UK has a couple extra days to prepare this week with the Wildcats’ game at Missouri not until Thursday night. John Calipari joined the Southeastern Conference Coaches’ Teleconference on Monday to talk about the matchup, as well rule changes he would implement to improve college basketball, Devin Booker — named SEC Freshman of the Week for the third straight time this week — and other topics. Read it all below.Coach CalOn this week’s games against Missouri and Alabama …“You talk about what Kim’s (Anderson) doing to have Arkansas come down some free throws and shots at the end. The job he’s doing with his new team and pretty young team is amazing. And I think Alabama, we all know how they play, how hard they play. Their zone and how they space you out. They had a rivalry game, they’ve had sellouts and they win that game against Auburn, which is a huge win, especially in the state. But not just in the state, in our league, as teams start to maneuver for position. But I think both programs, again, what bothers you in our league is there will be another league where a team will lose to one of the teams that’s struggling in their league, ‘But it’s just a tough place.’ Or a win at the buzzer and, ‘Yeah, it’s just a tough place to play.’ And then in our league it’s just a different ending. And I think we’ve gotta all- very coach and any media that’s watching’s gotta stop it. This league top to bottom right now, you can lose any road game. It doesn’t mean you’re not a good team. You have ranked teams in other leagues lose on the road or get right down to the wire against teams that should not have beat them and did or made the games close and it just shows the parity of the leagues. We’ve gotta be the same. This league right now is solid. Just because we’re really good doesn’t mean the league’s not good. It’s the opposite. I just heard Johnny (Jones) talking about Vandy. Vandy’s really good, and yeah they gotta make shots to do it because of they play, but they do. They do make shots and make you guard them all the way to the shot clock. And if you don’t and you make and error or you don’t sprint back, they’re making a 3. And as soon as they win a couple of these close games, you’re going to see Vandy go on a run of games. That tells you how good this league is.”On UK taking it to another level after the two overtime wins …“Well, I went back a full platoon for a minute when we had 10 guys and Dom’s (Hawkins) been injured. He didn’t practice last week for a couple days so he didn’t get in the rotation. But we got kind of back to what we were. But let me say this: A&M didn’t have their best player. They didn’t have their best player when we played them. Billy (Kennedy), it’s amazing the job he’s doing and it’s kind of getting overlooked. But the guy, he’s got really good players who make plays, he’s coaching his brains out, it’s another team that’s doing it. Now, my team, again, we’re an energy team. If we come out and the other team is more excited about playing than we are, you’re going to have a close game or we’re going to lose or it’s going to go to overtime. So you gotta make that other team match our energy. Not the other way around. And you gotta go through that. I love the fact that the games are close. I love the fact that one game we needed freshmen to step up and make plays, the next game we needed our vets. And I say vets. Our 19-year-old vets. But they had to come up and make plays and that’s how this has been all year for us.”On if being every team’s Super Bowl can drain his team …“How about it drains the coach? You walk in every gym and they have all the same colored t-shirts and it’s filled to the top of the building and the students are there at 1 o’clock. Let me just say, it’s, you can look at it as a situation where this is ridiculous, or you can look at it as more of an honor. Let’s go in there and let’s prove that it was worth them all coming here. I talk about it all the time with our team. We’re trying, and it’s what I do every year, how do I keep these guys fresh mentally, how do I keep them fresh physically, yet continue to improve. That’s the balls we juggle here. There’s not one game we will walk into where that other team’s not ready. There’s not one game we will walk into where that other team is not going to make their best and make shots they never make. Unless, we come out and play, you’re getting beat. It is draining, but it’s more of an honor than anything else. “I think as kids come to Kentucky, they understand it’s not for everybody. If you’re not ready to be in the Super Bowl every night you play, being in one, being in that ready to go. If you want to be the only guy shooting balls, you’re not coming here. If you want to be the face of the program, you have to be the center – you don’t come here. If you think this is going to be easy, just let me play, don’t coach me, you can’t come here. I think through the recruiting process they get it, but they don’t realize until we start playing games that it’s even worse than what he said.”On what rule he would change in college basketball if he could change one …“I like what he (Jay Bilas) is saying with the shot clock, put it at 30 seconds or lower. That wouldn’t bother me. Our teams are shooting at every 19 seconds. Last game, what we did is, my teams historically, if it’s time to grind it out, we finish people off then. That’s historically if you look back. Sometimes I do it earlier in the game. I mean, we played Kansas in the championship game. I did it with 17 minutes left in the half we started grinding it. Coach (Joe B.) Hall said, ‘Why’d you do that?’ I said, “Because I’m trying to win the game. What are you talking about?’ So we’ll use the rules the way they are, but most cases we’re going to shoot it inside of 20 seconds anyway. I think that would be good. “But I also think if you want to make the college game better, one, you start playing exhibition games – real exhibition games, play two of them. If it’s during the school term, early, do it on weekends. Play whoever you want. Get with that other coach if you want to play your starters half the game and the other guys half the game. You do like the NBA does and you play exhibition games. “Second thing is, I think you use the summer. College basketball should own August. Should own it. I figured it out last year when we went to the Bahamas and got that television coverage. Well, then why don’t we have like football, and spring football? Why don’t we have 10-12 days of practice in the summer where you can play exhibition games? Teams from Europe can come and play you, or if you want to take a trip, you have time to go take a trip and go do what we did in the Bahamas. And I think that’s some different things I would roll with that, again, I just like to use the term common sense. ‘Well, we’ve never done that.’ I know. I know you haven’t done it. We’re always looking to, what’s next? How do we improve this? What can we do? That Bahamas trip we took was huge for this team. Why should we have an advantage? If you don’t choose to take a trip, practice 10-12 days. Now, you’re not going to kill your kids, but, you know, hey, I don’t want to fall behind because this, that’s all, every year, you want to take a foreign trip two out of every four years, do it, but every year you should be able to practice 10 days and if a foreign team wants to come over – Greece wants to come over – to play 12 of our teams, why not? Let them come over and play. Televise them. Who cares? So, I think those are things that we can do that don’t change what we’re trying to do, just continue to grow our sport.”On what else he wants to see from Devin Booker that he isn’t currently seeing …“I want to see him attack the basket better. Right now, when he attacks the basket, he doesn’t avoid people. He’s still flailing a little bit. I don’t want him to just be a catch and shoot player. I want him to be an offensive threat. “I’m telling you, you all can talk about what he’s doing offensively. I saw his dad after the South Carolina game and I said to Melvin, ‘Look, I never thought he would defend this way. Do you remember me coming and watching you and your friends – 45-year olds – playing against your son? He couldn’t guard anybody in that game.’ Now all of a sudden, he’s guarding. His dad laughed and said, ‘You were there, you saw it.’ I said yeah, I never thought he’d guard like this.’ So, aside from where he’s growing offensively, early in the year remember I made him get shots off quick. You can’t wind it up, it’s not high school. The guy guarding you is not 5-7. He missed a lot of shots early if you remember, but then it caught up. Now he gets it and it’s a wing, man. He gets it, it’s off. “The second part of that now is, how do we make him aggressive? If you saw Aaron (Harrison) last game, we’re on Aaron for the same thing. Don’t settle, man. Take that thing to the rim. I’m not telling you not to shoot 3s, but attack that basket. Get to the foul line, put them in jeopardy. So, we’re doing different things to try to get him to that best version of himself.”Missouri head coach Kim AndersonOn how he will prepare his team for UK after being blown out Rupp Arena …“We really–when that game ended we obviously addressed it, but we didn’t prolong our discussion on it. I think that Kentucky is the best team in the country. They have so many weapons. They’re extremely well-coached. They just don’t have a whole lot of weaknesses and for us I think the thing that I’m going to try to talk to our guys about is, ‘Hey, this is an opportunity to play the best.’ And they are coming to Columbia, so I know we’ll have a good crowd. We’re going to prepare kind of like we would any other game. I just hope we prepare better, we perform better than we did in Lexington. When we went to Lexington, I thought it was a great environment. I thought Coach Calipari obviously had them ready to play. They were coming off a couple of close games and they responded extremely well. We’re excited about the opportunity to play and tough loss on Saturday. So we’re looking forward to getting back on the practice floor and getting ready to play the best team in the country.”On how they will attack Kentucky’s defense differently …“Well, we’ve changed some things since then. I really think the thing that bothers you so much with Kentucky – and we all do this – they just do such a great job on their ball-screen defense because they’re so long. They can switch, they’re quick, they can switch. If they mess up, they have the advantage of having the guy at the basket to swat the basketball. I think we have to do a better job of executing. When we went to Lexington, I thought we got kind of in a scramble mode and didn’t play with the precision that we need to play. Now it’s hard to play with precision against them, but I think you do have to do a better job of whatever it is we decide to run, of executing and making harder cuts. I think they force you to play at a little bit quicker speed sometimes and that’s something that we responded pretty well against Arkansas. So hopefully there will be some sort of carryover.”On the role UK’s perimeter players play in the defense …“I think their whole team’s pretty good. Perimeter, front line, whatever you want to call them. I think their perimeter guys do a great job of guarding the basketball. The advantage that they have, the comfort level that I think they probably have – at least what I would have – is they know that they can be aggressive on the ball and they know that if a guy does get by them that they do have a lot of help in the back. And that makes it easier to put more heat on them, to put more heat on your opponent. But I think all those guys do–they’re giving up 50 points a game. That’s phenomenal when you think about that. Their opponents are shooting 32 percent from the field and 27 percent from 3. They’ve shot almost 200 more free throws than their opponents. Their defense has been phenomenal. In all their games, they’ve shown the ability to be able to guard the ball pretty well.”On the play of Kentucky guard Devin Booker …“He’s playing way too good. He’s playing really well. I coached his dad, I was an assistant when Melvin was here and certainly Melvin was a great player and a great individual to coach. I don’t know Devin. I know we recruited him here last year, but he’s certainly an outstanding player. He’s really been a key for them. He’s shooting the ball well and for a freshman he’s really mature. If you think about it, he’s shooting 50 percent from 3. That’s pretty salty. The only thing I hope, is I hope Melvin is here Thursday so I get an opportunity to say hello, but Devin has done a great job.”Alabama head coach Anthony GrantOn Kentucky’s guard play …“I thought they really have great balance on the inside and out. They have great depth, great size and physicality. They shot the ball really, really well in our game. They have an excellent team.”On if Kentucky’s guards stand out from other teams’ guards in any way …“They’re really good. I don’t really know how to compare them to other teams. They have great balance, they complement each other. They play really well together with the rotation that he (Coach Cal) puts in. They complement each other well.”