Nov. 2, 2011
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Head Coach John Calipari
Q. What did you get out of tonight?
COACH CALIPARI: We have a long way to go. I think everyone knows it. We’ve got a couple guys that play with great intensity. They’re going to have to spend a lot of time on the court. That’s just how it is. Mad, sad, happy, unhappy, they’re going to have to be on the floor a lot because they have that intensity you need to win.
The good news is everybody in this building saw it, anybody that watched it on TV saw it. They also see we’re not tough enough. First half, we couldn’t post up. We couldn’t go in the post and hold a position.
Again, Coach (Brian) Lane, I told those guys after, ‘Brian, you should be proud of them.’ They didn’t back away. They started that game, made shots, played with unbelievable emotion, played harder than us, got every loose ball, took charges, did everything they had to do to stay in the game. Here we are with a big height advantage. I think probably five of our first six shots were 3s.
Am I missing something here? But that’s what happens when you have a lot of young guys or guys that aren’t playing with that fire that you got to play with. They’ll settle.
Why you settle for 3s? It’s easier. Go in there and get pushed and shoved and grabbed and hit? Stay right out here and shoot this. I hope it goes. If it doesn’t, I’m good.
We got a ways to go. Marquis Teague played a good game for a point guard first time out. Showed some good poise. Missed some shots. But that’s not what he’s going to be doing for us. What he’s going to be doing is nine assists, two turns, in a game where he played a lot of minutes and we were flying up and down the court.
I thought we were in shape until we played this thing. We didn’t look like we were in very good shape, so we got a lot of work to do there. Defense, we didn’t talk. Like I said, there are 60 teams right now, maybe more, that we could not beat if we had to play today. Thank goodness we got another couple weeks before we got to play another game, a real game.
Q. How about Anthony Davis and the way he could contest and block 3-point shots? How is his ankle?
COACH CALIPARI: He’s cramped up. It wasn’t his ankle. He got cramps because he’s not used to running that hard. That’s why I was laughing when we carried him off.
He’s good. But physically, you know, we got to figure out how we play him, where we put him where he can have success. Just throwing him in the post, say, ‘Here, post up, Shaq.’ That’s not who he is. I mean, he couldn’t do it today.
Made one play where he went back to his left hand. It looked pretty good. There were others he couldn’t get the shot off. The guy was 6’5″, 6’4″ guarding him.
We have to figure out how to use him. When you end up with a game with eight blocks, pretty good stuff. We only had eight turnovers. They played the way they had to play. They sagged. They’re not going to spread out. They’re going to sag. Guess what? They’re not the only team that’s going to play us that way. There’s going to be a lot of teams playing us that way.
Q. What do you think Michael Kidd-Gilchrist gave you?
COACH CALIPARI: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist? Obviously, you watched the game. He was the difference in what happened. He did what I knew he would do. I would say, looking at today, he’s a starter because you have to have him start the game. Can’t start the game like we did today. That’s what I would say.
I’ll watch the tape and watch the game. But I think he solidified one spot with great intensity and fire, which is what we were looking for. He goes for 19 (points), seven rebounds, five assists, 9-for-12 from the floor in 25 minutes. I took him out in the first half because he had two fouls. I want those guys to know, ‘You got two (fouls), I’m not going to play you.’ Then because I wanted him to get more minutes, I put him for about four or five minutes with two fouls. Normally, I wouldn’t do that.
Q. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist gave you a big spark off the bench. Why not use him in that sense?
COACH CALIPARI: Because you can’t start a game down. We should be a good starting team. Then you go to your bench. We should be able to get another boost because those guys should be going against a second-line player from another team who isn’t as good as they are or a player from another team that’s a little tired after four or five minutes.
Again, I don’t know who our starting five will be. But I would guess after today Michael will be one of them.
Q. How pleased were you with the way Darius (Miller) played? When Darius came in, he played inspired ball.
COACH CALIPARI: Yeah, he did. He played good. I thought Doron (Lamb) played good.
Again, I got to watch the tape. We just have to be a better team together. We have to play off of one another. We can’t worry about where I’m playing.
I think we thought we were going to win by a hundred. I was so happy the game was close. I was so happy the start was what it was. Then when we started separating, they came back and tied it up again. I was loving it. It’s a teaching tool. It’s a chance for me to talk to them about, you know, look, they’re a good team, but they’re Division III, but they’re a good team. But c’mon, think about where we are as a team right now.
That’s basically what I said to them after.
Q. What did you think defensively from your guys?
COACH CALIPARI: I’m going to have to watch the tape and really see. Because we had so many blocks, it kind of covers some of the breakdowns. I do know this: we switched, which I do want to do with this team because we got a lot of guys that look the same. But we didn’t switch the right way.
Now, I cannot blame them because we haven’t worked on it much, so… If we’re going to switch and do those things, we’re going to have to work on it.
Q. Did you see anything about how you were playing that was a little bit alarming to you or is this exactly where you knew they were?
COACH CALIPARI: It’s always alarming to me. I’m an alarmist.
We got a lot of work to do. I wish it was easy. Just put a group of guys together, a bunch of freshmen, you throw them together and they just play. That’s not how it works. Got a lot of work to do. Got a lot of work to do defensively, conditioning, toughness, execution, understanding you can’t settle. It’s Nov. 2. I’ve had them for two weeks. Think about that. Had ’em for two weeks.
Still like my team. But I got a lot of work to do. I thought it was going to be easy. It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be hard.
Q. What can you tell us about Stacey Poole, whatever his situation is?
COACH CALIPARI: We don’t have any roster changes, so there’s nothing to talk about right now, so…
All right. Thanks, folks.
FastScripts by ASAP Sports
Kentucky Players
#25, Marquis Teague, G
On if they have a lot to work on…
“We came out really slow and they jumped on us early. We were taking bad shots and shooting a lot of 3s. We were letting them take open shots not playing defense as a team. So yeah we have a lot of things we have to work on.”
On if he thinks Coach Calipari is happy with the way they performed tonight…
“Yeah, but he still wants me to keep working on my things and being more vocal on the floor and just not fouling as much. I picked up three fouls tonight and he just wants me to watch that.”
On how physical Trasylvania played…
“For them to be that small they played really aggressive and physical with out big guys. At first we were having trouble posting them, but they were really physical with the guards all night.”
#3, Terrence Jones, F
On how he played tonight…
“I played alright. There were a lot more things I could have done better, but it is still just the first game.”
On using a press during games…
“I think we are going to go to it a lot to get teams to play at a fast pace and just to rattle the game. It will help to our advantage.”
On what Coach Calipari wants the team to do better this season in terms of shots…
“He felt it was obvious that we had a lot of misses down low and we started the game off with a couple of (bad) shots. He didn’t want Anthony (Davis) to kick it out to Doron (Lamb) for that 3. He just wants us to start the game down low and then open it up. We didn’t do that so it made us look bad in the beginning because we were loosing. We got better in the second half. We still have a lot of room for improvement.”
#14, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, F
On being a starter, according to Coach Calipari…
“It’s great to know, but it doesn’t mean anything. I just want to win to tell you the truth, so it doesn’t matter who starts.”
On playing as a team for the first time…
“We got a lot more to learn and just having fun, that is the main part.”
On being on the court for the first time…
“It felt great. We got the win, that’s all that matters to me.”
#20, Doron Lamb, G
On Michael Kidd-Gilchrist….
“He plays just like DeAndre (Liggins). He is a great player and dug deep. He played good off the bench making shots and playing defense.”
On how Coach Calipari wants them to play…
“He wants us to play harder than the other team and keeping working hard at practice.”
On what he took out of this game…
“We have to take everything seriously. Everyone is trying to go hard on us, so we have to go hard out there”
On whether the team took the game seriously…
“We took the game seriously. Everyone expected for us to blow them out, so we kind of came out there nonchalant”
Transylvania Head Coach Brian Lane
Opening Statement …
“I appreciate all y’all coming out tonight. It’s such a historic game for the two teams. We approached this game as a way to try to help the University of Kentucky get ready for those early games in the season. There was not an intent at any time to come in and think we were going to win the game. We wanted to do some things offensively that they haven’t had to guard in practice. Early on we were executing the game plan, it was 11-4 and I was praying the power would go out in Lexington and those lights would go out so we could spend a little more time with that lead. When this game came about, I had a tremendous amount of respect for Coach Calipari and his staff for putting this game together. They could have played a lot of people and there were more ticket and parking requests and you all have no idea what they had to do to get this game together. We walked to the game and I don’t think there is any question the outcome of the game is my fault. That walk was a lot harder than I was expecting. It was a special time for us, I coached at the division one level for 10 years. In ’92 we played the national champion, Duke; in ’93 when I was at South Carolina we got beat by the national champion, North Carolina; in ’95 we got beat by the national champion, UCLA. I would love, this year, to have been beat by a national champion.”
On how his team competed …
“All I talked about in the pregame was compete and play with poise, there are so many issues going on before and as soon as you get out there and the ball goes up in the air you aren’t going to see the people in row RR in the upper deck, it’s back to playing basketball. As I told many people during the week, we are a none scholarship program in the NCAA division three, 440 schools in the NCAA but I am playing with guys that turned down scholarships to come to Transylvania to have the education opportunities that we have, to have the setting in Lexington. I was really happy with the poise, they competed hard. We subbed a little, you probably saw Brandon Rash is a special player, I kept telling Tom Eades please leave him in a little longer. The other official came up to me before the game and said, ‘you know I went to your dad’s basketball camp.’ I was hoping that we’d come out well, the first half was a perfect scenario of what we wanted to do but I had to keep yelling out quit trying to shoot three-point shots over Anthony Davis, the guy is 6-foot-15. I simulated it in practice in lay-ups but I had no clue I should have done it for three pointers. I made them shoot over a broom for two days inside, I would have never dreamed we’d have that many shots blow up in our hand from the three-point line.”
On how good this Kentucky team is …
“You saw in the second half. We knew that after the half they were going to come out and pick up their defense. This team will be very good. It’s hard when you play against the same guys every day. We were back screening, slipping screens and doing a lot of stuff different teams do. I think they have six freshmen on the team and they are certainly going to get better. It was what I wanted out of this game, for them to be able to go back and look at tape and say, ‘ok this is what Transy was doing in the first half, this is how it was going, this is how we make them better,’ I think they will be able to take things from this game, I appreciate coach Calipari holding up the ball there because a 100 on the board would have hurt.”
Transylvania Players
#22, Ethan Spurlin, F
On his overall thoughts of the night …
“We want people to respect Transylvania basketball and people to see who we are. We came out good in the first half, especially the first 10 minutes. We came out focused and did what we were trying to do. We just played basketball. The game got away from us late in the game, our bigs got in foul trouble and I got four fouls. We just lost our focus a little bit. The main thing is we came out here, played hard and had fun.”
On the stretch where he scored over Kidd-Gilchrist and Jones …
“It was just a stretch of plays where I happened to make plays. The shot over (Michael) Kidd-Gilchrist; I was surprised it got over his hands and went in.”
On being matched up with Anthony Davis …
“He is a great player. He is really long and athletic. He knows how to use his wingspan. He is going to be a great player this season.”
#34, Mike Satterwhite, C
On playing in Rupp Arena …
“It was pretty intense with the big crowd and loud fans. I’m surprised we didn’t have more fans that were against us.”
On having the lead early in the game …
“We knew that they were going to come out and they were going to give us open shots. We came out, hit some big shots and we really played our game there in the first few minutes.”
On how good Kentucky can become …
“They can be really good. We had guys trying to take shots 10 feet away from Anthony Davis and he still blocked the shots. At halftime, (Davis) had a bunch of rebounds and blocks. Terrence Jones is a beast. (Kentucky) can go really far this season.”
