with this team would have been good, but you know you can only do that one every 15 years or whatever they do.
Calipari: He could guard bigs. Like we could switch pick-and-roll with him and him go guard a five man. And he wants to guard them. Like literally he can play — he’s not, if it’s a 7-foot five he’ll fight. But I’ll be honest with you, last year when we switched Tyler Ulis on fives he did fine because he’ll fight. Like he’ll go down in there and fight. Now the question is, ‘Can our bigs guard guards?’ I don’t know yet. Last year we had the to play a certain way which was pretty effective, but maybe we trap and rotate. You want to go pick-and-roll? We’re trapping every time. We’re going to rotate and see how you do. I mean, we could do that. There’s all kind of stuff. It’s just until you know and settle into, ‘OK, here are our top six, seven, eight, whatever it is,’ now what’s the best way for them to play and have success? It’s not the system and, ‘What’s the system say? You either fit in there or you go to another school.’
Calipari: You know, he’s got a toughness about him. He wants to win, and he makes everybody better. Like he’s going to get you — you want a general out there that you want to follow. They want to follow him. But now as you say that, Jamal and Isaac haven’t been here, so they haven’t played with those two. So those two would have been mentioned. They don’t even — ‘What’s your name?’ I mean they just got here, so… But if you looked at what this is right now that would be — that’s understandable.
Calipari: Could break through as a three or a four. He’s just got to have confidence and want to do it. Like, ‘Do you really want to do this?’ And just go do it. They were playing the other day, and I guess he missed some shots. So I saw him after and I said, ‘How’d it go?’ He said, ‘I missed some shots.’ I said, ‘What were the guys saying to you?’ ‘They told me to keep shooting.’ So, there’s nothing holding him back. Go for it. I’m going to play the best people. If you’re one of the best people then go do it, go show it. Make it there’s no question that’s you. Dom, the same thing.
Calipari: He’s an athlete. He’s a quick jumper. Not great with the ball. Making plays and all that, but, you know, he’s fast. He and Charles are different in that Charles is probably a better finisher. Not as good a shooter. Charles is a little better defender. He may be a little faster than Charles. But, like I said, you’ve got to carve your way. I mean, you know what your strengths are, you know what his strengths are. You got to say, ‘I’m going to make sure mine — you need my strengths on this team.’ And what I’m telling you guys: that’s the normal team.
Calipari: No. I move on. Wish we’d have won all 40. That would have been nice. But we did something that in all likelihood will never be done again. That team did stuff that, you know — the reason it can’t be done, the number, is because if you’re in a bad league and you get in the tournament you’re going to get banged somewhere. Or if you’re in a bad league and you’re playing other really good teams, one of those teams is going to get you. You know, you’re just not doing it. And then to do what we did in the league we were in, with the schedule we played, get that close and every game every team played out of their minds. Think about Notre Dame, how well they played. Notre Dame should have beat us. I mean, now they’d play one out of five games like that, but that one was us. Wisconsin, we get somebody down they go away. They were fighting for their — but it was every game we played. I can remember the Georgia game. I can remember the Texas A&M game. I can remember — How in the world did they do what they did? You know, you come up a little bit short, but that team, what they accomplished and then how individual players got better, you look at each guy and they all benefited. Every one of them benefited by it.
