Q&A: Calipari previews UK-UF SEC quarterfinal
Kentucky. Florida. Round 3. Ding. Ding. Tomorrow's first SEC Tournament quarterfinal is set. Here's everything Cats coach John Calipari said today after UK's practice here in Nashville about his team's second game against the Gators in less than a week and third in barely a month:
JOHN CALIPARI
On Florida players sounding excited about another shot at UK: "Yeah, they're good. Everybody's excited about playing us. And I would imagine they were because they played us good both games. But my team, we had a great practice today and I think they're ready to play basketball, whoever it is. They're capable of beating us, no question."
On how dangerous a desperate team like Florida is: "I mean, I think every team has a desperation for one thing or another. It'll all come down to, OK, how are you playing? You got a team that's going to let go at the 10, 12-minute mark? 'Season's over. I'm not fighting anymore.' Do you have a team that is really going to fight 'til the bitter end? You've seen a lot of those kind of games. My concern is my team, no one else. I just want my team to play at their best. If that's not good enough, we'll go back and get ready for the seeding."
On making the most of the time left together: "I told them a long time ago they're not going to realize what they just went through until it's all said and done. We have a sign outside our media room or our video room where we go in: 'Where's the time gone?' I mean, it's just flown by. So, like I said, I have one concern: my team playing well. If that's not good enough, then you go back and you get ready for the (NCAA) Tournament. They were great in practice, they have a great spirit about them. Any team in this tournament is good enough to beat us, and the question is will we play at our best, which will make it hard for anybody to beat us? But they still can."
On playing more games in a shorter period of time and how that changes prep: "Oh, it changes. We won't have a shootaround tomorrow. We'll just go right to the gym and if we're lucky enough to win, we won't have one Saturday; if you're lucky enough to win again, you won't have one Sunday. You'll come back and let the next game finish and you'll do some film and walk-through and just play basketball games. You're not really doing anything. Today was our last – we did a 30-minute shootaround at the building and then we did an hour and five-minute practice tonight. We'll have a walkthrough tonight. I'm going to watch some more tape of (Florida) and see if there's anything else I need to see."
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On Willie Cauley-Stein not being at his best and saying he's going to get right: "We'll see. We feed off him. He's that one guy that can do stuff the normal player can't do, and he hasn't been doing it. He's been getting scored on. He's missing a lot of shots just by being – they're physical with him and he's not balanced coming back. But I think he'll be fine."
On how close the players are to being at their best individually: "We have some guys that are playing better than they've ever played in their life. And now the question is, as you go into these last few weeks, you talk about, how do you add 2, 3 percent to your game? And I'll give you an example. Trey Lyles, 2 or 3 percent may be flying up and down the court – just go a little harder – and attacking the backboard rebounding just a little harder. Aaron, maybe attacking the basket, not settling. Will you be a defensive playmaker on every possession? Can you notch it up 2 or 3 percent? The same with Andrew. So each guy has their own little thing that they can do a little bit better at. And that's what we're trying to get them to think in terms of. How do grow a little bit now, as we wind this thing down?"
On if he can visualize what it looks like if every player on his team does that: "We've had some games this year. You know what it looks like."
On if he watched Florida: "I have not yet."
On Florida looking good: "I imagine. They're healthy. They got a full complement of guys and they should be confident. They played us twice really good."
On using the 2012 SEC Tournament to get Darius Miller going and if some guys on this team can do that: "Yeah, that was – Darius, if you remember, had no points in the first two games and wound down the season in those first two games and was really not playing the way he was capable of playing. And then Michael had him start in his place, and (Miller) took a lot of shots. We were up five with a few minutes to go and lost that game, and then from that point, Darius went to that next level, which was why we won the whole thing. I want everybody to walk in here, walking away from this tournament feeling good about who they are, what they can be and then what we can be. Like, 'Wow, if we're all doing our thing, we could be pretty good.' "
On if he and the veterans have done anything to prepare the freshmen for this tournament: "Really nothing. I just think these guys, they have a toughness to them. They have an edge to them. When you're that skilled as a player, you're gonna be a little more confident. It's hard to rattle you. When you're not skilled and you're just banking on playing hard or doing those kind of things, that's when it becomes rough."
On if talks about the undefeated record with team at all: "No. It was really funny. We had (sports psychologist) Bob Rotella come and do some individuals and meet with our team. I told him that the way I was approaching it was I just wanted the regular season over. Let's get on with the real stuff. We had two weeks left. I told him, 'And if we get dinged, we get dinged.' Let's just get on with this. He said to me, 'Well, they don't feel that way.' So it's kind of neat to know that they are not afraid of what's going on. Then we've been in positions, even late, where we had to make plays, so I don't think that they are afraid of it.
"I think that they have confidence in each other that someone will do something. Like Willie hasn't played well the last two weeks, but it's OK because someone else has stepped up and done it. Dakari and Marcus Lee one game kept us in a game or we would have been down 10. Our guard play at times. I mean, if this guy or that guy doesn't play well these two have played well. So, we haven't addressed it."
On if he feels like tournament play is a whole new season: "The real part starts when Sunday we hear how tough our bracket's going to be. That's when the real stuff starts. This is three days – three games in three days, if you can win. If you can win. And it will not change our seed. It never has, whether we've won this thing – um, maybe if we lose it'll change it, but I don't know. I don't believe so. So we're doing this – I told them, let's have a ball for the fans and let our fans know that we're here doing this for you, and we're gonna have fun and play as hard as we can. We can't guarantee you we'll win, but we understand that fans that can't get in Rupp Arena come here."
On if it helps to have experienced players who know how many fans will travel: "They'll see it. If they don't know, when we walk into the game, they'll be like, 'What in the world is this?' "
On UK fans being the majority at the Wednesday night games: "Well somebody told me sometimes those people didn't have tickets to any other game, so they bought those tickets."
On what he thinks of that: "I think they're crazy. I've said it before. They're nuts. But it makes them what they are, and they're passionate about letting everybody know, 'I'm a Kentucky fan.' Now if you wanna buy tickets, you better wear orange, maroon, red. You better not be in a blue. Have another jersey on because they're not selling you the ticket, and that's just how it is."
On if fan support can help the team at any specific time at neutral site games: "Yeah, I guess, but we've been on the road, we've been at home, been at neutral sites. I guess it would be better that we have more fans than the other team, but this comes down to us being a good basketball team and playing well. And I keep saying it: I'm concerned about my team. No one else. If someone else is playing out of their minds and we get beat, we get beat. My thing is, how do we continue to grow and be at our best? And if that's not good enough, it's not good enough."
On what he expects their bracket to look like: "The NCAA bracket? It'll be hard. It'll be hard. They called the Lakers and they can't pull out of the NBA right now so I don't think they'll be in there. But it'll be a hard bracket. There won't be a, 'You're the one (number) one seed, you should have this kind of road.' No. It will not be that, and that's fine. You know, this team, we went through it a year -- we went through it just about every year, so it's fine."
On if there are any teams he doesn't want to see in their bracket: "Yeah. I really – you know, if we had to see Oklahoma City or Cleveland, those would be tough. I'm not sure. And they tell me that Portland is as big as we are, so those would be teams I wouldn't want to see. I'd hate to say that because they might try to get those people in there, but, yeah. I don't know."
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