John Calipari knows Gonzaga will be “great challenge” for Cats

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Oscar Thsiebwe will be paired against Gonzaga All-American Drew Timme Sunday. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Just in case anyone wasn’t certain about what Kentucky’s game at Gonzaga would be like Sunday, coach John Calipari made sure to let UK fans know after the Cats pounded South Carolina State Thursday night.

“’It’s going to be a great challenge. It will be a hard game, in Spokane, 14,000. I’m getting calls all over the place,” Calipari said. “I live in Montana, can you get me tickets? I’ll drive over — I mean, it’s — I can’t even imagine.”

“And I love it’s on an NFL Sunday. Perfect. Let’s go. What do you want to watch? Steelers or are you going to watch us? Steelers won last week, too.”

The dream game pairs UK’s Oscar Tshiebwe, the unanimous national player of the year last season, against Gonzaga All-American Drew Timme. Both players decided to return to college for another season rather than go to the NBA.

“I’ve had this before. It was Marcus Camby (of UMass) and Tim Duncan (of Wake Forest). We played Wake Forest, those two played. You would have thought no one else was in the game and there were no coaches. It was one-on-one. I’m telling you,” Calipari said.

“Now, they ended up with the score being 52-46, I believe, and I’ve been wrong before, I think it was 1978, 1977, but that — it ended up not being — neither one, they played okay. But the hype of that was ridiculous.”

“So I’ve been through it. I don’t think, like Oscar, they like each other. I’ve been at events with them. They will both like each other and (Gonzaga coach) Mark Few and I, we talk once a week, every two weeks.”

Kentucky leaves Friday for Spokane, Wash., and will practice on the west coast Friday night for Sunday’s game that will give the Cats a shot to redeem themselves after losing to Michigan State in double overtime Tuesday. Gonzaga also has something to prove after being pounded at Texas Wednesday night.

“I’ve done this before, the mentality is we beat Michigan State, where would you be feeling right now, an out-of-bounds play, a free throw, a missed shot here, late game, not executing and — but all that stuff, we didn’t play great. Still should have won, could have won,” Calipari said.

“I give credit to Michigan State. (Coach) Tom Izzo is a great friend but I want them to have the mentality, you played well enough to win that game. Let’s say you won it. How would you feel going to Spokane right now? Because half of this is the mentality.”

Calipari said his team needed to make shots against South Carolina State like it did after not shooting well against Michigan State.

“You need that going into that game. They are going to be a lion right now because they just lost at Texas. So they will be — this will be a hard game for us to win,” Calipari said.

“This is the great thing about November, trying to learn about your team and I still am learning about my team. But I like the group. I liked them after Michigan State.”

6 Responses

  1. May be wrong but I don’t remember Oscar “flexing” and begging for foul calls last year ?? Hope he’s not getting jaded !?

  2. I think this is the worst Gonzaga team Few’s had in quite some time. They got blown out by TN in a scrimmage, blown out by Texas, and barely beat an average Michigan St. team.
    It’s a very winnable game for us if Cal can keep from screwing it up.

    1. I agree. We lost to MSU due to Cal’s coaching. I know we missed free throws, but he made no adjustments, per normal

  3. I think this is a very close match-up, and the home-court advantage, if there is one, will tip the scale in Gonzaga’s favor. Each team essentially played their only common opponent to a standoff. Each of those games could have gone either way. The primary difference I see in those games is that Gonzaga trailed Michigan State most of the game, and found a way to win while UK led Michigan State most of the game, and found a way to lose.

    That shows differences in preparation and coaching, which again will probably tip the scales Sunday.

    This is not to say that either of these teams has started its season as a world-beater because neither of them has.

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