Losses Might Be Needed to Impart Lessons of Selflessness

John Calipari found himself torn as the clock approached midnight on Tuesday.

On one hand, he was thinking about the irrepressible competitiveness that has carried him to the top of the coaching world. On the other, he was thinking about the long-term development of his team.

“I hate to lose,” John Calipari said, “but sometimes it’s good.”

No. 4/4 Kentucky, you see, had just suffered one of those dreaded losses at the hands of Tennessee. The Wildcats (17-3, 7-1 SEC) played from behind for most of the evening in a hostile road environment, their late rally falling short in an 82-80 defeat at the hands of the Volunteers (11-9, 4-4 SEC).

“Tennessee was better than us tonight,” Calipari said. “They deserved to win the game. It would have been a shame if we made a 3 or something crazy and won the game. … They played from the start. They deserved to win.”

By extension, of course, Calipari is saying UK deserved to lose. And to take that a step further, it might have been necessary. A win pulled from the jaws of defeat might have masked the defensive breakdowns, missed assignments and selfish moments of play that happened too often in Knoxville, Tenn. Those things must be addressed, even if it means Coach Cal has to swallow the bitter pill of defeat a time or two.

“We may need to lose a few games in a row and then have them come to my office en masse and say, ‘Coach, we surrender,’ “ Calipari said. “ ‘Tell us what you want us to do. Because we know we can’t win now but we think we can. We thought we were out in Vegas playing Houston Stars but we’re not.’ We got all young kids and it’s just growing pains.”

Building a team as young as Calipari’s indeed does come in fits and starts. The Cats looked like world beaters at various points during a seven-game winning streak to start SEC, but regressed against the Vols, whatever the reason may be.

“Let me tell you, everybody that’s watched this team, you know what we usually look like? Pass, pass, pass, pass, in, out, drive, kick, go,” Calipari said. “You know what we’re doing right now? Whoever has it holds it as long as they can until they make a pass. And the pass they want to make is the hero scoring pass. We’re not playing how we were playing two weeks ago. Maybe we got arrogant.

“Again, it comes back to what I’m accepting as a coach. And obviously I’m accepting this kind of play from young kids and I’ve gotta do a better job and I will.”

One thing Calipari would not accept against Tennessee was failing to feed the ball to Bam Adebayo, by far UK’s most effective offensive threat on this night. Adebayo scored six points on just four shots in the first half, but Calipari mandated a second-half change.

“We wouldn’t throw Bam (Adebayo) the ball until I said at halftime, ‘That’s it. You either throw him the ball or you’re coming out,’ “ Calipari said.

Not surprisingly, Adebayo got the ball plenty after half and finished with 21 points. There’s a clear lesson to be learned from that.

The players throwing the ball to Adebayo had fewer opportunities to score with the big man touching it more often. That might be difficult for some of those youngsters to cope with, so Calipari is citing the words of Tom Brady, who will go for his fifth Super Bowl with the New England Patriots next weekend.

“Doing what’s right for the team sometimes may not be right for you, but that’s how you win,” Calipari said. “You do what’s right for the team, not necessarily what’s right for you as an individual player and I’m not getting through to some guys.”

He’s confident that he will, sooner or later.

“This is going to be a tough road and it’s a tough learning thing,” Calipari said. “The good news is it’s still January. That’s what’s great. And this isn’t college football. This is get your team right. Last year I believe we came up here, had a big-time lead and they beat us and I think we did OK after that. So, hopefully it’s another good lesson.”