Kentucky Head Coach John Calipari
On how much 50-50 balls were a factor …
“There was a lot of stuff. First of all, we put ourselves in a deep hole and, second of all, we didn’t pass today. I don’t have any idea why we didn’t pass the ball to each other. If you have two guys on you – even you guys could figure this out – somebody is open. So if you have two guys on you, throw it to somebody. Even if you just get rid of it so that that guy can find an open man.
“We reverted. This is how we played a month ago. And so now you end up with six assists, 13 turn(overs). Come on. You can’t win that way. Give Florida credit. They came out and made those shots in the first half and created a gap. The play for us was we rebound the ball and throw it away to it our point guard versus just hold the ball. It was still a winnable game at that point. We foul, they make two, we miss, they make another and all of a sudden I gotta use my last timeout just to see if we can win the game. We had our chances, but we’re still learning.
What I was really, really happy for was Wenyen (Gabriel). Wenyen was so bad in the first half, so scared, and all I’ve been talking about to these guys is, ‘You have to conquer yourself before you can conquer someone else.’ And what he did in the second half showed me he conquered himself. Literally, he couldn’t speak in the first half and then he came out—and I told him at halftime, ‘You either get this and you’re going to change it.’ And he came out—I told him after I was so proud of him. But, again, you’re not going to win if you don’t pass to each other, if you don’t get each other shots. And everything was, let me—just didn’t do it. And again, this is a young team. Last regular-season game, now the real stuff starts.”
On not getting the ball to Quade Green after he started hot …
“No, it wasn’t. It was Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander) as much as anybody. And then Quade did it too. Like, he went into a pick-and-roll and two guys played him and he went three more dribbles. You got two guys on you. Just get rid of it. It doesn’t matter who you throw it to. You won’t believe this, if I throw it to him, he will see who’s open and he’s going to throw it to the guy that’s open. We just didn’t do it. And again, Shai didn’t play well today. And I know you’ll say, ‘Well, he scored some points,’ and all that, but he did not play well today and if he doesn’t play well it is tough on the rest of these guys, because they’re counting on him to make the right plays and he didn’t today. But, look, the kid has had an unbelievable season. This team has had an unbelievable season. What we were up against and losing some games and coming back and the toughest part of our schedule we go 4-1. The toughest part of our schedule we go 4-1 at the end of the year and look like we figured it out, but I kept telling everybody you just don’t know with young kids. They’ll revert in a minute. They’ll revert. Hami (Diallo), I tried to get him to drive those last couple balls. ‘Don’t keep shooting 3s. Drive it.’ ‘Well there’s only a minute left.’ ‘Drive it! Get yourself going and understand who you are as a player.’ But, again, the foul trouble hurt us a little bit, but, you know, they deserved to win. They really did. Hats off to them. They’ve had a heck of a year too. They lost a bunch in a row and all of a sudden they come back and beat Auburn here and go on the road and win and not only win. They spanked Alabama and they spanked us today. So they got their stuff working now too.”
On seeing defensive slippage against Ole Miss …
“Yeah. I saw it. I saw it. And here’s a team that they shoot 50 percent against us and make 10 3s. I could see we weren’t connected to that game and you think you’re better than you are and the way you play is you’re in a dogfight and you’re going to play harder than the other guys. We didn’t do it against Mississippi. We didn’t do it today. Now, we got a couple days to get regrouped before we go this weekend to St. Louis and let’s see if we can get it right. But if we play this way, you’re not winning. You won’t win.”
On the team backsliding …
“We reverted today. Didn’t pass the ball. Now all of a sudden, we’ve had five guys in double figures for three games, four games. You ready? Now all of a sudden we’re doing this and you barely get four. Two guys get 11 and that was at the end of the game. This hopefully wakes us up and we go. But, again, I told them, ‘Learn from it. You’re young. Competitive spirit. If you don’t have a competitive spirit, you will not advance in this game. You’re not going to continue to play this game. You either have a competitive spirit and you fight and you go after and you play to win or there’s no one that wants you on their team. Because it’s not about shooting balls and fade-aways. It’s a competitive spirit and we’re trying to bring it out of some of our guys and get them out of worried about how they’re playing and worry how we’re playing, but it’s a process. It’s never-ending and it won’t end this year until it ends.”
On Florida’s 3-point shooting changing their game plan …
“It wasn’t that they were shooting 3s. We could not guard anybody. They were shooting lobs, dunks, layups. So we went to the zone. So the first time we go to the zone our guard doesn’t bump our forward back and they’re standing in the corner with no one on them and a kid makes a 3. That’s the kind of breakdowns we had today. Then we got to where we were bumping and moving and made it hard and we got back in the game. Then we threw the ball away and that was the game. We fought. We kept fighting, but you’re down—did we go down 23? And we were still playing to win. I didn’t even look up. I knew it was a lot. I refuse to look up when it’s that many. So I’m just trying to say, ‘Let’s get back in this.’ And we did. We got back in it.”
On the potential of playing on Thursday in the SEC Tournament …
“If we play on Thursday, it’s fine. I don’t really care. You know I can’t stand tournaments anyway. I’m not a big proponent of playing three and four days in a row at the end of the year. We already have a league champ or will have one. What are we doing this for? So that’s me. But our fans at Kentucky love this tournament. They love it, so we go and try to play as well as we can for our fans but the only thing we’ll use this weekend us for the next weekend. That’s it. I’m not a big conference tournament guy. Never have been. Never was at UMass and I never was at Memphis. The next tournament is the real one.”
PJ Washington
On not being able to take advantage of Florida’s scoreless stretch …
“I felt like we fought back a little bit. We were down like 25 and cut it to like nine, so we fought back, obviously. We just, like I said, had a couple defensive let-ups in the second half as well and they got it back to 15 and we just couldn’t get back from there.”
On whether they are where they want to be entering the postseason …
“I feel like we have a lot of stuff to work on, but we’re still in good position. I feel like if we work on these things and get better, we’ll make a deep run in March.”
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
On what Coach Cal said at halftime …
“That we reverted a little bit in the first half on both ends of the floor. That they outrebounded us in the first half and some of that is due to the guard play. There was a lot of 3-point shots and a lot of long rebounds that we didn’t get and that we just gotta fight in the second half and come out stronger.”
On whether the performance surprised them …
“Yeah, it did surprise me a little bit. It’s just a learning experience that we’ll watch film and we’ll get better and be better for the next game.”
On needing to improve defensively after the Ole Miss game …
“Yeah. We had a game plan defensively that we didn’t really follow in the first half and they were torching us with 3s and stuff like that. We just gotta be more disciplined on defense and do what Coach is asking of us and we’ll be good.”
On whether the comeback at West Virginia gave them confidence …
“Yeah. At halftime, we weren’t really down. We thought we were going to come back and we knew we could come back. We had the pieces to do it. We just didn’t do it.”
On whether Calipari said anything about 50-50 balls …
“His whole thing going into half was fighting and playing harder than the guy you’re matched up with and playing hard as a collective group and we didn’t do that tonight.”
