Q&A: John Calipari previews UK-South Carolina

Top-ranked Kentucky will try to tie the best start in school history – matching the 1954 squad's 25-0 mark – on Saturday at home against a South Carolina team the Wildcats already easily handled on the road. Coach John Calipari (sort of) previewed that matchup before Friday's practice, although he did so without saying a single word about the Gamecocks. To be fair, he wasn't asked any questions about USC.

As Calipari is fond of saying lately: it's really all about Kentucky at this point. He covered the Cats and several college basketball-wide questions, including the recent buzz from some other power conferences about bringing back freshman ineligibility, which certainly seems like a move meant to pump the breaks on the Cats. Everything he said here:

JOHN CALIPARI

Opening statement: "I told my staff I came up with stuff I've never come up with before in my life. Did stuff today, was thinking of ways to try to get out of that workout today. I went outside to greet people. Matthew (Mitchell) and I had a half hour. I just tried. I did not want to work out today. Hope my team is not feeling the same way."

On what his workout consists of: "I have a seafood diet. I see food and I eat it. I eat light. Soon as it turns light, I start eating."

On why he didn't want to work out: "Just beat down."

On the 'Where is Trey' prank: "The only reason I did it – I was on a plane and I'm thinking, 'Our fans are going nutty. They got to loosen up a little bit. This isn't life or death. It's not March.' So I tweeted – or texted – DeWayne Peevy the tweet you saw. And he got up and started looking around the plane. And I said, 'It's a tweet you idiot. He's right here in front of us.' And when he did that, I knew 'Uh-oh. This is gonna be absolutely outrageous.' And we had people camped out at the hotel. We had people camped out as we got off the bus. Scouts. People with hats. 'What do you do?' 'I'm a dentist, retired.' 'Really, why is one sock blue and one sock gray?' It was just stupid."

On if it was just for the fans to lighten up or also for the team: "Also the team. I wanted them to understand, and I keep telling them, 'What's the worst?' I'll say it this time: We lose this game we're 22-1, 23, whatever it is. What's it matter? Just go play. Let's try to get better."

On if he could sense a difference having Lyles back: "Yeah. One guy can shift everybody into spots they need to be in. Guys got to be willing to sacrifice three minutes or two minutes. There are times where we got to go at him, which may take a shot away from some other guys, but what does it matter? At the end of the day, either you can play or you can't play. Reality. Either you're an efficient player or you're not. They don't need to see you for 40 minutes. That's all ego stuff. But there's a clutter that goes along with that that we'll fight until the end of the year, to keep everybody away from all that, what I would call the clutter of trying to infiltrate guys' minds and all that stuff."

On the biggest challenge for this team to be at its best by March: "You know, we talked yesterday about winning time. When you get teams down 13, 14, you gotta get it to 20. We have a way of getting it to six, and I told them in the NCAA tournament when that becomes a six and they hit a three ball, the weight of the world is on you now, not on them, and they're going to play out of their minds and you can end a season just based on a three-minute stretch where you didn't get it from 16, 14, to 20. That's the issue we have now. When you have the fifth-youngest team in the country they're not mature enough at that point. They do something – chin-up, they do a look-away pass, they take a shot they don't need to take, they stop defending and say, 'c'mon, it's only one play.' We're still working through that. But, you know, we've been beat up, we've been a little injured. We'll see going forward."

On if youth is the cause of that bad habit: "Most of it is. But, you know, last year I told them: You look at Wichita State. They had us down by 10. They messed around, we got back in the game, all of a sudden the weight of the world was on them at the end of the season, and their season ended. And shouldn't have played us. It was a bad seed, either trying to do us or them, whoever it was. It was a bad seed, but it did happen. We had to play the game and that was the outcome and that's what I told our team yesterday."

On what has changed for Willie Cauley-Stein: "Well I went on the plane after and I walked down the aisle of the plane and I looked at him and said, geez, your ankle wasn't hurting you today, huh?"

On if Julius Randle is the best player he's ever coached (asked by Julius Randle, who is in town visiting, from the back: "No. (Laughs) So happy the Lakers have to deal with him."

On the ESPN survey regarding change in shot clock: "No, they're not gonna ask me on that. But we can all say what we want – it's about fouling. That's what the scoring is, where it is right now. I would say 30 seconds would be fine, doesn't change the game at all, maybe adds four, five possessions, but if you keep fouling like we foul, scoring's staying the same. If you want more scoring you gotta loosen up the game – if you think that's what makes the game great. If there's body-to-body contact that's not obviously created by the offense, call a foul. Every single time. We coaches will adjust or we'll foul out our team and go crazy and get thrown out of games. We coaches will adjust or we'll foul out our team and go crazy and get thrown out of games. It may take a year or two but call fouls. They're already in the rule book."

On officials already supposed to be doing that: "Last year we didn't have the stomach for it. We did it for four or five months, and none of us had the stomach for it. The NCAA didn't have the stomach, the officials didn't, coaches didn't. To get this right it took three years in the NBA, three, to say, 'This is the rule, officials will be fined, it is not changing. You adjust or you're out.' That's where we've got to go with this. Thirty seconds would be fine, but 30 seconds would be five more possessions to foul somebody."

On the suggestion from some power five conferences that freshmen should not be able to play again: "Well, that's pretty good. I say this: every decision that we make, which we hadn't for 40 years, should be about these kids. Now is that the best decision for these kids? Or are we worried about individual programs? Somebody came up with the baseball rule. So let me ask you this, 'So your son is 6-5, skinny and over the summer he grows seven inches and gains weight and becomes Shaq – but he had to go to college because at the time he was 6-5 and 120 – he should stay in school three years because of a baseball rule?'

"Now is that good for the program, the coaches or the players? If you want the baseball rule, let them go anytime they want: They can go as 11th graders, 12th graders, their first, second and third year in college. Or go to two years and then do what you're supposed to to take care of these kids when they're here. I think all the stuff – two years in college would give them almost three years of an education. Get them back here, now we have educated people. Our kids come back anyway, whether they leave one year.

"You know what was funny? When you're in the ivory tower and you're not down in this, you would make a statement that kids don't even go the whole year, at half year they don't go. That means you're sitting up so high, you have a nose bleed. If you want to ask our president what he thinks about our players, how they finish the term, how we had 13 out of 16 players with a B average and they go to class, not Internet correspondence! You may be doing that. We're not. There's not a cluster in one class.

"They go to class, they do what they're supposed to, but they're a genius. That same guy in the ivory tower, if a guys goes and leaves – Bill Gates – to start a company, he's fine. That kid is a genius, and I'm happy for him. But this guy is ruining our college. What? I don't get it. Again, I'm not that smart. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I will tell you that when I look at this I say, 'What's right for the kids?' Not me, not the school, not the program, not basketball, this animal. What's right for these kids? If it's right for them, it's right for all of us."

On how UK's players reacted to him saying he wanted them to lose to LSU: "I heard a couple say, 'I hope we don't!' "

On if he's ever celebrated an opposing player like he did at LSU: "Yeah, I have. I told – a kid from Syracuse when I was at Memphis was killing us. Johnny. And I said, 'Kill him, Johnny! You just kill him!' And he just looks at me and says, 'You crazy.' "

On how Cauley-Stein's personality helps hold the team together: (Surprised look) "I mean, you know, Willie is Willie and I want him to be who he is. I'm trying to get him to understand how good he can be, how you gotta take risks, how you have to work – nothing's going to be given to you – how you have to relish physical play, how you have to get in this gym and spend more time and build your own self-esteem and self-confidence. Why wouldn't you want to be the best player in the country? Tell me. Does it scare you? Is that too hard? 'Ah, let me just be the eighth (best). I'm OK.'

"Well, he can be as good as he wants to be. And that's the issue that I have with him all the time. And it's not an issue; it's what we talk about. It was the same thing when I got him to start reading. You're talking about a really bright kid saying, 'Well, I don't like school.' Well, why? Tell me why. Academics, it's learning. It's expanding your mind. Why don't you? And that's why we started reading together. But he's a great guy, really intelligent, great heart, kind-hearted. I just want him to be as good as we all see in spurts."

On what they've been reading together: "We read 'The Energy Bus' together. We read 'God Never Blinks.' We read about four books."

On who wins a game of HORSE between Epps and Booker: "Oh, she played good. Forty-two. I told Matthew: That's great coaching; let her go. She's a good player. I'm happy for her."

On NBA commissioner Silver mentioning Cal and the idea of mixing up All-Star format to use platoons: "I think it'll – the chemistry on offense won't be good if they do that. (Rolls eyes) That's fine. Whatever they do. I'm just happy a bunch of our players are in it, whether it's Nerlens being in the sophomore game, whether it's Brandon Knight, who if one more guy drops out I think he's in – but he's in the skills (challenge) – and then the other three, not sure if Anthony's playing. Don't know if he is, but DeMarcus and John, two of those guys were starting. So I'm proud of our guys and our other guys are doing well. They're playing well and doing well."

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