UK ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS & PR
MEN’S BASKETBALL
SEC COACHES TELECONFERENCE
MARCH 9, 2020
Head Coach John Calipari
On his team entering the tournament …
“Well, we’re trying to figure out again down the stretch how we played, how we improve. I was so happy for Keion (Brooks Jr.) and Nate (Sestina) and Johnny Juzang last game. You want to have a full team. We’ve coached every player on our team like they’re a starter all year. We don’t coach anybody any different and you’re just waiting for those guys to break through. They took advantage of their minutes. Johnny, again, defensively we broke down a bunch, but they did not play with fear. They played to win, not worrying about losing – all three of them. It was a big sign. Basically, played without Ashton (Hagans) and without Immanuel (Quickley). Immanuel reaches in with four fouls on another man and is out the last 10 minutes of the game. Tyrese (Maxey) did play, went 1 for 11, but it’s amazing how you don’t know in these settings who has to step up or who’s willing to step up or who can step up to help your team win.”
On what has changed in college basketball since the FBI investigation two years ago …
“This stuff is now years past, and I think the NCAA is catching up to what they have to do. And I guess there’s a lot of stuff out there that we don’t know about it where they’ve said there are allegations to different schools, and now you see how it plays out and if it truly changed how people approached allegations or if it changed the pattern of things. When you’re in what we’re doing, you’re so consumed with your own players. I think the biggest impact will be this transfer rule where you can transfer without penalty. Now, I’ve coached at all different levels, but this does not–if they go with it and I’ve heard they are, doesn’t hurt Kentucky. It helps us. We’re going to have all kinds of calls. Kids wanting to join our program. You know ‘I’ve had a great year. Can you help me? You help kids do this and I want to be (there).’ OK. Well, what does it do to all the middle mid-majors, low-majors or even Power Fives that are bottom of the Power Fives? I mean, now who do you recruit? Do you recruit junior-college players to know you’ll have them? Do you get grad transfers? If you get a really good high school player, is he going to stay more than one year? And, if he leaves, what is it going to do to kids in the program? Not just him. Then do we have coaches tampering with other programs? So, now it becomes, if you don’t have harsh penalties, if your program is found to tamper, well, how will they ever check? Go to the phones. If I called an AAU coach or a high school coach and we called the kid, we just tampered and I get fired. You fire the coaches. If you don’t do that, which I just don’t know if they’re capable of doing that, we’re going to be handing out, in the handshake line, business cards. When the games end. I mean, that is going to be an impact that people don’t know the unintended consequences and they haven’t talked to coaches enough. It’s not that we don’t want kids. If a kid has a reason. Let’s say the kid was lied to. ‘You’re going to start and play 30 minutes a game and you’re going to do this.’ And it was a total lie. The kid should be able to leave. I don’t know how you deal with that. He should be able to leave. Or both sides understand that you picked the wrong school, you shouldn’t be here. And both the coach and the player (agree), I get that. But just to have a blanket because they do it in track or they do it in gymnastics, we should do it in football and men’s basketball, I mean, it’s crazy. That will have an impact bigger than anything else.”
On Immanuel Quickley’s improvement from his freshman to sophomore season …
“Well, that’s what you hope for. It’s funny, most cases the kids that stay two years here or three years – Nick (Richards) – or four years – Darius Miller, PJ Washington, two years – they’ve taken big jumps. Every kid is on their own path. The problem is all of the clutter. The stuff that’s around them, close to them, which you compare yourself to this: ‘If you played like they let him play. If you shot as many balls as he shot.’ It’s all a copout. This stuff comes down to, are you ready or not? Some of it is just mentally. Willie Cauley-Stein after year two could have been a top-20 pick (and) said, ‘I’m not mentally ready to leave.’ ‘Great. Stay a third year.’ Ends up being the seventh pick in the draft. You haven’t mastered your skills. In a gym with no one there in a shooting drill you miss 12 straight shots. You haven’t mastered your skills. So, with a guy like Immanuel who’s in the gym 24 (hours a day). I texted him yesterday. You know what I told him? ‘Stay out of the gym today and tomorrow. I don’t want you touching a basketball, and if you need Tuesday off, take Tuesday off. Get healthy. Get your back right.’ But he’s one of those kids that just is obsessed with being in the gym and working and not backing up, spending more time and expecting more. That’s who he is. It’s come through. He’s played so well. He’s helped us win games. Without him we’re not here. Now, last game he fouls out with 10 minutes to go and we win without him. It’s always good. It’s humbling. It’s a humbling situation. When I said after the game, ‘One of the big things that happened for us Immanuel fouling out,’ they all laughed. But the point being, look, be humble about this.”
On if he’s spoken to Ashton Hagans and what is the expectation for him in Nashville …
“I haven’t talked to him yet. My hope is we’ll talk today or tomorrow, and I think he’ll be fine. Whether I’ll start him or not, I don’t know. We’ve got practice days and we’ll see how he is. I just want him to be healthy and be in a great frame of mind. This stuff is so hard for those kids. I mean, what they have sitting on their shoulders and what they feel they’re responsible for. It’s like they’re grown men at age 18 and 19 and have the weight of the world on them. It’s hard and then when you don’t play well your whole life has been enabled. It’s always somebody else. It’s another thing if you did this or if you did–and now you’ve got to clear your mind, man. Reboot. Let’s go. Take responsibility. Do what you’ve got to do for the team. If you don’t have it going, we go with somebody else. I told everybody, the way that we’ve been able to do this this year, we don’t know who’s going to really be that guy. But when the game ends up getting going, we all see it. It’s him. Well, let’s go to him. That’s kind of how we’ve been doing it.”s
