Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari
On what turned the game around …
“I thought we—unforced turnovers in the first half killed us. I thought they were tougher than us going to balls. So you give them that. They made some shots. They play at the end of the half: They make a 3 and we miss a layup. It’s just, ahh. But I told them, ‘We’re in good shape. Just play.’ And then we start the half and we don’t set a screen on an in-bounds play. I just said, ‘We’re going with spirit. I’m playing spirit.’ PJ (Washington) was hurt, not enough to give us. We’re not—we just needed spirit. I thought Wenyen (Gabriel), obviously Kevin (Knox). Second half, our guards played for us instead of, ‘I gotta get mine and do—’ They played for us. Nick (Richards) played good down the stretch. Hami (Diallo) played good. We had a lot of good play today. And then to come on the road and be down (17), in this environment and (against) a top-10 team is a—for us playing all freshmen. Freshman, freshman, freshman, freshman, freshman, freshman, freshman, sophomore, sophomore. That’s who we are. To be able to do that in this environment means we’re growing up. Part of it is we have a full roster, which we have not had for, how long, three weeks? Maybe longer, because Jarred’s (Vanderbilt) just starting. And we still haven’t figured out Jarred yet.”
On Knox …
“He didn’t settle. He didn’t settle. He went at it. He took fouls. He went at the basket. There was only one play, late – and he knew he did it – he bailed out and I—’Why did you do that?’ And it’s, you know, he reverted a little bit, but—the biggest thing, too, both Quade (Green) and Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander) played the way you need point guards to play. You’re not playing for you. You’re playing for us. You’re running downhill to create for us, and they did it. Everybody talks about our shooting. We’re not that bad a shooting team, but we’re so big we just don’t play that way. And then I thought we defended and we hung around. Down (17) and a young team like this and to be able to come back and win and then make all the plays down the stretch. And obiously Bob’s (Huggins) got a terrific team. I mean, you know, you got senior guards. You got the big people. What hurt them is when the kid got hurt. That probably tilted it to where we could beat the, because that kid just blocked every shot and got every rebound and did everything he was supposed to—scored. I don’t what happened to his knee, but that was a big piece of this game.”
On Richards …
“These kids are so young, they have to know I’m for them and I’m with them and I love them, but – but – I’m going to hold you accountable. You have to hold yourself accountable. And if you don’t, I will do it for you. You have to take responsibility for how you play. We only had one play today where a guy wouldn’t take responsibility. And eventually I made him in front of the team say, ‘My fault,’ he said. ‘OK?’ ‘Thank you.’ And there was only one of those. We’ve had 10 of those. Look, guys. They’re being defensive, because they’re trying to figure out who they are as players. And when you’re trying to figure it out, you’re defensive. You’re trying to—’It isn’t me!’ Stop. Take some stock in it. And I told them, my job is to make them uncomfortable every day so they can play in this kind of environment. And we started it for a couple days. It became like football practice. We had helmets and pads and we did some stuff to get ready. And so, they dinged heads a little bit, but I’m trying to make them uncomfortable. I’m just kidding. We did not have football pads.”
On toughness …
“Down the stretch, we made those plays. And I think part of it is because now we’re doing a rotation, versus you’re in, you’re out. You’re in a rotation, unless, like, you don’t come up with a ball at a critical time. You’re out. Short of that, you’re staying in. And I think it’s better for them because what does it take off their play? What excuse? (Minutes) Can’t say it. Can’t say that anymore. You’re in a rotation. Uh uh. ‘Well, you did it two minutes after I missed a shot.’ I’m trying to take all this stuff off these freshmen, their play. That’s what I’m trying to do. And again, if guys aren’t playing with spirit, it’s good now. We got enough guys. Instead of me begging, like I had to at South Carolina, you’re out. We’ll play without you and we’ll win.”
On the environment …
“It’s hard. It’s a tough place to play.”
On him saying it would only be a big game if they won …
“It’s a big game now. This is a huge game. This was a huge game. Because we won. But for Bob and I, I am rooting for West Virginia. I always do. He is rooting for Kentucky. We’re not going to play anybody—well, we will face each other in the NCAA Tournament. There is no question they’ll put us in the same bracket, because they don’t want two of us to advance so we’re going to play each other. But, hopefully it’s later rounds. He knows this is them saying now he’s got their attention. And again, I didn’t watch his team. I was watching my team. But I imagine there’s some things that he’s going to talk about, whether it be shot selection. I don’t know. I didn’t watch his team. I watched mine.”
On the SEC winning the SEC/Big 12 Challenge …
“It doesn’t matter. You got two of the best leagues. And so whether they were 6-4 or 7-3 or we were 6-4, 5-5, it doesn’t matter. Both of these leagues are two of the best leagues.”
On Jarred Vanderbilt having 11 rebounds …
“Unbelievable, right? I gotta figure out offensively. I’m losing my mind. I called Jarred in and I said, ‘Listen, I need you on the court. I need your rebounding. I need your toughness. I need your ability to pass and be that guy. What do you want me to run? Write up a play. Tell me how you want me to use you offensively so that you’re comfortable. He’s just not comfortable right now. But he’s only been playing, what, 10 days? Is it 10 days? Somebody correct me. Jerry, what is it exactly? Eleven days and 36 hours, I don’t know.”
On whether Vanderbilt changes the dynamic when he’s in …
“Yeah. He brings that toughness. He’ll go get balls. We just gotta figure him out offensively.”
On whether this could be a moment where the light comes on …
“No. No. When you got all freshmen, no. Now we got another tough league game Tuesday. Travel tonight, we’ll get home at 11. We practice tomorrow, practice Monday. We play a team that should have beaten us earlier in the year. And we’re playing them.”
On how satisfying it was to see his team respond in this environment …
“I’m proud of them. They know how I feel. I told them, ‘There was a spirit about you the second half.’ And that’s what we’re trying to get them to practice with so it becomes who they are. The other thing is, I want to go see assists. Not the assists from the (box score). I want to see how many hockey assists, how many assists for the foul, how many assists to throw ahead to the next one. The best play, because we drove and threw it to Hami for a 3. Now that guy was going to shoot that, but he threw it to Hami for a 3. Hami makes it. You just made the game easy for Hami and you picked him up. Instead of getting blocked and acting like you could have made it. That’s what we’re trying to get out of these guys. I need them to create shots and make the game easier for each other. And then the rest of it is toughness, fight, how we’re playing.”
On whether he’s going to keep wearing the pullover …
“You know what, I might. I might. It’d be nice to travel this light. Does Bob take luggage with him or no? He doesn’t take luggage with him, does he? Does he brush his teeth? And let me say this, Bob—they lost. If it was me, I know how I would be feeling. But, what he did the night before for his mother’s charity. To do that before this game and then to ask me to be there, which is like, really? And he and I get in there and do what we usually do. But that’s who he is. And I’m going to say this. I said it the other night at the fish fry. I’ve known him since he was 24. That’s when I first met him. He was coaching at Walsh College. I knew him at West Virginia as a player, but we had never met. He has never changed in all that time. He is the same guy. Sarcastic, funny, cares about his kids, coaches him hard and they love him because he tells them the truth. Involved in the community. He’s never changed. He’s exactly the same guy. The dude’s a Hall of Famer. I’ll be stunned if he doesn’t get in, and he is what a Hall of Famer should be. Forget about he’s one of the best coaches in the last 30 years, forget about that. He’s also a great human being who cares about people and uses his position to leverage it to help other people. Now, you think about that, and I love that this state loves him. The people here love him, and they should. He’s one of them. It’s like I say in Kentucky, I grew up in western Pennsylvania. The people in Kentucky and eastern Kentucky, those were my neighbors when I grew up. Just like my family is from Webster Springs, West Virginia, – that’s my mother’s family. My dad’s family came through Clarksburg, West Virginia, as a coal miner. You do all know that there are a lot of Italians in Clarksburg, West Virginia. I think that’s one of the reasons that we respect each other and get along so well. You look at this and see that he’s at his alma mater and I’m lucky enough to coach at Kentucky. Can you imagine?”
Kevin Knox
On what changed between the first and second half …
“The first half we were turning the ball over. We were doing some freshman mistakes. During halftime, Coach (Cal) told us to tighten up, fight, we were down 13, 14, the game’s not over. We had to get a couple stops, made some shots and the next thing you know we were in the game.”
On being “that guy” tonight …
“Just staying aggressive. I mixed the game up, went to the basket, got to the free-throw line, hit some big shots. They were on me about driving the basketball, and then sometimes when they didn’t close out I hit the shot. So, I mean, I just kept playing aggressive, kept doing what they asked me to and it went well for me.”
On Richards stepping up after prior struggles …
“Just know that he’s going to keep fighting, keep playing. His confidence level is still high. He had a couple bad games, but the last two games, the last three games, he’s playing really good. He’s fighting for rebounds, tip-dunks and all that, and that’s why he’s in at the end of games because he’s making big plays for us. That big dunk at the end was really big for us. That got us kind of the final play to close the game. Just gotta keep playing hard and he’ll keep playing good.”
On not missing a free throw in the second half …
“That’s just mentality. You just have to step to the line and know you’re going to make your shot. That’s something we work on every day in practice, after practice, before shootaround, after shootaround, making free throws because that’s what the game comes down to. You knock your free throws down you can win pretty much any close game, and that’s what we did in the second half. We’re just going to keep knocking down our free throws and it’s going to be good for us.”
On if he’s still making 500 shots each day …
“Yep, every day since I said that I’ve been in the gym before and after practice making sure I got my makes in. It’s paying off. I’m going to keep doing it, keep working hard, keep working out with the coaches, keep getting up shots. It’s going to pay off in games.”
On enjoying the road atmospheres …
“Yeah, I love atmospheres like – I love playing away games, I love going against people on the road. That’s something I love growing up, just other teams yelling, hyped, student section, all that. Just getting going. I was hitting some big shots today so I had to talk a little trash because they were talking trash to us, so I had to go back at them. This is what I love. I love road games. I love playing in big crowds and all that. That’s just something I live for.”
On what made them confident they could come back from down 17 …
“We just kept telling each other we’re going to get this stop, we’re going to get this win. I mean, a lot of people are saying we have a hard time finishing games, but we were down 13, 14, and we knew we were going to come back and win this game. We kept saying it to each other in the huddle in the timeouts. The next thing you know, we got stops, they took some bad shots and we got rebounds and we were scoring. The next thing you know we’re down two, next thing you know we’re up. We just kept telling each other this is our game, we can win this. We just kept playing, kept fighting and next thing you know we won the game.”
On what they did against WVU guard Jevon Carter in the second half …
“I think he had like 18 in the first half. I mean, that was too much. At halftime, Coach got on us about that. We came in the second half focused that we need to stop them on the defensive end, make them take tough 2s and no wide-open shots. That’s what we did in the second half and we kind of held them to not many points in the second half. So, we just have to do that from the start of the game to the end of the game next game.”
On if a win like this can lead to momentum …
“Yeah, I mean, this was a great win for us. Going on the road at West Virginia is definitely not an easy game, and especially since we were down and came back and won. We’re just going to keep with this momentum and keep going forward. Never take steps backwards. Just keep going up from here. I mean, this is a big win, like I said, it gives us all the confidence. Next game we come out with energy because we just won a big game. This is, like I said, a big game for us and we’re just going to keep moving forward.”
On the locker room after the game …
“Well, I had an ESPN (interview), so I went in there and they all jumped on me and stuff like that. It’s just a big win. I mean, us freshmen, a lot of people doubted us coming into this game. We were down, I think, 10 points. So, it’s a big game for us, especially for a lot of freshmen on this team. The locker room was just crazy. There was a lot of jumping, hype, smiling and all that stuff. Cal was really happy for us. So, he’s just making sure we keep going up from here.”
On what Coach Cal said in the locker room after the game …
“He just said, ‘Good win.’ Then he introduced us to his high school coach, college coach, and just move on. Like he said, it’s a great win for us, a lot of people had us losing this game. We prepared. One thing he said is, we prepared really well for this game. Our shootaround was good, our two practices before this game was really good, so our practices and the way we prepared really played a big factor in how we won this game.”
Nick Richards
On how much the end of the game was about their will …
“That’s what the game came down to at the end, whoever was the toughest team ended up with the win. We fought for offensive rebounds, second-chance points in the second half, guys weren’t making the same mistakes that we did in the first half. Basically, it came down to we got the W just because of second-chance points.”
On how he’s stayed positive through the ups and downs …
“I was just trying to play to the best of my ability. Coach KP (Kenny Payne), Coach Tony Barbee, Coach Cal, they all just sat me down and talked to me. I gotta start playing with more energy. My energy will take over the game. It’s a big part of my game and you can see how better I am going through the game.”
On having plays run for him at the end of the game …
“It doesn’t make a difference, whoever is on the court, we’re going to make big plays to win the game, but in the end we all came together and we got this W.”
On what the locker room was like after the game …
“It was crazy.”
On what they said at halftime about Sagaba Konate …
“We didn’t really talk about him that much. We really just concentrated more on ourselves. We weren’t really playing with that much energy in the first half. We turned the ball over too many times. And in the second half, we were just more concerned about the turnovers, not really one guy on their team.”
