Buffalo the Next Challenge in Rewarding Season for Coach Cal
BOISE, Idaho – John Calipari has coached a national-championship team and led a group that started the season 38-0. And that’s just in his nine seasons at Kentucky.
It’s going to be difficult for any team to surpass Coach Cal’s previous groups in terms of on-court success, but this year’s Wildcats already stacks up well against any team he’s had in one area.
“Of all the years I’ve had, this may be the most rewarding for me personally,” Calipari said, “to see this team do the things that they’re doing.”
No. 5 UK (24-10) is on the precipice of a trip to the Sweet 16, needing a win over 13th-seeded Buffalo (27-8) on Saturday at 5:15 p.m. ET to get there. A mere month ago, the Cats were in a very different place, yet Calipari remained resolute.
“I said I’ve never gotten frustrated,” Calipari said, “because this has been maybe my most rewarding season as a coach, to see a group on the edge of the abyss, the look of terror, the text to me, ‘Coach, we need you more than ever now,’ to smiling faces, being about each other, picking each other up in the locker room.”
Calipari didn’t give up the identity of the player behind that much-talked about text message, primarily because its significance matters more than its sender. It served as a reminder to Calipari exactly how young his team is (the youngest ever measured in the 12 years kenpom.com has done so, in case you forgot) and that the last thing he could do was give up on them.
“What I’d like, and what’s been rewarding, I saw the eyes that you saw in February,” Calipari said. “But I also knew they were looking right at my eyes, like how is he taking this? And, you know, I’ve been doing this 35 years. Thirty-five years. I’ve seen everything. We’ve had losing streaks. We lost to four NCAA Tournament teams. They were four. They weren’t bad teams. And so I knew we were getting better, and everybody is (saying), ‘Why are you so calm?’ Because we are getting better, that’s all I can ask of these guys.”
The improvement has continued all the way through eight wins in the last nine games, including a Southeastern Conference Tournament championship and a victory over a quality Davidson squad on Thursday. Next in the Cats’ path is a challenging matchup against a Buffalo team that took the fight to fourth-seeded Arizona and scored not only an upset but also a blowout victory because of it.
“Tomorrow’s game is: Are you ready to dig your heels in and ready to be strong with the ball and not make excuses and play harder than the other team?” Calipari said. “That means I’m looking at a guy in the eyes and I’m going to play harder than him. And Buffalo is looking at us and say, No, we’re playing harder than you.”
Ever the developer of young men, Calipari isn’t just thinking about the winner-take-all nature of an NCAA Tournament game played like that. Of course he wants to advance, but he also wants to see the way his team responds to exactly the kind of challenge they need.
“I love it,” Calipari said. “I think it’s the best. And here’s a big part of the reason: These kids, every experience they go through they’re learning, it’s going to help them in the future. And playing in this type of game, it’s wonderful, because there are some guys on the team that have to conquer that.”
As rewarding as coaching this team has been, Coach Cal still can’t say for sure how it will respond in an environment like Saturday’s against a team like Buffalo. What he does know is that he’s thankful to have the opportunity to find out.
“We’re playing like we have nothing to lose,” Calipari said. “If we play and they play, it’s probably going to come down to who has the ball last. That happens in the NCAA Tournament when two teams are fighting.”
