Hope everyone enjoyed the “Twitter-view” this morning with head coach John Calipari. The feedback was overall pretty positive. Here’s the full transcript of the interview for those that missed out:
Update: Video of the interview on coachcal.com
We’ve heard you use the phrase that your team is a “work in progress.” Are you finally seeing some of the progress you want to see?Calipari: “There was a sense of urgency and an aggressiveness defensively. If we become one of those kind of teams where we really guard and rebound with two hands and play rough and tough, then we’re going to have a nice season. If we don’t, our fortunes will rise and fall with our offense. Normally those are .500 teams. They win half their games and lose half their games. Hopefully today they bought in.”
You’ve talked about how this team is young, primarily made up of 18-year-olds, but are you impressed with their maturity and how they responded from Friday’s film session?Calipari: “They’re trying, but everything is new to them. What a shoot around is supposed to look like is brand new to them. They don’t understand that you come in and you’re getting ready for a ballgame. Film sessions, I’m not one to keep them in there for two hours, but we were in there almost an hour, which is a long film session for me. But they need it and they need more than that. What we’ll do on this game is we’ll clip out 10 or 12 great defensive possessions and show them this is what we’re looking for. Look at the intensity, look at all five guys. It’s five guys looking and playing off one another, which makes it look like we’ve got six or seven guys on the floor. We played the 3 better today. Why? There was more of a sense of urgency to play the 3 and there was more of a focus. Freshmen, what they do is they stop playing and then that’s when you give up a 3. Instead of going up, you go back.”
When we were talking with the players after the game, they said a lot of it was just effort. Is that what you’re seeing?Calipari: “Yeah, it was. It was an intensity, and a focus and a sense of urgency.”
Offensively, your team is putting up a lot of points, but what areas do you still need to improve on in the dribble-drive?Calipari: “Offensively we’re still turning it over too much, and what we end up doing is making the hardest play. We still have to get better at holding position from our big people. We have to get better playing off of traps because people are going to trap us and we’ve got to get better that way. There’s a lot of stuff we still have to go with.”
DeMarcus when he’s on the floor he looks like one of most dominating players on the court. When he gets into foul trouble early, is it just careless fouls or is he slow getting going?Calipari: “I don’t know. I think some of it will be looking at was he in a stance, was he ready to go, was he not ready to go, was it a close call, was he doing it to try to help a teammate? I don’t know. I’ll have to watch the tape. But he’s got to get away from it. He got a third foul jumping over a guy’s back on a missed free throw. Well you missed a free throw and then you jumped over the guy’s back and want to get mad at the official. All of that stuff is a learning process for him, but he’s going to be fine.”
How do you think John Wall and Eric Bledsoe have played together so far?Calipari: “Each game they’ve gotten better. Each game they’re figuring out how they’ve got to play. Their job is to make the game easier for the other. I want to make the game so easy for John, Eric says, and Eric says I’m going to make the job easy for John. That’s what they’re starting to do.”
You’ve said this is much more of a post team than maybe you expected. Is this still a learning process for you in trying to figure out how to get those guys more touches down low?Calipari: “It’s still a post team. It’s a post-up basketball team, but I still want to do the dribble-drive, I still want it to flow in the offense. I want us to be able to grind it, I want to put us in pick-and-roll at times. If they want to play a zone, I want to quickly get into what we’re doing. We’re starting to figure out, but again, it’s the fourth game. It’s early.”
Talk about the teams you’ll be facing this week in Cancun?Calipari: “They’re all capable of beating us. When you’re a freshman team, primarily like we are – we played five freshman today and a sophomore – what you end up having is you can beat anybody or anybody can beat you. We’ve proven it this year already. If we choose to really come and play and play with more intensity and focus and really have a great effort, it’s harder for the other team to beat us. But if we don’t they could beat us because they’ll make 3s, they’ll make plays, they’ll out-hustle us and that’s what happened so far this year.”
You talked the other day about playing guard-heavy teams early on. Does Cleveland State fit that mold of another guard-strong team?Calipari: “Yes, they are. They’re a guard-heavy team and they’re a team that if we don’t show, they beat us. The next game is Virginia/Stanford. Enough said. Virginia beat Rider worse than we did and then you have Stanford in the Pac-10, one of the best leagues in the country.”
Do you worry about a trip like this going down to Cancun with a young team? How do you approach a road trip like this?Calipari: “I’m worried about one thing: Swine flu. Other than that, I’m good.”
Patrick was telling us that he was going to find a way to make it to the beach. Will there be any beach time or downtime for the players?Calipari: “Oh yeah. I’m hoping we stay on the beach. I like to get a little sun myself, but it is a business trip while we’re down there. I wouldn’t mind taking them to see some Mayan ruins, which are there and in that area. The great stuff is about an hour and a half away. I’m not sure I want to do that with them on an off day, but there are some things that are closer that we can get on a bus and go look at. I took one of my Memphis teams down there and it was a good trip and a good experience for our guys.”
What does a road trip do for your team in terms of finally playing on the road in a neutral environment?Calipari: “It gets us out of this building in a different environment to see how they respond. It gets us away, but we’re not going to really turn that corner to where want to be until we’re in break when there is no class and it’s just me, my staff and them going two and three a days for 30 days. That’s when we’ll get better.”
