The Kentucky/St.John’s game will be aired on ESPN2 and ESPN3.com tonight.
Nation of Blue.com will also have a live feed(if available) and live chat beginning around 7:15.
Line: Kentucky is favored by 21 1/2(bodog.com)
Game time is 7:30pm.
Here are some quotes from Coach Cal talking about tonight’s game which is part of the SEC/Big East Challenge.
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow][I]On what he tells his young team after becoming number one in the rankings …[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow]“First of all, I said obviously not everyone thought we should be number one. Thirty percent of the voters voted for someone else, which is really unusual. Normally, whoever ascends gets the majority of the votes. That didn’t happen. I said, ‘We’ll see if they’re right. How we practice, how we approach this. I want you to understand that this is not a burden. It’s a badge of honor. That’s what this is. Playing here, this is what you’re trying to attain.’ Now, this isn’t when we want this, but we’re there so let’s see how we perform.”[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow][I]On whether the freshmen understand what it means to be number one …[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow]“They’re oblivious to all of this. They don’t have any idea.”[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow][I]On this team being able to handle the number one ranking … [/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow]“We have a lot of people saying that last night’s game determined the number one for next week. The greatest thing is that I don’t even have to say stuff. In the world that we live in right now, if anyone says anything it’s out there in cyberspace. They read it all. I don’t even have to tell them. We have a very young team. We start three freshmen and two sophomores. We’re a very young team. We haven’t been really good offensively. We’ve got to get better. I like my team; I wouldn’t want to have anybody else’s team. But, I will tell you that we have a long way to go, as individual players and as a team.”[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow][I]On whether Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s comment that (Darius) Miller deserves to start is true …[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow]“I don’t know. We’ll just see how that goes. The way he’s playing, he’s our best player.”[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow][I]On what he wants to learn about his team after these next couple of preseason games …[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow]“All of these kinds of games and the mistakes we make are learning opportunities for the team and our coaches. That’s what it becomes. You want to play these kinds of games. You can’t afford not to when you’re Kentucky and you’re in the SEC. People forget that we were 10-6 last year in the SEC. You can’t play all of these kinds of games and put your program at risk. You need to play these kinds of games to figure out, where are we before January hits. I even told the players, ‘Go do what you think is right. You know how I want you to play. There are things that we haven’t talked about. Choose what you think you should do in those situations.’ It’s a learning experience. I don’t want anybody to play tentative. (Former UK) Coach (Joe B.) Hall was in here yesterday and we did a trap drill. You would think every player would understand how to play against a trap. When I sat down, Coach Hall laughed and said, ‘Can you imagine? You’d think they know. They don’t.” They just don’t know it and you can’t cover it all until you see it in a game and see that we don’t know how to play a three-point shooter when he comes off the screen. You’d think, ‘Well yeah, you have to know!’ No. You don’t know. So now, we’re trying to cover that a little bit. There are things that we’ll hit every game.”[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow][I]On having a senior that’s willing to start on the bench and a freshman that will come off …[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow]“I think it tells you that we have a pretty good team that likes each other and respects each other. But, it’s not just Darius (Miller) or Michael (Kidd-Gilchrist). It could be Doron (Lamb), or it could be Marquis Teague. I’d say the other two are pretty well squared away in there, but it may be one of those. The reality of it is, we can talk all we want but we have six starters. We have six starters; that’s what we have. Some of it may be game to game. I decide I want Michael guarding somebody different or I want a bigger line-up, we can do that.”[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow][I]On being in the third year of the SEC-Big East Challenge…[/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Arial Narrow]“It’s a good thing for both leagues. The issue for us is adding too many games and then going to 18 league games. My job isn’t to try to entertain. My job is to keep this program where it is and not put it at risk. Based on the fact that it’s going to stay at one year, for college players before they can move into the NBA, we’re going to have to turn over our staff and players, which mean that we don’t know who we’re going to have year to year. This isn’t a football schedule where you have to schedule it 12 years in advance. We could have three games to schedule and it’s August. We’re Kentucky. People will drop teams off of their schedule to play us. We don’t have to be that far out in advance of our schedule. That’s why this is a great game that’s great for both leagues but my concern is always going to be my players and this program, nothing else.” [/FONT][/COLOR]
