John Calipari says if COVID wipes out games that he would like to find a way to replace them like he did with coach Rick Stansbury and Western Kentucky. (Jeff Houchin Photo)
John Calipari says no one listens to his opinions, but even if that’s true it never stops him from sharing opinions — especially when it comes to COVID protocols for Kentucky basketball and/or college basketball. Numerous games have been postponed/canceled in recent days, including UK games with Ohio State and Louisville that were replaced by games with North Carolina and Western Kentucky.
The Southeastern Conference opener for Florida-XXXXXX was wiped out by COVID. Missouri will not have coach Cuonzo Martin on the bench tonight at UK after he tested positive for COVID.
“You’re down three (league) games (due to COVID postponements), you’re not making them up. And if there’s 10 days, seven days when you know you’re not playing and you’re not going to make up those games, we need to just replace them,” Calipari said Tuesday.
“These kids need to play games. If both teams are healthy, the officials are healthy, play the ballgame.”
Calipari says he would willing to add home-and-home series to get a game if needed this year. He mentioned possibly playing national power Gonzaga in Chicago, Dallas or another neutral site — telling me he has already discussed that possibility with Gonzaga coach Mark Few.
“We need to play games. My career has been any place, any team, any place, any time. I mean, that’s who I’ve been,” Calipari said.
Except it’s not quite that way now for financial reasons.
“When you have an arena that seats this many and you make as we make on home games, you’ve got to play some home games that you’re not returning so that you take care of tennis and all of the other sports programs,” Calipari said.
Still, if there is no way to make up home games, Calipari is already talking with other coaches about a way to maybe schedule games so teams can play and avoid long layoffs if they are healthy and able to play.”
What about Indiana, a team UK no longer plays? Could that be a possible replacement game and new home-and-home series. Calipari said it could be a “possibility” Tuesday without totally embracing the idea.
“We would have to look at both things. Where we play it, I’m still—look, we had a chance, Indiana, to be in the CBS (Sports) Classic and they chose not to. We had a chance of playing in Indianapolis; they chose not to. So, when you’re doing this scheduling, you do it within 16-20 hours. There’s not like, ‘OK, let’s negotiate,'” Calipari said.
“There is nothing. ‘Here’s the game. Are we playing or not?’ Bang. We don’t play, next. We go. So, (Indiana coach) Mike (Woodson) has done a great job, by the way. I mean, Indiana is playing great basketball. They’re doing good stuff.”
