Calipari Keeping Steady Hand through Struggles
Fifteen or 20 years ago, John Calipari might have peeled paint off the wall in his postgame press conference.
Today, with his Kentucky team struggling, Calipari is steady-handed.
“I’m old,” Calipari said. “I’ve been through just about everything.”
Coach Cal spoke in measured tones after UK let a four-point lead with seven minutes left disappear at Auburn on Wednesday night. Though a 76-66 loss for the Wildcats (17-9, 6-7 Southeastern Conference) against the No. 10/11 Tigers (23-3, 11-2 SEC) was their fourth in a row, the rugged SEC hasn’t gotten the better of the Hall of Famer.
“We don’t have any room for error and as a coach I gotta keep them going and just get to work and say, ‘How do we get better and what do we do to try to turn this around?’ ” Calipari said. “Good news is I’ve done this for 30 years. Haven’t had one of these for a while. It’s probably good for the soul. I wish it was good for someone else’s soul, not mine.”
Don’t mistake Calipari’s intact sense of humor for indifference though. His age and experience have made Calipari comfortable in his own skin, regardless what happens the rest of the season, but he knows his players can’t say the same. That’s why he cares so deeply about what happens in the coming weeks.
“My concern is these kids,” Calipari said. “And I’m not worried about record, my record, my whatever you want to say. I’m old now. We get on a run and we go to the Final Four this year, it doesn’t change me, but I’ll tell you what. It helps these kids. We go the wrong way and we don’t get it going it’s affecting these kids.”
That knowledge is what led Calipari to issue a heartfelt mea culpa on Friday night.
“This season is not going to change anything about me, but my concern is I got a bunch of young kids that at times don’t listen, they don’t trust,” Calipari said. “And I told them last night, I failed them. I haven’t built enough trust where when I talk to them, ‘I’m going to do what this man says.’ “
That failure, however, is neither absolute nor final. The Cats might not have trusted in the way that was needed to close out what would have been a signature win in a raucous Auburn Arena, but they still have time to build it. After all, UK did play well enough for 33 minutes to lead an Auburn team that sits in first place in the SEC and is contending for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Had Hamidou Diallo’s corner 3 fallen and put UK up seven rather than rimming out, maybe things would have been different. Instead, Auburn capitalized on defensive lapses, Kevin Knox went quiet after scoring all 19 of his points in the first 27 minutes, and the Cats lost in spite of winning the battle on the boards and outscoring Auburn 36-20 in the paint.
“What you have, again, we get a lead and a guy has a shot and because he hasn’t made one he drives it out of bounds baseline,” Calipari said. “You have a wide-open shot. Guys like Wenyen (Gabriel), who I think are pretty good shooters, don’t make a shot, layup—well, he made some dunks—not a jump shot, not a 3, not a free throw and we have our chance to win the game. We made some dumb, inexperienced plays down the stretch. We made strides.”
Strides or not, UK finds itself in the unenviable position of having lost four straight for the first time since 2008-09. As the losses mount, talk of the Cats’ NCAA Tournament prospects begins to grow louder. If he wanted to, Calipari could point to UK’s top-20 RPI and top-10 strength of schedule, but he is leaving that for others to discuss.
“I got one thought: Let’s just try to win the next game,” Calipari said. “Just win a game. I really believe if we win a game we’ll get going. I’ve had teams in this kind of mode that we’re in, but the league was different that we could go get a league game somewhere and we knew, ‘OK, finally.’ Well, guess what.”
UK’s next outing – Alabama on Saturday at Rupp Arena – certainly won’t be an easy one. The Crimson Tide have won back-to-back games – including 78-50 shellacking of Tennessee – to surge into a third-place tie in SEC standings, two games ahead of UK.
“Right now we’re just focused on our next opponent, which is Alabama,” PJ Washington said. “We’re just trying to go in and get better every day in practice and just trying to fight 40 minutes. I feel like if we keep doing that we’ll eventually get a win.”
