John Calipari talks Wheeler, Tshiebwe, and the COVID-19 threat after 29-point win over UNC
Sahvir Wheeler had 26 points and eight assists, and Kentucky beat North Carolina, 98-69, in the CBS Sports Classic in Las Vegas on Saturday night, dealing the Tar Heels their second-worst loss in the history of the UK-UNC series.
Following the game, UK Coach John Calipari talked about Wheeler’s big performance, playing with Oscar Tshiebwe in foul trouble, and the ongoing COVID-19 threat that caused numerous cancellations across college basketball this weekend, including the Wildcats’ originally scheduled game with Ohio State.
Here’s everything Calipari had to say after Kentucky’s 29-point victory.
Q. John, leading up to this game, the players were talking about fighting, competing, going after it. How well do you think they did that?
JOHN CALIPARI: They did, but I told them after the game, we added some -- the focus on our offense was a little bit different, how we were going to play. We were going to go back to some of my old-school dribble-drive stuff.
I said, how did he do? And they went, wow, whose fault is that? It’s my fault. I’m still figuring this team out.
What we do with Oscar, how we get -- you’ve got to get to 75 or 80. If you’re not getting to 75 or 80, you’re not going to go on a run at the end of the year. You’re just not.
That means if you’re not making threes, what else are you going to do to make baskets? It would be a lot easier if you make threes. Today we were, what, 8 for 15, but we were at the rim, which is what we were trying to do.
Again, I told Hubert after, that’s by far the best we’ve played, and we’re still trying to figure it out. Sahvir hasn’t been close to that. Maybe the Duke game, but the end of Duke game he turned it over, bad shot, did some things. He played throughout. Kellan made shots; Keion, I took him out. He’s held to a high standard here, and it has nothing to do with made baskets. You can go 1 for 5 but go five rebounds, go tip-dunk one, dive on the floor, take a charge, and you stay in the game.
Part of that, they can’t judge themselves by what’s happening for them offensively because you end up being in the tank half the time because you’re only going to make half the shots. The other half you’re in the tank.
And it’s not just him. We’ve got a lot of guys that judge their game versus baskets and shots.
Q. I think Tennessee had 22 lay-ups against them. You guys had 20 lay-ups and dunks. Seemed like a big part of today was Sahvir kind of sticking to the plan. Seemed like everything you guys wanted to do.
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, when you go to the dribble-drive you’re opening up the court, and that’s what happened. It wasn’t just him. I mean, we had a bunch of guys get to the lane.
We worked on it for three days, but the problem is -- the good news is most of my time the last days before this was spent on us. Not a whole lot spent on Ohio State.
I got on the plane and figured we may play North Carolina, let me watch two tapes. So on the way out I saw two but did not know that’s who we were playing, and I said, I’m going to watch another one because we would have played somebody out here.
I’m glad it was North Carolina. We needed to go against a good team to figure out what we are. Like I watched them against Purdue. Let me tell you something, they had Purdue beat. It was touch and go.
Tennessee got them, but guess what, it was a back-to-back game. It was a follow-up game. Because I said, when did they play this? The next day. Well, okay. And Tennessee got them pretty good.
But they’re going to be fine. They’ve got size. They’ve got guard play. They didn’t make shots today, and what happens is, just like us at Notre Dame, when you go 1 for 13, 2 for 19, you’re going to be in the 60s. It’s just what you’re going to be. And now you’ve got to hope the other team is as bad as you are.
Q. I had asked Sahvir this about if this was somewhat of a statement game. They came out with a purpose, and at the end he made mention that the guys got together talking that we never know when they’re going to look up and say, this may be the last game we’re playing. You just got done saying you told Hubert that this was the best game they played. What was it about today that you saw in your team that they came out with such a purpose?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, they had three great days of practice and they were focused. Today we came in and shot around this morning, and it was their choice. Do you guys want to go? They said, yeah, let’s go. I said, well, we’ll get over there at 9:00 and be done by 9:30. And they came over.
We had a great shoot-around, so they were ready to play. I told them this: Feel good that you’re playing. There’s all kinds of teams that aren’t playing. Feel good that you are playing basketball. We don’t know where all this stuff goes, but my hope is that we are able to mitigate, if folks will get the booster we can mitigate.
And then the other thing is if you have eight guys play. Well, I have three starters now. So do I, now let’s play. We’ve got healthy guys that we’ve got to coach. Let Brad coach the game. I want him to coach anyway. I’ll make the other guys be sick and have my son coach.
I mean, we just can’t -- look, last year was the most miserable thing I’ve ever been through. Forget about -- my whole worry was keeping guys safe. We went a whole lot. Not a player or a staff got a virus. We went a whole year, and so my -- the basketball wasn’t very good. We were 8 and 8 in our league, but we weren’t very good for us, but I wasn’t even worried about basketball.
I don’t want to be near that, and if guys are out, let’s just keep coaching and playing.
Q. I know you said all your guys were vaccinated earlier in the year. Do you have to start separating guys at this point? How are you going to manage all this moving forward?
JOHN CALIPARI: We’re going to talk about it. I’d like them to get boosters. I’m not sure any of them really want to try to go do a booster. I did a booster shot and I did scream, but I did take the shot.
We’ve just got to do it. But if anybody -- I don’t force them. If anybody chooses not to do it, they don’t do it. I mean, that’s what it is.
But our kids have been good. I mean, they were good last year. Now, we never became a team last year because we were separated. At least this year if we do separate we’re okay.
And I said it a year ago. If you were a veteran team that knew each other you could be separated and be fine. If you were all new guys and you couldn’t be together, you’d never become a team. You can’t trust each other. We never got close.
This team, this is a good group, and I’ve said it. Everybody was like, well, you know, what if they go out and lose to North Carolina. We lost to Ohio State out here two years ago, but because of how we played, I knew we’d be fine.
This game, I’ll be honest with you, I never looked up. I didn’t know we were up that much until about three minutes to go. I never -- I couldn’t find a scoreboard. I didn’t want to embarrass myself like where is the score, so I didn’t say it. I just kept coaching.
And then I looked up and I’m like, wow. So if you wonder why I was getting on guys with the score the way it was, because I didn’t know what the score was.
Q. You mentioned the three-point shooting and shots not falling for Carolina, but a lot of that was the way you guys defended them. I was wondering what you saw in terms of how you guys were so effective in limiting them from having those open looks.
JOHN CALIPARI: The one that -- well, there are two 4 men, 13 and 45, Manek. They are as good a shooting big men as they are, so we had to say, well, what do you want to give up. You’ve got to give up something. You pick your poison. We didn’t want those two.
Then when we had one late where he got that three off I wanted to kill the guy, because what are you doing.
But we did -- most of the game we did what we needed to do.
The second thing I’ll tell you, when their guards dance, they’re about to shoot a three, and it goes. Like I’ve watched enough tape in the last 24 hours to see that shot, deep, deep threes, both he and Jackson can really shoot. That’s why they’re going to be good. They’ve got big guys. They can shoot the ball.
The thing that scared me when I watched it, they shoot the ball and sometimes put five shooters on the court. We don’t put five shooters on the floor. As a matter of fact, we have shooters, we just didn’t have makers for a while. No one would make a shot. We shot it. Just didn’t make it.
And so I worried that if they’re making shots and we’re not, what that would do to this team.
But we never -- I loved our aggressiveness. We were going to press -- one of the questions, the staff said to me, why would we press, they’re going to run anyway, and I’m like, because we’re going to get into their legs.
This is how we play, so we’re going to play the way we play. If it’s not good enough, we’ll learn.
Q. Do you feel like this was the response you were looking for in terms of the team finding the swagger that you wanted or at least a foundation for it?
JOHN CALIPARI: Yeah, the biggest thing I did prior to the game individually and then in front of the team was Sahvir, lead us. It’s not based on how you’re playing, Sahvir. Lead us. If you’re playing great, lead us and get everybody involved. If you’re not making shots or you’re a little confused, lead us. Lead. That’s what he did today.
There was only one play that he tried to get another basket, and I looked at him, and he knew, I gotcha, I gotcha. He could have passed it to somebody.
But when he does that, and Oscar -- I didn’t see Oscar’s final numbers. Just 16 and 12. And he didn’t play, what -- I did, I told him after, it’s nice we know we can play without him know. Again, we’ve got to play a little different, but we can play without him.
We’ve got good players, really good, who are good kids. Who are good kids. We’ve got some stuff going on tomorrow. We’re not going to get in until late. One of the things we’re going to do with the kids -- I don’t know if you know, I had invited Mookie Betts to the game today, and the reason I invited him to the game was my cousin, TJ Friedl, was moved up to the Reds, and his first hit was a home run. In the majors. Against the Dodgers. What did Mookie do? Went and got the ball and told him, I’m going to give you a bat, give me that ball, and then presented it to TJ.
Now, what is Mookie Betts going to get from that? Like why would -- you know what that tells me? He’s got a good heart, and he’s got a good heart for people. He was getting nothing in return. You know, TJ went up and TJ was here tonight, too, and I got those together, their families and wives.
But I told the team the story because like we’re going through in western Kentucky right now some miserable stuff, and there’s shoes -- I tell everybody in western Kentucky there’s 10,000 shoes coming tomorrow. We’ve got 11 families tomorrow later in the day that we’re going to do Christmas for.
I want these kids to do stuff where they get nothing in return, to understand what true joy is.
Now, this would have been a hard deal tomorrow if North Carolina would have beat our brains in, but we were able to get out of the gym alive, go back, and even though it makes no difference, it kind of does.
Probably shouldn’t do this, but I’ll tell you, we’re going to -- tomorrow morning, Mitch, myself, Darius Miller and Jack Givens are going to go to western Kentucky in the morning as these shoes are being delivered, Samaritan’s Feet. So we’re going to go early in the morning, and I believe Manny set it up and FEMA and the governor and all that, to just be there.
I wasn’t going to announce anything. We were just showing up. But we’re all of us -- and I think Mitch is going to have Kevin Saal from Murray State and his son, Scott, going to meet us there.
So we just want people to know we care and we know, and it’s not going away.
I want my kids to feel it. With all that’s going on, I just don’t want to take the kids down there with the COVID and everything.
Anyway, thank you.
