John Calipari met with the media following Kentucky’s overtime win over Saint Joseph’s last night.
Calipari said he suspected that Saint Joseph’s would come in and play much better following their disappointing loss to Texas A&M-Commerce.
“So, Saint Joe’s, I knew they could play this way,” Calipari said. “Last game they were 6 for 30 from the three last game. They made 15 threes. And some of them, we were on them. And for us to hold on with a bunch of young guys; you know, the amazing stat, folks, the amazing stat, Reed doesn’t score a basket and he has a plus 16. How does that happen?”
Check out his comments:
Transcript:
JOHN CALIPARI: Just talked to kids about, you know, the position they are in and how you can make people feel special and create hope for people, just by being nice, ask them their name, where they are from, let them know that you care enough to ask those questions. See if they comment about your game, watching games. And, so, that will be Thursday. And we play Friday. So, we are going to have off tomorrow. I won’t. One of the assistants, I guess, will do the radio show. Okay. And then Wednesday I will be traveling, come back late, and then Thursday we do what we are doing and we play Friday.
So, Saint Joe’s, I knew they could play this way. Last game they were 6 for 30 from the three last game. They made 15 3’s. And some of them, we were on them. And for us to hold on with a bunch of young guys; you know, the amazing stat, folks, the amazing stat, Reed doesn’t score a basket and he has a plus 16. How does that happen? It is incredible. One of my guys on the bench, I went to put him in, “No, wait, what are you doing?” No. You want him taking it out? You know, making those plays. But they all did well. I mean, D.J. (Wagner) played better, just starting to see who he is. Justin (Edwards) played better, more confidence, more relaxed player. Antonio (Reeves) made shots. Robert Dillingham does what he does. Adou (Thiero) went and banged and rebounded against a big team. Tre (Mitchell) made those shots which are, what I call, those are ‘the moment.’ There was that play, ‘the
moment.’ And one team is playing with house money and we’re playing with we’ve got to win. And they never — it never fazed them. And, like I said, I’m probably leaving somebody out. But I thought Jordan (Burks) played well, went in and mixed it up and did some good stuff.
And, so…
Q When you got Tre, were you fully aware that he was capable, as you call ‘the moment,’ making those shots?
JOHN CALIPARI: That you only get to see when you are coaching them.
But I knew how talented he was. He is a skilled basketball player,
shooting 3’s, passing balls. He will fight. Missing some
free-throws, which are stunning to me because he is a really good
free-throw shooter. But Justin made a couple of plays. Now, he
shoots that 3; you know, we got lucky, Robert fell down, I call a
timeout. I mean, again, a little bit of discipline and more
organization when you are playing to win. The play where Reed
rebounded, bringing it up and someone’s running for a basket. Why?
We are up five. We don’t need a basket. Don’t run that way, run the
other way.
“I didn’t have the ball.” I know, but you ran like you were
going to try to get a lay-up. We don’t need it. We want to finish
the game off. But, again, we shot a high percentage. We only had
nine turnovers, two of our guys had six of those nine, and we played
a good team, a veteran team. And they did not go away. And they out
rebounded us.
Q With young guys, defense, half-court defense, 3 point defense, how
much of that is just paying attention throughout the entirety of a
possession and just walking in?
JOHN CALIPARI: In most cases we were in the vicinity, we didn’t have
hands up or we didn’t take the 3 away. What happens is, if I go up
too close and he’s able to drive around me, it is kind of
embarrassing. So I will stop a little short and give him a 3 and
have my excuse why I did it. Well, I know why you did it, you didn’t
want him to beat you on a dribble. And I’m saying, let him beat you
on a dribble. We will recover from behind. If they’re shooting 2’s,
they can’t beat us shooting 2’s. They are going to beat us shooting
3’s.
The other one was, and the main reason I put Reed in wasn’t Reed
himself, it was Reed’s team defense. That’s why I put him in the
last part of the game, it was his team defense. Did a way better job
of cutting a man off coming off screenings. But he is talking. He
understood what the game plan was.
But, yeah, there’s things we are going to have to get better at.
We are going to have to rebound the ball better. But to get out a
team makes 15 3’s and you figure out how to win, you make
free-throws, you make plays, you get rebounds down the stretch, you
fight to win with a bunch of young guys, it is perfect. You play a
game you could have lost but you didn’t. You figured out how to win.
Q You have spoken a lot about Reed this year and he has some of the
best hands that you have seen.
JOHN CALIPARI: Not just — the hands were not better than Stacy’s
hands. Stacy led this women’s program in steals and she played a
while ago. She had — Jeff just wanted to shoot it.
Q Fair enough. But with Reed, kind of a two-parter, on the last play
where he got the game sealing steel, what did you see there? Is that
something you can teach or is it instinct?
JOHN CALIPARI: I work on that with him every day. No. That’s who he
is. That’s why he was in in the end. We need a rebounder. Who
rebounded the ball? He did. Do you need that rebounder or does it
got to be a bigger guy than him? So you want to play guys in the end
so that we’re a good team at the end of the game. It appears as
though he has got to be in, at least one of them. But I was so happy
D.J. busted through, Justin busted through. You know, you want guys
to feel like their hard work is paying off.
Now, the thing with Justin, which I was — you know, you can’t
prepare for a game the way you prepare. The day of the game, right
before the game your preparation has to be unbelievable, excellent
because you are playing to play great. Not just to play. So he’s
learning. He had a great shoot around and he had a great warmup and
it led to the game he had. Now, will he understand, you know, that’s
important? Yeah.
But, you know, all of them did something different in the game.
But, again, we got beat to balls; you know, they sent five guys to
the glass. So their way of playing is 3’s, lay-ups, and offensive
rebounds. Pretty good. And they got a team that can do that. I will
be surprised if they’re not in the hunt to win that league in the
last week of the season, I will be stunned, what I saw today.
Q Cal, there is always a lot of talk about balanced offense, but what
about balanced assists? You had five players with three or more
tonight.
JOHN CALIPARI: They all can play. How about, we had all guys in
double figures and Adou had seven and even though he didn’t get in
double figures, plus minus, as Reed. But the thing I’ve told them,
even the last game, we had seven guys have between 8 and 10 shots.
So you can’t say, well, I don’t get my shots. No, you got them.
What are you doing with them? You are one for eight. Don’t come
talking to me.
I mean, so, when you play this way, yeah, there’s more weight on
a shot because you are not taking 25 shots. You are just not. And
the way we play it is a balance and, really, assists. Now, when you
have a team like this, and I’ve said this a couple of times, every —
you have got different teams you are watching. You won’t believe
this, we don’t all play the same. Well, you should play like him.
Well, if I had his guys I would play like him. How about I don’t.
The way we play now, there are many teams in the country that can’t
play that way and shouldn’t or they will win five games. Well, I’m
just going to play the right way, though. Yeah, okay, now you are
looking for work.
How do I play with this team? We have got to get one of these
bigs back, hopefully two. It changes who we are. Now, you say, well,
how are you going to play? You ready for this? They can play
basketball. They can bounce it. You can still play five out. You
could put Tre at the four or him at the five and those guys on a
perimeter because of how they play and how they shoot. So, but, I
know what you will have is someone near the rim that is 7-foot-2 that
you are not just getting lay-ups, which we are still giving up a lot
of lay-ups. What did they shoot for the game? 42 percent. 40 from
the 3.
Q John, I wanted to ask, you guys were up seven with five and a half
to play in regulation but you go on to overtime and you win it. So
do you just view that your team got more out of this game winning in
that fashion, having to make winning plays late as opposed to if you
had won by 15 or 20?
JOHN CALIPARI: I would have liked to have won by 15, 20. But you
take advantage of what unfolds. And that’s all I can tell you. You
know, again, we missed some shots, some free-throws. They bang a
couple of 3’s, all of a sudden it is anybody’s game. We were kind of
lucky to get to OT. We really were.
And, so, I will watch the tape tomorrow on the plane, have an
idea of what we are going to have to see on Wednesday, we will
probably watch some of this, and then what we have got to work on.
You know, there were things that I am doing, I’m still trying to
figure out the team. When do you let Robert go, let him go do a
little bit more? We did that in points in this game. I also ran one
of our grinded out offenses that I have not used this year, and
Robert makes a shot out of it. You grind it a little bit. We did
some different things bringing both big guys out. I’m just trying to
figure out, you know, how do we do this and get what we want to get
from it.
Q And, John, just as a follow-up to what I just asked, you guys had
the 14 point lead last week versus Kansas and obviously Saint Joe’s
is not at Kansas’ level. But do you view the fact that you guys won
this game —
JOHN CALIPARI: Kansas couldn’t have made 15 3’s, so you played them
different. But, no, I mean, we’re a team that’s still learning,
playing winning basketball. Like Justin came out and just with
20 seconds on the clock shoots a three. What? Why would you do
that? You know, you are not shooting a high enough percentage to
take that shot in a winning situation. You know what? He knew it.
I got it. Stuff like that they have got to learn. Like Robert
trying to take a baseline. I was seeing if he could get something.
When he fell down, we call a timeout, kind of get lucky.
Q John, D.J. scored 10 in the second half, 7 in overtime. Throughout
his high school career I thought he had earned the reputation as a
closer. Is that something you saw recruiting him?
JOHN CALIPARI: Yeah. But he played as much off the ball as he did
on the ball. The point guard ended up going to St. Louis. So…
But it doesn’t matter if you are on or off the ball when you
play basketball the way we are playing. Literally, Reed’s a point
guard, D.J.’s a point guard, Robert’s a point guard. You know, we
put Antonio in pick-and-roll’s. I mean, we’ve got — and we are
playing with three of them at times on the court. And then you say
you have got a lot of guys with a lot of assists. Yeah, they are
point guards, basketball players. So…
Thanks, guys.
