Coaches from throughout the league joined the Southeastern Conference coaches’ teleconference this morning to talk about their teams as the offseason wears on. Perhaps realizing he hadn’t spoken publicly in some time, John Calipari was in fine form addressing topics ranging from UK’s upcoming Bahamas trip, the Rupp Arena renovation and the NBA’s early-entry rules.Here’s everything he had to say, plus a bonus quote about the strength of the SEC from one of Coach Cal’s peers.Coach CalOn his team heading into next season …“Well, for the first time I’ve had players return that had a chance to put their names in the draft, so we’re in a unique situation where we have veterans. Now, granted those veterans are sophomores, two of them are juniors, but the other (six) are sophomores, it’s kind of unusual for us. But I’m excited about it. The returning players and the freshmen are getting along so it’s all good.”On how he hopes the trip to the Bahamas will contribute to the success he has next season …“Well, we’re doing it a little different than most teams. Most teams don’t care about what the games are and, a matter of fact, will play teams that – and we did four years ago (when) I didn’t care who we played in Canada – it’s just practicing. But this is going to be different in that we will be traveling with 12. Ten will play. And we are having teams come with us: the Dominican Republic national team, the professional team from France, Division I, and then the older guys from Puerto Rico. They’re not the national team — they’re playing in another event — but it’s that next wave of guys that almost made the team. They call it their second team. But I’m fine with that because those guys are older. It will be hard games for us to win. But we’re doing it as much for the games, which is kind of unusual.”On his thoughts of the Rupp Arena renovation being suspended …“I haven’t really–I wasn’t in town with all the stuff and really haven’t read anything. I kind of got a little overview from DeWayne (Peevy), but like I said (before), I just hope everybody gets together and does what’s right for the city and the university.”On how it would impact his job if he had guys for another year …“Let me first say this one to you: Just if you know how I am and what I’m about, if you’ve really followed, I would rather them say that, after my entire group gets drafted – ‘Yeah, I’m not really sure he develops players and he can coach’ and all that stuff; ‘they were pros’ – but they all get drafted. OK, I’m good with that. That doesn’t bother me. Say it as long as they keep continuing to get drafted. And then when they go to the league, they’re on the all-rookie teams, they’re rookie of the year, they’re on Olympic teams, one is the MVP of the NBA. They’re prepared in that sense, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”The two-year rule, the reason I say that, this cycle that we’re on – and there were coaches last year that had freshmen and their primary guys were freshmen and they couldn’t advance in the NCAA Tournament and said after it’s so difficult. Yeah, it is. Well, let’s start five freshmen and try to do it. So to do this every year is, in this environment at Kentucky, is, I don’t want to say impossible because for five years we’ve done it, but we did have a year when Nerlens (Noel) got hurt. If he doesn’t get hurt, we’re probably a Sweet 16 team. But he does get hurt and now we’re an NIT team. Not only are we an NIT team, we lose in the first round. It’s just a dangerous thing for the coach. Now, for our players, I’m happy as heck. If it goes to two years, I think they’ll be better prepared, but you cannot do that unless the NCAA is going to do things along with the NBA if kids are asked to stay another year. I mean, are you going to do the cost of living? Are you going to cover their insurance? What about loss-of-value insurance that’s really expensive? What about flying them back and forth once or twice a year? Why would we not do that? What about their families being flown to the NCAA events, the championship events, with the team? Why would we not do all those things? So we finally, after five years of absolute arm-wrangling, got the food right so that we can feed these kids without feeling we’re going to go to jail, that we’re criminals for feeding them. So those are the kind of things that have to be done. It’s not just, make this about kids. We need to do stuff with combines so kids get the right information. You don’t want a kid to leave and not get drafted. And if a kid should leave, he should leave. If he’s a first-round pick, if he’s a lottery pick, he should leave. Don’t have him stay so you win more games, then the next year he’s in a worse position. But if he’s a second-round pick and not getting drafted and he’s in a combine where the NBA can tell him that, they come back to school now. So there’s a lot of things that we need to do and we’re moving in that direction. Now, it’s taken 40 years but we’re moving in that direction now.”On whether more kids would go to Europe if the age limit went to 20 …“No. I don’t, but here’s the thing: You have to understand, that’s between the NBA and the Players Association. We have to be on the side of the players, on the side of the students. We have to be on their side, which is, how do we get them the information so they make the right choices? How do we do things that we treat them with more dignity, that we treat them more fairly? OK, again, those are the things that we need to do. We have no control – none – on what the NBA and the Players Association agree to. I said to the NBA: Instead of a four-year contract, make it a three-year contract so by staying in school it doesn’t hurt them. They still get to the money the same time, the big contracts the same time as they would have if they’d stayed in school two year. But, are we willing to do things? Are we willing to maybe have those parents request loans directly from the NBA that they have to pay back when they go to the NBA? What about that as a solution to some of the stuff? So there’s all kind of things out there. And let me say this: It’s not at the expense of academics. We’re here, we’ve had four years. This past semester were a 3.11 (grade-point average). Our APR going into next year, which means every kid we’ve had has finished here in good academic standing. Obviously, we’ve had a 3.0 for the last four years. We’ve graduated 10 players. We’ve brought three players back. Our kids sign four-year deals if they leave after one or two years, the scholarship is still waiting on them. We’re doing things outside of that to make sure we’re taking care of what we can within the rules and going above and beyond to do that. But there’s still other things that need to be done.”On what he tells players about what will happen if they enter the NBA Draft early …“Well, I don’t do it that way. What I do is I give them the information. I have them get information directly from the NBA office. I give them information (from) GMs who are friends of mine in the NBA and say, ‘This is where it appears. Check with the NBA and I’m with you with whatever you do. If you’re a late first-rounder, can you deal with (it)?’ I give them the downside. ‘Are you going to be able to deal with being a second-round pick because that could happen. If you can’t deal with that, then you come back.’ If you say, ‘I’m OK if that happens,’ then you can think strongly about leaving. ‘If you want to be a top-10 pick, you’re not right now and you’re going to have to come back to be a top-10 pick. But if that’s OK to be the 18th or the 20th or 17th, I’m good with it.’ I literally spend five minutes with them. There are no four-hour brainwashing, all the staff beating them down. Five minutes. And you can talk to all the kids. Matter of fact I thought Willie (Cauley-Stein) was leaving. The conversation we had the next morning after the national championship game was congratulating. I’m proud of you. You were a football player two years ago. No one knew who you were. You weren’t a McDonald’s All-American. You weren’t, ‘He was one-and-done before he got there.’ That’s not what he was and he was a top-15 pick. And he came in my office the following day and said, ‘I want to come back.’ I go, ‘What?’ He said, ‘One, I’m having a ball. Two, I’m not ready for that league to do what I want to do. Three, I want to win a ‘ship before I leave.’ I said, ‘That’s good reasons to come back.’ So the conversations I had with guys are kind of like that.”South Carolina head coach Frank MartinOn the strength of the SEC …“I’m tired of this (fallacy) and myth that our league is no good. I’m tired of it. I think it’s disrespectful to the coaches in this league. I think anytime you try to convince Billy (Donovan) or Cal or Mike Anderson, guys that have had tremendous success everywhere they’ve been, Bruce Pearl now that he’s back in the league, Billy Kennedy, the successes he’s had – just keep going on down the line – the successes that they’ve had in their careers and trying to say that their success right now is not very good because our league is not very good, I think that’s a little disrespectful and untrue. Our league is extremely hard. I’ve said it for a couple years: We were in transition and I think our league is now starting to take shape. I think coaches are establishing their programs for those of us that, we weren’t where it needed to be. Kevin Stallings, Billy, guys that have been in the league forever, they’re always going to have programs that are going to line up and go. And I think you’re going to start seeing our league move forward as we continue to stabilize programs such as ours.”