Some links from five times zones west, where the Kentucky men’s basketball team is getting ready for the EA Sports Maui Invitational (will update as more stories come in):
– Brett Dawson from The Courier-Journal writes that John Calipari might try implement a new “funky” zone with his team:
The zone has been a four-letter defense for most of John Calipari’s career, but the University of Kentucky basketball coach has added one to his playbook, and the Wildcats might employ it during this week’s Maui Invitational.
Just don’t ask them to explain it.
The Calzone, apparently, defies description.
“It’s a funky — it’s not a traditional zone,” Calipari said. “It’s a little bit of a crazy, funky zone that we’re going to start using, that I’ll probably use over in Maui. It’s a combination of a couple different zones that we’re just going to throw at people and see what happens.”
– Calipari hopes Kentucky’s child’s play won’t be scary, writes Dawson:
The sky and the water are the brightest blue here in basketball paradise.
The teams and coaches assembled for the Maui Invitational are first-rate, as usual.
And yet University of Kentucky coach John Calipari sounded uncertain on Sunday whether his 12th-ranked Wildcats are in the right place at the right time.
– Jerry Tipton from the Lexington Herald-Leader on Calipari teaching Terrence Jones how to be great:
“We’ve just got to get some guys a little tougher. When they get bumped, when they get bodied up, they shoot fadeaway hooks and stuff.”
Sitting to Calipari’s left, freshman Terrence Jones couldn’t beat back the shy smile that crept across his face.
Yes, Calipari was talking about Jones, who faced the biggest team yet in his introduction to college basketball. Though the loser this night by a decisive margin, Portland had the bodies to push UK … and to activate Calipari’s demand for more-more-more.
– Tipton writes that experience could mean sink or swim for the Cats:
Washington Coach Lorenzo Romar used the analogy of a swimmer drowning or a boxer getting hit with a haymaker when explaining the difference experience can make.
“If a boxer loses his form and starts wildly swinging, he’s going to get knocked out,” Romar said Sunday at a news conference for coaches leading teams in this year’s EA Sports Maui Invitational. “He’s going to get knocked out.
“If you feel you’re drowning, you forget your form,” he said. “You start panicking, you’re going to drown.”
– Matt May from The Cats’ Pause writes about the experience factor in Maui:
The event features six quality programs from major conferences, as well as an up-and-coming Wichita State team. In the span of 72 hours each of those squads will be served a healthy dose of knowledge about their team, which is exactly why the Maui Invitational has become the preseason college basketball tournament over the past decade.”This is a great tournament,” Kentucky coach Calipari said. “This is a great experience to find out what we really are and see if we have some players who when they’re up against it can play. The holes that we have will be exploited by these gentlemen and that’s why you go to a tournament like this. What do we have to work for to be competitive?”
– According to the Associated Press, Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said Terrence Jones always wanted to go to Kentucky:
Leis around their neck, the Pacific Ocean over their shoulders, Kentucky’s John Calipari and Washington’s Lorenzo Romar didn’t look like two coaches still bitter about a fierce offseason recruiting battle.
If anything, they were almost giddy, thrilled to be in one of the most beautiful places in the world and about the opportunity their teams have in the first true test of the season.
Terrence Jones? He didn’t come up until someone asked, and even then the down-to-the-last-second recruiting duel wasn’t an issue.
“Honestly, we could make a big deal out of it, but it’s just going to be a game where you have a lot of respect for their program,” Romar said as waves crashed about 50 yards away. “All the teams we have a chance to play here, all our guys are going to look forward to it.”
– Coach Cal with his thought from Maui, courtesty of Lexy.com:
