John Calipari says UK has to keep feeding the beast he helped create. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Give Tom Leach credit for not messing around on John Calipari’s weekly radio show Monday night.
With rumors swirling that Texas had already contacted Calipari about its coaching vacancy, Leach asked the Kentucky coach immediately about the rumors.
“I haven’t talked to anybody,” Calipari said. “I love this job.”
He told Leach he only wanted to talk about this year’s team — which lost by 26 points at Alabama Saturday.
“There’s no one feeling the pain of this more than me,” Calipari said. “You’re never quite as good as it seems, never quite as bad as it seems. We’re somewhere in the middle, and we have to grow.”
He said UK has “good players” that he believes in but noted that if a player keeps missing shots, it’s hard for that player to stay confident.
He also understands that fans are upset. UK has been whipped soundly twice in SEC road games at Missouri and Alabama as well as games to Michigan State, Gonzaga and UCLA.
“The expectations here are really, really high. Fine. I think I said when I took the job that it was not for every coach and not for every player,” he said on his radio show. “Standards are high. We fed that beast. You have got to keep feeding. I have been saying to my guys we are not good enough.”
The UK coach said his best teams have good defense that leads to good offense, fight for loose balls and are great rebounding teams. Those best teams always have an offense that attacks and a lot of ball and player movement.
Kentucky has been missing that most of this season but Calipari is keeping the faith starting with Tuesday night’s game against South Carolina.
“This group is different than the group we had last year. This group still, in my mind, can do some special things. The story we write, we’re writing it. No one else is writing it for us. We’re going to write the story,” Calipari said.
2 Responses
Our defense is bad because it goes against an archaic offense in practice.
I’m more disheartened than any point of my KY basketball lifetime.
I turned the Georgia fb game last night and told my wife I had seen enough blowouts this year of my basketball cats.
And I know the blowouts will keep coming. Next one comes Saturday. Stinks the game is at noon because I won’t want to watch any sports after that massacre.
He is talking to Texas and the NBA but will never admit it. Sure he loves his $10 million salary but if Dr. Calipouto pulls the plug on him, he will have a landing spot already planned out. Surely, we will beat the lowly Gamecocks tomorrow, but a world record asswhooping is waiting for us in Knoxville this Saturday.