Calipari Challenging Cats to Take Moment-to-Moment Approach

Look at the hometown – Chapel Hill, North Carolina – listed next to his name on Kentucky’s roster and it’s no wonder Saturday is special for Sacha Killeya-Jones.

Add in the fact that his mother, Ley, works for the University of North Carolina and Saturday’s matchup between his current school – Kentucky – and the Tar Heels becomes that much more special. 

“It’s definitely a big game for me,” Killeya-Jones said. “It’s just kind of going full circle, watching them play when I was younger and everything.”

No player – save for when Malik Monk takes on Arkansas – is likely to play a game this season with so many unique ties to an opponent than Killeya-Jones will when No. 6/7 UK (9-1) faces No. 7/6 North Carolina (10-1) in Las Vegas, but the moment will be instructive nonetheless. With a roster of 14 young men with different backgrounds, personalities and priorities, there’s always going to be something.

John Calipari – just like you’d expect him to – is addressing that head on. 

“When stuff doesn’t go right, you start having anxiety,” Coach Cal said. “I sent them a text yesterday: ‘Anxiety is not going to change tomorrow, but it can change your fight today – your battle today. Because you’re worrying about stuff, your anxiety is not changing. Whatever will happen will happen.’ So I’m trying to get them to stay in the moment and try to get better.”

Looking ahead is natural, especially for a group of talented players who have long been told of their potential to play in the NBA. Natural as it may be, it’s completely counter-productive.

“You cannot worry (about) six months down the road, two months down the road,” Calipari said. “You can’t worry about our game next week, the following week, the league play, the league tournament – I wonder what’s going to happen? What if I don’t? If I don’t make these shots.”

Those thoughts will undoubtedly bubble to the surface in a top-10 matchup on Saturday, and not just for Killeya-Jones. With two of college basketball’s best and most tradition-rich programs playing in the made-for-TV CBS Sports Classic, the Wildcats will surely be keenly aware of all the eyeballs that will be on them.

“It’s not fair what we do to these kids here at Kentucky,” Calipari said. “It’s not fair. You throw them to the wolves. Every game is the biggest game. Anything they do is on the ticker. They want to do a 30-30 movie on it, make it three, four hours. It isn’t fair.”

Unfair as it may be, it’s reality.

“They’ve all bought into this,” Calipari said. “They thought they knew what they were buying into, but until you’re in the middle of it you really don’t know. ‘Yeah, I can do that. Ah, yeah. I can do that. I want that.’ ‘Now, you really want this?’ ‘Do I have to have it tomorrow? Can I take like two days off and then get it on Wednesday?’ ‘No. No. It’s every day.’ ”

The best way to approach that is to treat each of those days the same, says Calipari. His players are listening.

“Cal just telling us take every game serious and every moment serious because you can never get those moments back,” Bam Adebayo said.