John Robic filled in for John Calipari at UK’s press conference following a loss at South Carolina on Saturday, but Coach Cal joined Tom Leach for an interview on UK IMG’s radio broadcast. Here’s a complete transcript of his comments.On what he told his team …“Well after the game I told them how proud I was that they fought and got back in the game and gave themselves a chance to win. But I said, ‘You have to play the whole game that way.’ Now, what happened early: The game was called like the old way. It was very physical, body-checking, hip-checking and we thought that was an excuse to miss shots. You’ve gotta how the game is being called and play that way. So in the second half I thought we started driving. But still–look, when the other team’s the aggressor and is playing harder, that’s the kind of stuff that goes their way. And so, you know, hey, give them credit. We weren’t ready–the game was too physical, bottom line. A couple guys had turnovers, guys missed–again, we had 21 offensive rebounds and only made 14 baskets. That means you had the ball one foot from the goal 21 times aside from all the other shots you took and couldn’t get it in the basket. Now, either we’re not very good from one foot out or, you know, we just couldn’t play through the bumps in the chest.”On whether the game plan for opponents will be to play physical …“Yes. And the other things is we gotta figure out–I told them after, ‘You guys became player-driven and were talking to yourselves, getting yourselves going and huddling. And that’s what I’m to get you to play like when I’m sitting on the bench. It’s–I don’t want to do–again, they’re counting on me too much. And again, they’re immature. Things don’t go their way, they’re looking for excuses. But again, they showed in those 10, 12 minutes, that, yeah, we’re good enough. We did the same thing with Arkansas. Well, you gotta play 40 minutes that way. And that’s where we are right now. Tough loss on the road. You know, would have liked to have stolen this one in the end. Feel bad I got thrown out of the game, but I’ll be honest with you: I think we were better with me not there, you know, because I think that maybe it kind of calmed things down on the floor a little bit as far as the calls and all that and we had our chances to win. Proud of our staff. That’s how you want it to be: If something happens to me, we have this thing in order where can win and play well.”On building on that …“Well, we–and we got two tough games left. I mean, Alabama wins big today and coming into our place with the attitude that they can beat us and we gotta go to Florida our last game before our tournament. So we got a lot left in front of us and we got some work to do.”On shots not falling …“Well, you could say that I think we’re still trying to avoid contact and fade away instead of just get fouled and go. And the second thing is, when the last two games were really old-school physical, like, you were going to get bumped on every shot including jump shots and you had to be able to play. I’m not sure we’re ready for that. And you’re right, that is the M.O.”On defense getting them back in the game …“Yeah, and, again, we broke down in that first half to give them some shots and you look at open 3s and different things like, ‘Guys, you can’t do it in the game like this where the other team’s inspired. But we’re learning and we’re just going to march on. You know, for all of us, we gotta look at it, watch the tape, learn from it and let’s move on and get ready for Alabama.”

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