On Tuesday, John Calipari made gave his latest interview. This with Paul Finebaum during SEC meetings in Destin.
Let’s see what all he had to say.
What is the state of your program?
“We were the fifth-seeded team in that tournament and lost. I’m still sick over it. Jacob is coming back, Oscar is coming. I mean we got a team. (goes on to list the remainder of the roster)…
We got a terrific group. It’s Kentucky, we play for the national championship. My thing always is, you want to be in the hunt. We were in the hunt last year. Two years ago, when we win our league by three games, they shut down the tournament. That team could’ve won the whole thing. You want to be in the hunt, and I am looking at this team, and we have a chance. We really do.”
How do you deal with it (the loss to St. Peters)?
“There’s some grieving. I have never had a team lose to a seed like that, but they weren’t a 15 seed, Saint Peters was really good. We had never done that, so I had to deal with that. Like okay, ‘where do you go?’ You look back, ‘what could we have done?’
We weren’t great the last five games. Guys didn’t come back the way I thought they would. If we lose, who is taking responsibility? I will. If we win, I push those kids to the front and move to the back a little bit. I’m going to figure out a way to put this on me because I don’t want it on the kids. I’d rather it be on me, I am the adult in the room.
These young people gave everything they could to the university. We were like 3rd in the country (in the NET), 2nd on offense, and all that stuff. That team was exciting. I loved coaching last year’s team, had a ball. You know what? That last game, really the last couple of games, we just weren’t what we were two or three weeks earlier. I thought the injuries would help us, get more guys and we’d bounce back. I don’t think TyTy ever got healthy. Played Kellan too many minutes.
You know what? At the end of the day, you can’t steal the joy of that season. The last game, you got to go through it, you got to deal with it. Then I got to lead by showing our guys ‘okay now next, here we go’. They’re coming on campus the next couple of days. We’re getting ready for this coming year to go do what we do.”
What has kept you at Kentucky?
“I think I got the best job in basketball, and I believe that. Yeah, I’ve had some opportunities to look or leave, and you know what? At the end of the day, you look at this situation, we have the chance to win it every year.
Mitch and I are meeting because it’s unacceptable if we’re not the gold standard in facilities and everything else. It’s not acceptable if midnight madness isn’t something talked about for a month. We need the campout going again.
Here’s what I say. See basketball is different than football. In football, you need the calvary. In basketball one guy can make a difference in winning the whole thing or getting to the Final Four, one guy. To have everything the gold standard, we’ve always been that. We slipped a little bit in some of the facilities. Now I’m not saying our facilities are bad, they’re not bad, they’re just not the gold standard.
Mitch and I are going to sit down and talk ‘okay, what’s the path?’. How do we get that going to where anybody that walks on our campus and sees any facilities, knows, ‘Wow, look at this’? We’re going to get there. Like I said, he and I are going to sit down and talk about it, but again what we do, the big picture, is getting kids to that next level by developing young people.”
How have you adapted to change and continue to relate to these players?
“What’s next and how can we be first at it? What’s out there? What are we allowed to do? (referring to NIL) If you truly care about the kids and are authentic about it, you’ll always be able to go on because they’ll know you’re about them. Jacob ran his course, did his thing, and is coming back. He will be unbelievable. He will be a first-round pick.
You have Shaedon Sharpe right now going through this process. A great kid, who I love, who came to us in the middle of last season, and had every intention of ‘I’m sitting out, and I’m playing next year, and I am going to lead us and we’re going to go do something crazy’. Well, circumstances change. Now for me, I want to coach the kid. I want him back at Kentucky, but if he is a top-10 pick, and he’s your son. I mean it’s a hard one… I just don’t want our kids to be mad at him for doing something he probably has to do (if he’s a top-10 pick).”
How do you deal with all the noise?
“Social media has amped the stuff up and sometimes it’s a ‘follow the leader type of deal’. At the end of the day, being at Kentucky, you have the greatest fans. The other side of it is they’re activated and they’re into it. They’re watching everything and losing is life and death. When you’re winning, there is nothing more euphoric.
I can remember us driving from the airport after winning the national title, and people from the nursing home are in wheelchairs and on the street waving. I’m like, ‘are you serious?’. I got emotional because this is what it means to all the people in our state.
I’ve done this for a long time. The bullets are shot through bazooka holes. The greatest job, the greatest opportunity, we got to make everything the gold standard, which is what it’s been. You know what? Let’s go on and do some crazy stuff, which we have a chance to do.”
You can listen to the interview in its entirety here starting at the 12:50 mark.
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