Calipari to meet with Poole; more notes

Notes and quotes from head coach John Calipari’s press conference on Thursday.

  • News had just broken that five-star Class of 2012 recruit Alex Poythress signed with UK when Calipari walked to his podium. A reporter asked him if he was having a good day. ” What happened? Something happen?” Calipari said, before announcing he wasn’t commenting on recruiting until next week, when UK finalizes its class.
  • Calipari said he would meet with Stacey Poole regarding his future at UK in the “next day or so.” Said Calipari, “You want every player to stay, and fight through it, and learn not to run. But if a young man doesn’t think his opportunity is here – they all want to play. I will support him. Disappointed, disappointed if he chooses to do that. But he’s a great kid and I think is a terrific basketball player.”
  • Doron Lamb will start against Kansas next Tuesday because he comes from New York, which is where the game is played.

    “I’ll do that with anyone going home,” Calipari said. As for the starting lineup in games not played in New York, Calipari said it would be decided soon.

  • Still, Calipari likes what he’s seen from Lamb recently. “He’s jumping on the Josh Harrellson thing,” Calipari said. “But you can’t do that for one week and then say, where’s my reward.”
  • Calipari said DeWayne Peevy, UK basketball’s media relations director, was saying this team may be better defensively than the 2010 team with John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins because those two would, at times, “stop playing.” (Calipari also noted Peevy knows nothing about basketball.) But, Calipari noted, those two provided a toughness that he hoped Terrence Jones and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist can replicate.
  • Calipari said it’s too early to tell how far along Marquis Teague has come at the point guard position “until we’re in a big-time game, and the game’s on the line, and he gets the ball and see how he reacts.”
  • What can Calipari show the team from tape of an 85-point win? “We started right. We didn’t start shooting all threes. The intensity level was terrific, and we ran wide, which made the game easier. When we had opportunities to execute, we did.”

More from the players later in the day. For now, videos of Marquis Teague and Anthony Davis: