Over the next three days, we’ll post a transcript of John Calipari’s preseason media roundtable in three parts. To start with, Coach Cal talks preseason expectations, the platoon system and the Bahamas trip.Are the two injured guys, are they back doing everything that you want them to do now?“Willie’s back. He played the other day and looked really good. A couple of the guys said to me, ‘We forgot how good he was.’ And Trey, I watched him go through a workout, and it’s just, he probably needs more time. So he’s not playing and not fully engaged yet, but he is going through what I would say is, without being able to play up and down as hard as he can go, that’s what he’s doing.”With so many guys back this year, do you feel like you’re better prepared to deal with the hype and the expectations than maybe they were last year when all the 40-0 talk started?“Well, more prepared for a lot of stuff. You saw it in the Bahamas. Like, how did they–you’ve never seen one of my teams look that far advanced. Why? Because I’ve had a new team every year. So now all of a sudden you have the majority of your guys coming back. Now you could say, ‘This kid looked good, that kid–‘ but we looked like a team, and that’s a big part of those guys coming back, handling all that, knowing the anxiety of knowing why they’re training the way they are. It’s made it all easier. And then the freshmen can kind of get in line and follow, which is what’s happening.”How much does it help individually having guys come back that are on a mission to finish unfinished business and does that help to keep the motivated?“Yeah, and they want to win. They know they need each other because they went through it last year where you start and you’re more into your own stuff and then all of a sudden you look and it’s not going real good and then you start worrying about everyone else and your stuff gets better.”What do you see are the pros and cons of platooning and would you consider that during the season?“Yeah. I mean, it’s never been done before where the players have benefited. It’s been done where the program’s benefited and the coaches benefited, but it’s never been done before where players benefited. That’s the challenge that we’ll have. I think that if you can get two groups that are balanced yet good enough, we can do it. We have some time. We have to see. I’d love to play that way because it includes 10 guys, and really it includes all 12 because even the two that are left, you’re in the rotation of injury, somebody getting hurt. If a guard’s not playing well, you’re in. If a big’s not playing well, you’re in. So everybody is into the rotation. The players are bought into it. They liked it. They all thought it was terrific. The biggest thing will be the clutter that will circle, which (is) the clutter of the ego and all the other things. But we have a couple things I’m going to do to try to make it clearer, you know, how they’re playing. One thing I would say is, does Michael Jordan in a 40-minute game really have to be out there 32 minutes to show you he can play? Or LeBron or Anthony? You’re watching this USA team, guys are getting 21, 20 minutes, and you know who can play, who the better players are. And the question is the clutter of the ego. And then you have to sit back and say there are two things: I want to win a championship and I want to be drafted in the highest position I can be. Can that all happen two platooning? Yes, it can, but it’ll be a challenge. No one has ever done it. I’m going to say it again. People have done it, but not where the players benefited.” How much of that is your responsibility to manage and how much responsibility do they have on themselves to deal with it?“The one thing I said to them – and there was no reason to say it because they were all (into it) – we came back and I kind of had the staff break down what they saw and then I met individually with each guy about their own, what they thought about what they learned about themselves and what they saw with our team, how did they like two platooning, that kind of stuff. My point is, I can have a seven- or eight-man rotation and some of you may really like it unless you’re not in the seven- or eight-man rotation. And then you would hope we’re two platooning. And who the heck knows who would be in that seven-, eight-man rotation with the guys we have. So the best thing they can do is keep challenging each other and let us figure out all that stuff. But they’ve been good with that. This is a team that each guy is comfortable in their own skin, which means they don’t have to be jealous, they don’t have to be resentful. They just–I’m happy with how I’m playing and happy with how he’s playing. I’m happy for him; he’s playing good.”You’ve said many times that people like John Wooden told you that you’re playing too many guys. Does the platoon system fly in the face of that?“It does, but again, somebody said that, ‘Well, Dean Smith played the platoons.’ He did, but he did it different. What he did was he played seven guys and then he brought five of the whatever you want to call them – I can’t remember what he called them (reporter: the blue team) – they came in. So he played 12 that way to make sure he got everybody minutes. And again, he was so far ahead of his time when you think about some of the stuff he did. He was the first guy to say, ‘When it’s the season it’s about us, when the season is over it’s about each individual.’ He’s the first guy to tell the old guys they need to leave early. He was ahead of his time in all the stuff he did.”In the Bahamas it seemed like this group is really close in terms of the entire group hanging out. Do you think that stuff really matters?“Oh yeah, absolutely does. The best NBA teams, that’s what happens. They go on the road and that’s what they’ll do. They’ll go to a movie, they go out to dinner and they’ll go in mass – the best NBA teams. The bad teams, everybody breaks up and goes their own way and gets on the road and you don’t see the guy until the game starts. The good ones don’t. They know we got to just be together and be about each other and this what we’re doing. So yeah, no, that will help. These guys play pickup five, six nights a week. That’s important. And you go like, ‘What’s important with that?’ We’re not doing it. They’re doing it themselves and they all like to compete and play, which is a big deal. I’ve been on teams here that we had to call to get them to play pickup and you had some guys that were, you know. But it’s tough for those guys as they leave us to really do well at that next level. This, if you’re not really into this, it’s hard. So that’s a big thing. The thing they’ve got to learn as they’re playing pick-up is, we’ve put in a couple rules so that we can establish some things that will be habits when they’re playing, which is get the ball across the half court in three to four seconds. Have a manager there, it’s a turnover on a miss or make if the ball doesn’t cross half court in three or four seconds. Alright, well you play that way, everyone’s got to cross the court in five seconds. If the wing isn’t looking at you, throw the ball off the back of his head so he’ll start looking at you. And then, after you get it up there, I don’t really care what you do; it’s pickup. I just want you to get it up there. Trying to create that habit, on a miss or make, the ball goes. Now, we talked as a staff and I talked to the guys a few nights ago, we didn’t do anything defensively and won’t until October. So before the Bahamas, other than playing against ourselves, we told them pick up and play full court. Well, what did we teach them? Pick up and play your man. If somebody leaves, then try to rotate a bit, figure it out on the run. We told them to force down pick-and-rolls. We did not teach them how to do it. We didn’t teach. We just said if a guy tries pick-and-roll, forces them down the side. So by doing none of that, we ended up 40 percent, holding those teams 28 (percent) from the 3, plus-whatever rebounding. We were not a bad defensive team and we taught nothing. So again, playing against each other they’ll get better defensively if I can get them to create habits of getting the ball up the court quickly. And then let them, maybe in another week or so, ‘OK, the point guard, if he hits, just make sure you go through every time,’ something we didn’t do in the Bahamas that I think we’ll do some.”Watching those guys, it seems like each of those five-man units had become super comfortable with each other. There was a chemistry there and obviously that helps in one regard. But when you get to a crunch-time situation and you pull a couple off one team and put in a few from another team, do you worry about the chemistry?“No. You have to practice that way. You’ve got to have – and we’ve talked about it as a group – I said you’ve got to have a team that, say someone’s really hurting us in a zone and we say, ‘OK, we’re putting our best shooting team in.’ So we’re mixing it up. Well, you practice that way. it’s not like you just did it in that game. What about a team, we get down, we’re just playing bad and we just want a catch-up team in there? What would that catch-up team be? Because you’ve got to both defend and score. What would a team look like if you just wanted it to be a great defensive team? Would it be Willie, Marcus Lee and another big and two guards who are all guarding? What would that team be? What if you needed another pressing team? Who would your best pressing team be? And that may be your catch-up team. So all that stuff will be decided as we practice. I don’t even know what the groupings would be. Aaron and Andrew, yesterday in the pickup games, they were on opposite teams. So I told those two, ‘Don’t always play with each other. Play opposite.’ You don’t want to be labeled that you have to be on the same team. You’ve had guys like that before. It hurts them. It’s not helping you; it hurts you.’ So they’re playing opposite of each other. Like I said, until we start practicing, I liked what I saw, I liked that you could just swamp people, just keep coming. I liked the fact that the numbers were really good for 20 minutes. And then we’ll do some things so that people will know what their numbers relate to if they played 34 minutes. You have a team full of guys playing 20, what would that relate to if they’re playing 34 minutes? Basically it’s all about efficiency. Have that stat sheet.”Is it crazy to you that, two years removed from Brian Long guarding Nerlens Noel in practice, you’re talking about catch-up teams and my shooting teams and zone teams?“Yeah, but did I ever plan on six guys leaving in one year? No. So I had to deal with it. Did we plan on five guys leaving after our first year? No. So all of a sudden it changed the whole direction of the program. Now all of a sudden we had guys come back that I thought would never come back. Well, now we’ve got to make it work. So that’s part of how this is–it’s not easy on anybody, but at the end of the day I don’t think it’s a bad problem. It’s probably a good problem.”How are this year’s freshmen different from last year’s freshmen?“I don’t know if they do. I would say on a whole they’re probably in better condition, but I could say that because of the Bahamas trip. They’re probably more advanced of how we’re going to play. They’re probably able to play looser because they know it’s not going to be on them. It’s pretty good to know that–how about five freshmen, anybody returning had a great experience in the NIT at Robert Morris? Now all of a sudden you’ve got a team full of guys that played in the championship game and now you’re coming back and watching and learning. If you can compete with them, you start building your own confidence. This guy, I can compete with this guy. It’s a good thing.”Cal you mentioned some things about, statistically, and I wonder, what’s your relationship with analytics? Are you looking at any more of it? Are you looking at numbers more than you used to? “Look, there’s the guy that’s never played, coached or done anything but look at numbers and tell you what your team should look like. Beat it. Then there’s the guy, the old-school guy, that never looked at a number, doesn’t know how to open a computer, doesn’t know how to Twitter, Facebook – which would be me — and he doesn’t want to look at numbers. You got to–it’s both. The numbers that are good for us are for the players to see what they’re accomplishing, in my mind. And it’s good for everyone else to see what those numbers say. That’s good for them to see what those numbers say, but the reality of it is we could all watch a game and if you have any feel for the game at all you could say he played a great game even if the numbers said he played OK. Yeah, but here’s what those numbers don’t take into account. I mean we’ve got things that we’ll do that are nonnegotiable that there’s no analytic that can do it. They don’t have one invented, so there’s numbers of things we take. But, if I’m going to two platoon, the numbers will matter and the efficiency numbers, numbers translated into 34 minutes – now, why do you think I’d say 34 minutes and not 40? (Reporter: Nobody plays 40.) Yeah, and if I did 40, everybody in the country could say, ‘Yeah, but if I made my guy do 40 minutes.’ So most teams, if you’re going to play between 32 and 34 minutes – the best players in the country (play those minutes) so every one of our guys gets rated to 34 minutes – what do those numbers mean?”