UK ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS & PR
MEN’S BASKETBALL
UK vs. OHIO STATE PREGAME MEDIA
DEC. 20, 2019
JOE CRAFT CENTER – LEXINGTON, KY.
 
John Calipari
 
On Ohio State’s outside shooting …
“Well, they got a lot of guys who can score, but they also are good around the basket, which is why they’re as good as they are and rated where they are. They play physical, they’re a good defensive team, but you’re right. They have five or six guys that can shoot, and what’s happening is they are shooting at a high percentage, so it’s not as though they’re taking 40 3s a game. Just the ones they take, they make—or at least 40% of them, 30. Whatever it is, it’s a high percentage.”
 
On Kaleb Wesson …
“Good. Strong, physical, bully ball. Will bully you under the rim. Will wedge you under the rim to offensive rebound but has got a good touch. Can step out and make shots. Like, the pick-and-pop, it’s real. The kid can make it. They do a lot of roll and replace. They’re good. Listen, they’re one of the best teams in the country. That’s what we’re faced with.”
 
On whether acting “cool” was part of why they lost to Utah …
“For 30 minutes, it was obvious who the aggressor was. I’ll just tell you, to start the game, when they outrun us – even after a made goal – to shoot layups. They scored nine points in transition. I mean, what do you say? Like, well what is your—guys, they’re just outrunning you. Normally, that means you don’t think you have to play that hard. My message to these guys is they need each other. We played 10 minutes, maybe 11 minutes, the way we’re going to have to play for 40. We’re maybe not capable of that right now, but let’s not make it 10. Let’s make it 25 or 30 so we can fight and see where we are. We got away from creating shots for each other, so now all of a sudden the shots we had—some of them were open, but they’re not as confident shooting because we were, ‘Let me get mine and if I don’t I’ll get you.’ So there’s some things we’re going to have to work on.”
 
On comparing this loss to last year’s loss to Seton Hall …
“He was in my meeting. He was in my meeting. I said, ‘We have a will to win. We showed it for 10 minutes. We have a will to win. I’m good now. Now, we need to handle this as though we won this game close at the end. Where we had no business winning, we still could have won.’ Make a free throw, call here, this happens, they make a shot, we miss a shot. We win that game, how would we all be feeling. But, we’re a ways away from where we need to be. And the physicalness—like their team, you heard their guys say, ‘You gotta have physicalness. Let’s make sure we’re the most physical team.’ And in that game, they were.’ So it’s a lesson for us. I thought EJ (Montgomery) fought, but the rest of it was they were more physical than us. But this game, these guys rely on their physicalness. Let me say this: When they set a screen, oh, there’s no spinning out. You know got screened. I’m talking on the ball. They hold it, they hammer, they move, they hip. They’re going to screen you. Second thing is, then we gotta screen them. You watch the tape, we screened nobody. We’re almost like, ‘Oh, don’t…’ We gotta get that going, but, again, this thing is about upside. Where are we trying to take this? How do we gotta do this? Still figuring out some stuff. Like, me personally. We’re having to tinker with this and tweak this and try this. Does this make us better? But this is every year. If you have a team that’s been together for two, three (years) you have a good idea. This is a brand-new team. Some guys that I’m expecting more from, I still am, but they’ve gotta go do it. I keep saying the same thing: We can do what we can do to prepare you and get you in the right frame of mind, physically, mentally, how you have to play, but you have to go do it. We can’t do it for you. And these kind of games – this one – you’re going to have to play.”
 
On PJ Washington figuring out how he needed to play at this time last season and whether Montgomery may be doing the same …
“I told him, ‘If you’re that guy, bang.’ ‘Nick, you were here, but you’ve been here most of the season. So we need you back up there.’ It’s a choice. It’s a choice. It’s a choice. You could say it’s not a choice. It’s a choice. Choose to be up there. We need Kahlil (Whitney) to be that other guy and he’s earned his way back. He’s done it. It’s not what I’ve done. It’s not been given to him. He’s earned it. Now don’t give it away. You earned the opportunity. Now don’t give it away. We need some others (to) maybe play a little looser. Like, go. Every game we play, we’re supposed to win and we’re supposed to win by 20. Maybe not this one. So now, play. Play loose. Go play. Let’s see who we are right now.”
 
On what Whitney will look like when he blossoms …
“You’re going to see that physical athlete who can guard multiple positions, who can go block shots that normal guys can’t block, who can get at the rim at offensive rebounds and offensively is a finisher. Not a dancer play-starter. He is a finisher. When we give you that ball, finish. Shoot it. Drive it for a basket. If they happen to collapse, here’s what we want you to do. If they don’t collapse, score the ball. You’re a finisher. You can’t have everybody thinking they’re a play starter. You can’t play that way. You gotta have guys that are play starters and drivers and other guys, we need you guys to finish baskets and we need that from him.”
 
On if he wants Whitney to play similarly to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist …
“Different. Different, but Michael – you hate to compare anybody to him because his motor got him to be the number – his motor. It wasn’t anything, it was motor got him to be the No. 2 pick in the draft. It wasn’t his offense, his shooting. It was his motor, his defense, his ability to go after balls. That’s a hard one to put on anybody. If I said that he had that motor, you’re special.”
 
On if the team needs Whitney to be the third guy …
“Well, I don’t know (about) third guy. I need him to be a finisher. I need him to go get baskets because he can do stuff that other guys on this team physically cannot do. They don’t have that talent to do what he can do. But he has got to play with unbelievable effort. All the other stuff doesn’t matter. He’s beginning to do that, and if you watch, he’s elevated that, which is what we’ve been demanding. We’re not asking of guys; we’re demanding to play at this level. Look, there’s things that you can control. The things you can’t control. Your minutes, you cannot control. But, while you’re playing your effort, how you play, within what we’re doing that your skills, you control that. So, go play hard. You can control that. You can’t control another guy on your team not passing you the ball. You don’t have the control over that. But there are things you can do that you’re capable of doing which is what we’re trying to do with him.”
 
On if he is surprised that this team has lacked the fight he wants to see in his teams …
“The guys that have watched that are our former players have said that a couple of these guys have to understand to be a dog. If you’re going to play at Kentucky, the other team is going to come out of their minds and play great basketball because it’s Kentucky. If you’re not a dog, why are you here? I mean that’s the guys that were at the game. You better be a dog. These guys are learning it. I needed to look at some of those guys that were saying it and said, ‘You weren’t a dog when you first got here either. You figured it out after a while. You were getting your head handed to you and it wasn’t going to work your way. But you said, I’ve gotta go battle and fight and be that guy.’ It takes time. I hate losing. I’d rather learn from a close win, but many times your team needs to take it on the chin. There are other times that you can leave a game and feel good win or lose, how you played. The last 10 minutes I felt really good that we competed and played to win. We needed to make a couple more plays. We didn’t. Maybe we’re not ready for that yet. Now we’re playing against, in my opinion, the best team in the country. Alright, so how do we play this? What do we do? They shoot it, they post it, they rebound it, they run good stuff, a lot of multiple pick-and-rolls. They bring bigs out. They’re bigs can shoot too. I mean, we’ve got a challenge, but you know what? It’s the next one for us. It’s like, let’s go get this and see where we are right now. It’s a great test for us.”
 
On Nate Sestina working his way back from the injury …
“It’s going to take time and we’re trying to figure out what we need him to do. There’s some things he adds to this team. One of it is 3-point shooting. He adds to this team. So now it becomes, alright how are we getting you 3s and what are you doing to make sure that you’re still in that mode? It doesn’t mean I want you to shoot all 3s because I’ll be honest, he’s good in the post. He’ll get fouled. He adds that one guy maybe we’ve been missing who can make two or three and get other guys confident because making them or missing them is like contagious. Like if you see another guy, two go in, three go in, that goes in yours are going to go in. If he misses it, he misses it. It’s all contagious now. Trying to create good opportunities for each other and build each other’s confidence is important.”
 
On what can be attributed to the poor shooting …
“Well, we went through all 17 (3-point attempts) and they were all pretty open. My thing is you can’t worry about missing or making, you have to shoot loose. Fall back on your training. I look at some of the guys and say, ‘You’re making 65 in three minutes, or five minutes. Sixty-five. Some of you make almost 70 and you get in this game wide open and you’re missing badly. That’s mental, man. Come on. You’re better than that.’ Now, we’re not a team that wants to shoot 35 3s. We just don’t. But we want to shoot 20, 21, 22 and we’d like to make five, six, seven, eight. That’s who we are. We get to the line. We’re a good 2-point shooting team. We have midrange game, but if you collapse, which they’re all doing right now you’ve got to take those. The guys that are driving, they’re collapsing. Find somebody. People are open. You’ve got four guys in the lane. But it’s all–like, our offense, I think it was 15 years ago, there was a guy who came up with this dribble-drive motion. I can’t remember what his name was. Then there was a guy about six years ago that was talking about position-less basketball. I can’t remember who that was. Then, if you look going forward, you don’t have point guards or centers anymore. OK, we play in a way that we’ve got to figure out each team. Some teams are unbelievable pick-and-roll teams. Other teams are not. Some teams, their coach is comfortable with them shooting 35, 40 3s. It’s hard to win a national title doing that because one game you shoot badly. And don’t say that we’ll make them every game because it doesn’t happen. I’m sorry. You’re not advancing and then it’s over. How do you defend? How do you rebound? If you go and we’re a kind of team that if we make 10 or 11 3s, normally we’re beating somebody. Normally we’re beating them pretty good because the other stuff doesn’t change. But, for this team we’re still trying to figure out how we should play. That’s not on them, that’s on me. (I’m) saying this team is totally different than the team we had a year ago. But, it’s still a work in progress and now we’ll see, playing faster, spending more time on half court stuff, gaining more opportunities that way. But I’ll say this: I’ve got a great group of guys. Terrific to each other, terrific to coach, good kids. This just takes time here.”