Cats Well Aware of What Lies Ahead
This week is spring break at the University of Kentucky. John Calipari, realizing UK would have six days before its first SEC Tournament game, tried to give his team a vacation.
The Wildcats, believe it or not, passed on the opportunity to go home for a couple days.
“Problem is Reid (Travis) didn’t want to do it, PJ (Washington) didn’t want to do it, Tyler (Herro) didn’t want to do it,” Calipari said. “They didn’t want to go back. They said, give us off, and if we want to do work with the individual coaches, we’ll do it.”
While their classmates work on their tans, the Cats will be doing what they always do even though they’ll still have a couple days away from practice: working on their games.
“We want to work out,” Herro said. “Obviously he gave us two days off. We’re just working out and staying on top of it. We know what’s in front of us – the NCAA Tournament and the SEC Tournament. We just felt like it was best to stay here.”
Though their overall approach has been consistently outstanding from the beginning, that’s not to say the Cats haven’t had an occasional in-game lapse. The latest came in the regular-season finale, as Kentucky got an early introduction to March Madness Saturday afternoon. A quality opponent – Florida – playing like its season was on the line in both teams’ regular-season finale made sure of that.
“I looked at their roster, their starters, and they start three freshmen,” Coach Cal said. “You talk about a young team that (Florida head coach Mike White has) done a fabulous job with, but they are an NCAA Tournament team and I told our guys from here on in, that’s all you’re playing. Every team is an NCAA Tournament team and you can’t have lapses like we had in the first half.”
The Gators parlayed their early edge in intensity into a lead on the scoreboard at the end of the first half and for much of the first seven minutes of the second. True to form, No. 6 Kentucky (26-5, 15-3 SEC) would eventually match them and seal a 66-57 victory over the Gators (17-14, 9-9 SEC).
“First half, they were just beating us up down low a little bit,” Washington said. “They wanted it more than we did. The second half, we came and just fought. I felt like everybody did a good job of that.”
The fact that UK responded should come as no surprise. It’s what the Cats have always done and it’s the same thing that caused them to pass on spring break.
“We feel like we’re not done yet,” Washington said. “Nobody wants to go home yet. We definitely want to get in the gym and work and get back to where we need to be and focus on the end goal.”
The end goal, of course, is to be the last team standing in April. That goal is what UK has always been working toward and now its pursuit begins in earnest.
“(Calipari) just says every game from here on out is going to be a war,” Herro said. “It’s going to be a battle. Every team is going to play their best against us. We’re just going to have come try to play a full game, 40 minutes.”
Clearly, the Cats are hearing that from their coach.
“We’ve got to get some 40-minute, 35-minute games and we haven’t had them in the last couple weeks,” Calipari said. “Maybe it’s because Reid is out. … Now, you stick him in there, and maybe that lapse doesn’t happen. So hopefully in the tournament stuff, he’ll be ready.”
Whether or not Travis is ready, the mandate for UK won’t change. It’s a good thing the Cats have been laying a foundation for exactly this moment for months.
“You’re going to play to your training and the process,” Calipari said. “Just understand what we teach every single day, and you move to that versus trying to move to where they are, the opponent. We’re just going to stay with that. So no, they will be fine. But again, this thing, when it’s one game, none of us know.”
