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Q&A: John Calipari previews Missouri rematch

Kyle Tucker
@KyleTucker_CJ
Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari talks to his bench during the second half against Vanderbilt at Rupp Arena in Lexington Tuesday Night. Kentucky won 65-57.
(January 20, 2015)

No. 1 Kentucky will travel to Missouri on Thursday to play a Tigers team it beat by 49 points in Rupp Arena exactly two weeks ago. Wildcats coach John Calipari previewed the rematch and talked about several other notable topics, including the pursuit of perfection and when a loss can be a good thing. All right here:

JOHN CALIPARI

On if he ever feels sorry for a school like Missouri that recruits a kid like Devin Booker for five years then loses him to Kentucky at the last minute: "Well I've been on that side. I've been at Memphis and Massachusetts. I hate to tell you, no one felt sorry for me. When Duke and North Carolina came in and just – there were kids I recruited and I'd always ask them, 'Are you recruiting the kid? Do you really want him?' Yeah. 'Staff, go get somebody else. We ain't beating them.'

"I think again, when you look at how much guys have gotten better that's why they come here. It's not – there were 25 guys better than him in that class? (Skeptical look). I mean, whew, there's 25 good ones out there. Again, 'Well only one-and-dones come here. He was one-and-done before he came here.' (Skeptical look) From Moss Point? So, I'm proud of him and happy for what he's doing. I would say his dad is extremely happy. But Missouri wasn't the only one that recruited him for five years. There were some other people that recruited him a long time too."

On if he's talked to Booker about 'going home' and if not if he will: "I haven't said anything to him right now. Nah. I don't think the kid – he'll look at me like I'm crazy. Again, they have great attitudes – all these freshmen – but they also have the veterans there that give them an opportunity to just, 'go do your thing, don't worry about it.' They don't have it hanging on them like every shot you miss or make is life or death for us to win or lose. They don't have that. They're all performing. Every one of them has done well."

On Golden State Warriors talking about winning becoming routine and if that is an issue for his team on the college level: "Here's what I would tell you, 'There's a reason you play the games.' The last score does not matter. Whether you won or loss has no bearing on the game you're about to play, especially in college. The second point of it is with a team like Missouri, they had one of their best players did not play in that game. Now he's playing. I think the last game helps them a lot more than it helps us. Probably stung them a little bit. We probably played offensively better than we had in a long time.

"Then when I watched the game, it was 14-10 with 12 minutes to go in the half. It was 14-10. And then we kind of got it to 12 and then it kind of got away from them. But, you know – and that's without one of their best players, so … I would say for us, I'm just focused on us getting better. That's all it is. And trying some new stuff and messing around and getting these guys to continue to compete against one another."

On if he's setting goals going into individual games, things to chase, to foster that internal competition:

"Just energy. Our whole thing is if we'll play with energy, we'll have a chance. Doesn't mean we win every game. And again, we're not – the thought of, 'You have to win every game' or going undefeated, we're not talking about that. We're talking about, 'How do we come every game with energy so we know we have a chance to win?' How do we do that? How do we sustain that energy throughout a game? How do we come when teams are going to come after us and still have fun? How do we limit our errors so that our errors are forced errors, not unforced errors? It's all those things we're worrying about, about our team. And that's what we'll do today. I'm not going to talk much about Missouri. I'm talking about us."

On if there will be a point he'll embrace undefeated as a goal to chase: "It's not what I want. It's what they want."

On if they want to be undefeated: "I have no idea. You'd have to talk to them. But we don't ever talk about it. It hasn't entered my mind. I'll give you an example: Like, people will say, 'What does this look like? Winning or losing …' It all depends. I'll give you an example of when I was at Memphis. I believe we won our first 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 – whatever it was. It was a lot. OK? We're playing Tennessee, in our building. It is the most – there's 5,000 people outside a 20,000-seat building watching it on screens. It is ridiculous. We're going to win the game and we fumble a ball. They make a three at the buzzer to beat us by one. Was that lucky for us or unlucky for us? It all depends how you deal with it.

"For us, from that game, my team went whoop, bing (raises hand higher, then higher) – beat, in the NCAA Tournament, Michigan (State) by 30 at halftime, Texas in Houston, UCLA. You wanna name some of those guys? Like, (Kevin) Love and (Russell) Westbrook and – there's like nine of them, OK? They went down by 20. And we have a nine-point lead (against Kansas) with two minutes to go, miss free throws, lose the national title. Tennessee, on the other hand, it was not good for them. It was unlucky, because they beat us and went like that (downward motion with hand) from there on in and finished the season with a dud."

On if he would prefer a loss: "It doesn't matter. It's, again, how – it all depends, depends on how we would deal with it. I know with Memphis what we did. We took that game, we cut it up and our kids took it on and went to another level. The Indiana game: was that lucky for us or lucky for them? Was that good for us or good for them. From that point, my team went there, but you know what, it was pretty good for them. The problem was they had to face us again and it wasn't so lucky that they had beaten us early, because there was no way my team wasn't gonna win that game. And it was a great game, and they lost by 10. So I'm not – we're just trying to get better. We'll deal with things as they come. Got a great group of kids."

On if the outcome still isn't as important as the level of play: "Well the outcome, if the game, if the other team really gives us – they punch us, they go and they play and it's a – they just play out of their minds, and now we have to fight to win a game, so the outcome would matter. But if two teams are going at each other and you're playing great, they're playing great and it comes down and all of a sudden they throw a halfcourt bank and beat you by one, the outcome doesn't matter then. It's how you respond to that outcome, and that's how I've always coached. I mean, I don't – it's not life or death. You move onto the next. Now I'm gonna coach to win during the game, gonna be aggressive with the guys."

On how he thinks Willie Cauley-Stein is playing: "He's playing well. He still needs to do some stuff for us offensively, but I think he's doing fine. He's really – he's like having a sixth defender out there. And our pick and roll defense is really good based on the fact that we can switch with him. Our bigs are getting better. Karl and Dakari – Dakari's even better than Karl. Trying to get Marcus Lee up to where Willie is, which is hard because he's – it's unusual."

What can WCS do on offense that he isn't doing: "More offensive rebounding, catching it three or four feet from the goal, get fouled. Right now he's made 85 percent of his last free throws, the last five, six games, whatever that is. So get fouled. Go in there and ball fake, get fouled. He's working on a better base, being stronger."

On if playing limited minutes helps freshmen avoid hitting the wall and if it changes what he does late in the year when he typically backs off in practice: "Well, we're doing stuff now. I'm not ready to talk about what we're doing. It's a little different than I've ever done. I probably want to wait a week before I talk about that. My thing are fresh minds and fresh legs. But there's all kind of ways of doing this. You got coaches at the end of the year that'll practice three hours, three and a half. They don't care. That's what they're doing. And their teams win, too. Last year we did practice long at the end of the year, longer than I had ever practiced, because we had to. This team is different.

"I told you the shootaround, I gave them a choice. I said, 'Spend four or five minutes together, figure out if you want to shoot around. We have to get up at 6:30. Or you can have a walk-through at 8 and we'll go over to the game.' It took them 14, 15 seconds to say, 'We're good. We don't need a shootaround.' And they played well. So I trust them. They're making decisions (about) what's best for them and their bodies. We ask and try to get their opinion on it, but at the end of the day – like, today's practice is that one practice that we're gonna be after each other."

On if he senses he has a fresher team because of limiting minutes: "No. I mean, they should be, but I don't. The thing that stunned me is, I watched the South Carolina tape (from) a year ago, and it was March (1). And 10 days later we were like a different team. How did that happen? I don't – like, because I'm in the middle of it, I don't look back. But what happened? Oh my gosh. That team that I saw against South Carolina was in the championship game without Willie Cauley, who we probably win the whole thing if he's playing. Without Willie Cauley. I have no answer when I watch that tape. Like, that's crazy. I guess it was a story. I don't know if it was or not.

"But when I saw March (1) – because I'm thinking we played them in the middle of February, and the tape said March (1). I'm like, 'What?' So what it tells you is, just keep coaching. Keep trying to get them better. They'll catch on. If I want to try new things, try it. They'll be fine. Our thing is, we want to be at our best at the end of the year. I still think we have a long way to go both defensively, offensively, trying to figure out what will be our rotation later in the year. Do we stick with what we do? Do we go to seven or eight? My druthers, I'd rather play nine or 10 guys. That's what I'd rather do, but I'm gonna do whatever puts us in the best position we need to be in."

On his recruitment of Montaque Gill-Caesar: "He was a great kid. Hard worker. Very competitive. Tough. He will mix it up. This will change the complexion of the game. They needed one more guy to mix it up, and that's what he'll do. Plus he can score. He can score baskets for them, which they struggled some."

* For instant updates on the Wildcats, follow me on Twitter @KyleTucker_CJ. Email me at ktucker@courier-journal.com.