John Calipari Excited but Worries Physicality Could be a Problem for Young Cats

Remember last summer when Kentucky coach John Calipari and some others touted how difficult it might be for Kentucky to play against older, more experienced teams during its exhibition trip to the Bahamas?

Obviously it didn’t work out that way as Kentucky dominated every game.

Now the Wildcats are headed to Toronto to representing the United States to play four games in the GLOBAL Jam starting Wednesday. And guess what? Calipari took to social media Sunday to warn UK fans about how good teams from Canada, Africa and Germany might be.

‘Tonight we’ll have a team dinner and talk about our upcoming trip. We have a team right now that is learning, having fun, encouraging each other and being really coachable. Practice has been a lot of fun so far and they are working hard,” Calipari posted on Twitter.

“But we are heading to play in an event that will require us to be even more physical and compete even harder against these older players. There will be grabbing and physicality. That’s FIBA basketball. Will we be physical enough and have enough fight to compete? Baylor went 1-4 in this event last year so we know the challenge.

“There’s going to be a lot of randomness to how we play but we are a really unselfish group and can score in a variety of ways. I’m so excited to learn more about our team!”

2023 GLOBAL JAM