Cal's UK wolfpack aims to beat boredom, Vols
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – John Calipari, King of Catch Phrases, broke out a new one on Monday – "the strength is in the pack" – that was fitting for a number of reasons.
His team of "wolves" had just bussed down to Knoxville a day early to beat a blizzard. Karl-Anthony Towns had just won Kentucky's 10th SEC Freshman of the Week award this season – spread among four rookie Wildcats – and Willie Cauley-Stein was added to a list of 15 contenders for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award given to the nation's top center.
While the world focuses on top-ranked Kentucky's pursuit of perfection, which continues Tuesday night at Tennessee (14-10, 6-6 SEC), Calipari keeps dismissing it as a source of added pressure and focusing instead on why these Wildcats (25-0, 12-0) might just be ideally built to complete the feat.
"My message to this team is going to be real simple today. It's going to be: 'Our strength is in the pack more than any team I've ever coached, and I've coached a lot of good teams,' " he said. "It doesn't mean we don't have some aggressive, tough wolves that will come after you. But by themselves, they're not the same. In the pack, we have a little swag about us, we're a little more aggressive, we're really about each other, guys aren't afraid to step out and risk."
Calipari pointed to past Kentucky teams that were led by superstars – John Wall in 2010, Anthony Davis in 2012 – and similar situations at his previous stops, Memphis (Derrick Rose) and Massachusetts (Marcus Camby).
"We were a good team and we were efficient, but we knew that one guy could go do this and carry us," Calipari said. "That's not what we have. The strength of this team is in the pack."
Perhaps that is what makes these Cats so difficult to defeat, that they aren't reliant on any one player to be great every night. In fact, three or four can be off in a given game and there are still five or six others to take up the slack.
"(Calipari's) talent level there is certainly second to none. That'll be a daunting task for us," said Volunteers coach Donnie Tyndall, who has been a basketball fan since grade school and remembers Magic Johnson's Michigan State team, the Fab Five at Michigan and iconic early 1990s UNLV, "arguably the most talented team to ever play in college basketball. But this (Kentucky) team is certainly right there to be talked about."
But Calipari, who can break the 1954 Wildcats' record for best start in school history by beating Tennessee, has been here before. He started 26-0 at Massachusetts (1996) and Memphis (2008) before losing the 27th game at both places. While those teams reached the Final Four, neither won a national title. Calipari believes he has learned from those experiences.
"My first time when we did this at UMass, I knew we were slipping, but we kept winning so I put my head in the sand. I was just like, 'Let these guys do their thing,' " he said. "I did a little bit of the same but got better at Memphis. I'm trying hard not to do that here, to do my job, to correct them, to be tough on them, to not worry about the score and coach them, but it's hard.
"If I allow it now, then I've got to allow it in March. If in March I allow it and it costs us a game, that's on me. That's not on these kids, so I'm trying really hard to just stay focused on what's at hand – don't put my head in the sand. If there's issues with the team that I'm not liking what I feel, I bring them out. Even if I'm wrong, I bring them out. 'Let's talk about this.' "
The latest issue for his pack of wolves: the weather. With two full days to kill in Knoxville before playing the Vols in Thompson-Boling Arena, scene of the worst loss in six seasons under Calipari – a 30-point rout in the first game without injured star Nerlens Noel in 2013 – he's worried about the shakeup in routine.
"I'm a creature of habit," Calipari said. "For however many years I've been a head coach, we've done it the same way. Offense is different, defense is different, players are different, but what we do as a family – how we travel, how are meals are – are very consistent. My concern is: How do we do this and not get off point?"
He planned to keep the team busy with their school work, shootarounds, practices and meetings. He did not want them laying around the hotel, napping intermittently for two days, lest they be caught "sleepwalking in that game," Calipari said.
Wolves do sleep in packs, but he needs them hunting together again Tuesday.
Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Follow him on Twitter @KyleTucker_CJ.