‘It’s a good lesson.’ Everything John Calipari said after Kentucky’s upset loss to UNCW.

Everything University of Kentucky head basketball coach John Calipari said during his press conference following Saturday’s 80-73 loss to UNC Wilmington in Rupp Arena:

Coach, when a team like that comes in and they’re playing well and you’re — you know, and your guys finally get it going in the second half and they kind of get on another run, what do you say to a young group of guys like that?

Well, the first thing is this was Saint Joe’s again where we couldn’t stay in front of the ball. And you can scheme and do all the stuff and they go and do an and-one layup on a straight-line drive, it’s hard. So we’ve got time in between games, and we’ve got to keep working on the importance of staying in front of your man and make him score through your chest. We just keep opening up the hips, and they’re shooting layups.

The difference between this and Saint Joe’s, we made shots. So we were able to keep the game — and that’s what I keep coming back to. There are games you’re not going to make shots. You’ve got to rebound and defend. You can’t, like — the thing that bothered me to start the game — I understand our starting point guard was out, OK? But we didn’t play the same way. We held the ball. Everybody is trying to make a play. So now you say: Well, why didn’t you get off more 3s? Because everybody who caught it held it. Instead of pass it just to pass and drive the lane. They help. You kick it out. It’s an open 3. We had to get 3s where I had to run a play to get a 3. That’s not who we are.

I mean, we — there was a play where there was a guy straight ahead, our best three-point shooter. And I had a guy try to throw an across-court bounce pass, and that guy was standing right there with no one on him. Literally, the only guy between — it was just — but there were other plays the same way.

They deserved to win the game. They did. I would have liked to have tried to have stolen — steal the game from them, but they deserved to win it. They played well. They shot well. You know, they have 12 turnovers. You imagine, we had more turnovers than they did. We had eight at halftime, or nine, whatever it was. I’m like, guys. And they were all because we’re trying to make the hardest possible play instead of just easy plays. We’ve got stuff to learn.

You know what? This is all part of it. You win, and you learn. This is learned. We better guard the ball better, you know.

You kind of mentioned, to the point in the season where it’s a week between games. Other than staying in front of your man, guarding the ball, what are one or two things that this team really needs to work on over this next month?

Well, we’ve got to make sure we don’t revert back to holding the ball. OK. That’s — you know, you have coaches calling me. I love watching your team. If they watched this game, they did not love watching this team. So what was the difference? You know, I mean, we could say it was one guy, but I’m saying, like, all of the — why did we do that? Sometimes you’ve got to stick your hand in the fire and get burned to know I don’t like this feeling.

I was saying in huddles: Are you having fun? I’m not having fun. Why won’t you pass it to each other? We had post-ups available, and a guy drove it and tried to shoot it and turn it over. Like, what? But that’s what happens with young teams. And, like, rebounding, there were three plays. Again, it’s our game. A guy shoots a ball, and we don’t block out. We turn and run to the rim, and it bounces over the guy’s head, And-one. The very next play, the same thing. The guy blocks out like that instead of meeting him, And-one, and he gets his fourth foul. I mean, those are stuff — those are all correctable.

But again, that’s a good team. You know, I’ve got to give it to them. They — and I knew it. I told them prior to the game after watching the tape, I’m like, why are we playing this game? But that’s part of what this team will go through. Now, you guys know we can play with anybody in the country, and we can lose to anybody in the country. And we’ll play the right way. We get better defensively. We rebound. We’ll be fine. They said you can’t do it with young guys. Well, we’ve kind of done it with young guys. But staying in front of the ball — now, you may have had a player on my team that was your favorite player in the history. If he got beat 17 times on straight-line drives, just — I can go down the line. It just wasn’t just one guy now. And we’ve just got to get better at it.

John, can you put your finger on why you think they reverted to just holding the ball?

I have no idea.

How surprised were you that ...

Very surprised. I thought the other team was who we were. So, basically, I keep coming back to dominant habits. If your dominant habit is, when a shot goes up, to run to the rim, that’s your dominant habit. I’m trying to get them to create, a shot goes up, you go find somebody to block out. It’s not a dominant habit right now. Passing just to pass is not a dominant habit. It isn’t.

Now, they’ve been doing it, and we’ve been training it. But the dominant habit is what you saw today. I’m going to make my play. That’s — it’s hard to play basketball that way. And we don’t have to because we’ve got skilled guys. I would tell you that there are some guys playing on this team that because they’re on this unselfish team, they really look good. And they’ve made other people look good. What you saw today, you could say so-and-so was OK. We can go right down the line. Why didn’t he play to the level where he was? We didn’t do this together. But it’s a good lesson. But believe me, it wasn’t just offense. It wasn’t. You’ve got to stay in front of people.

John, you talk about a young team learning. Obviously, a 22-point win the other night over a top-10 team. Everybody is patting them on their back. Was that an education, something they had to learn today, or do you think they were ready to play?

You’d have to ask them that. All I know is we didn’t play the way we’ve been playing. How did we stay in front of Miami? Was there — it’s not that important and then, all of a sudden, you give the other team beer muscles. Now, all of a sudden, they’re driving like crazy because you chose not to think that was important. And your dominant habit is a guy drives — (audio glitch) — deserved to win the game. I mean, the shots they made, I mean — and they were big shots. When they needed to make a shot, they did. When we needed to make a shot, we didn’t.

Coach, we did see Aaron Bradshaw for the first time tonight. You’ve kind of been bit by the injury bugs, the big, now D.J. What did you think of the way Aaron played, and is there an update on D.J.?

First time out, for him, I think it was probably plus a bunch. I don’t know exactly. You’d have to look. Well, was it? Plus-11 in a game. We lose by this. So, obviously, that says he did OK. He’s still not in the flow of the stuff yet. But he did some good stuff. That’s a good start for him. And I have no news on D.J. at all. Thank you.

This story was originally published December 2, 2023 at 9:49 PM.