Everything John Calipari said after UK lost to Oakland in another NCAA Tournament upset
READ MORE
Game day: Oakland 80, Kentucky 76
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Thursday night’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Oakland at the NCAA Tournament in Pittsburgh.
Expand All
It happened again.
For the second time in three seasons, Kentucky basketball was on the wrong end of a stunning NCAA Tournament upset loss.
In 2022 in Indianapolis, it was 15-seeded Saint Peter’s. In 2024 in Pittsburgh, it was 14-seeded Oakland.
The Golden Grizzlies upset the 3-seeded Wildcats 80-76 on Thursday night in a first-round NCAA Tournament game at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
UK ends the 2023-24 season with a 23-10 overall record and plenty of what-ifs for a campaign that harbored Final Four and, at times, national championship hopes. Kentucky hasn’t made it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2019.
Following the shocking loss, UK head coach John Calipari met with media members in Pittsburgh.
Here’s everything Calipari said after his Cats suffered another embarrassing early exit from March Madness.
Opening statement: Let me, first of all, tell you Oakland played a heck of a game. They made some unbelievable shots. We were basically in a box and one late. You know, you go through this, and I’ve been in the ups and downs of this sport, but this one I’m really hurting for them, because there’s other years your team, you max out and you lose a game and you’re like, geez.
This team, I really felt, could have done so much more and our fans were here again. I just — I feel bad for our fans. Wish we would have played a little bit better, but it’s hard when I look at this and I go, this season these guys got so much better, were so good to each other, celebrated. To define their season and our season with this game, it’s the sport we’re in. It’s the, you know, it’s what we do.
But that’s what I’m disappointed for them, because they — they deserve this. The preparation, I thought they were great. I thought the spirit was great. I thought we tried to keep it light, but this is — this tournament, this kind of stuff. But this one hit me hard for them, because again, I just thought I had a team that could do some stuff.
Q. John, you said many times that this team was built for March. What went wrong tonight to kind of go away from your belief in the team? What happened tonight to go away from what you thought this team could be?
We made some critical mistakes at critical times again today. I mean we had our chances. As good as they played and as many shots as they made, we still had our chances. And both on defense and offense.And when you have a really young team and you look at where did the mistakes come from, they were freshmen.They had performed on the road in hostile environments that I didn’t expect some of the stuff today. But they have gotten so much better in what they’re doing. They never stopped. They fought.
We just made some errors. I come back to this one hurt because they are the kind of team you love coaching, and you know, I wanted them to advance because of all that they’ve been through, and I wanted them to have a chance to relish and cherish this event.
I’ve been through it 20 some times. My teams have done really well. We’ve lost a couple of these now. But them, this is their time. We’re better than we played, but you gotta give Oakland credit. I mean, they — they outrebounded — they got 16 offensive rebounds. Come on. One of them was late! Come on! I mean, we’ve had that issue, but — you know, there was some breakdown stuff, but you know, we had our chances.
Q. John, as you mentioned, you’ve lost a couple of these now. Were there any similarities to this game and that game (Saint Peter’s in 2022)? And, also, I know you did things to try to — you wanted them to play loose, you did things like taking them bowling and that sort of thing, but they looked like they played tight. Did you feel they played tight?
I don’t know. You’d have to ask them,but I thought they were anxious, and when you’re anxious,you get really tired really fast. So we had a couple guys that started the game and were exhausted within a minute and a half, two minutes. So I think they were a little anxious. But I’ll tell you, at halftime, you know, we’re down a bucket and these guys are in there, and you know, we make our run and you think, okay, we got this, and, you know, there were three — we miss a dunk. We miss a layup. We miss another play and all of a sudden it becomes anybody’s ballgame, and they were playing with house money and they made shots and we didn’t.
You’d have to ask them. I mean, we did nothing — like even me during the game, you have to admit, like I wasn’t saying anything to the officials. I was just trying to encourage, and we can do this, and you know, trying to push some buttons to get the right combinations out there. But they’re freshmen! We don’t know how they’re going to respond in this stuff.
No, we were beat up that game. I mean, Kellan (Grady), if he didn’t have the plantar fasciitis. We were a beat-up team tight. Had a high ankle sprain. And we still had our chances to win and we messed around and lost. But this was the full roster. I thought Aaron played well. I thought he did some good stuff.
But we weren’t quite tough enough to get some of those balls and some of the baskets they scored around the goal. I just come back to, you know, it’s just -- I hate it for these guys that people try to define this season by that game,and it’s natural and it’s how this business works, but this group was a ball to coach, and, you know, we did things to help them and bring them together, and they did it for each other. They’ve got great hearts, and that’s what’s devastating about this for me.
I’ve lost tough games before, and we’ve won some really buzzer-beater games. I mean, I’ve been through everything in my career. So — but this is one that’s like, man!
Q. John, it seems to be pretty well agreed upon that this was a very connected team. Is it possible for teams to sometimes care too much about each other,because there were a lot of the big mistakes that were made through the course of this season on late plays were over-help, over-commitment to try to help a teammate. Is that logical?
Some of it was on offense, just why did you do that? And they’re not machines and they’re not robots, and, you know, you — they need the experience of some of this stuff so when you’re in this environment you can do it, and I thought we went through every experience I could talk about. We were losing more than one game for 36 minutes and came back and won the game.
So we did that a couple times. But maybe over-help, maybe — sometimes I think they were — they are so talented that they would try to take over a game themselves. That’s more offensively, or doing what you’re saying, Mike, just leave. Why did you do that?You know, I’m going to go make a play defensively. Well,no! Or I’m going to make the play offensively so I’m going to take the next three shots. OK. You missed three now. Now we have an issue. Now we’re down five. And so sometimes when you’re that talented, you’re like, okay, let me take this over. The good news is I thought that was something that would play good for us where we could get separation from people. But in this kind of game, it kind of hurt us.
Q. Cal, you talked about a lot of player mistakes. What is something that you feel like you could have or should have done —
I tried to call a timeout and I should have been quicker to the trigger on the pass across court. I was yelling timeout, but I got this late and I knew. I saw the court and I went timeout, timeout and he let go of the ball. So I could have done that.I think maybe more box and one earlier. Now, he scored — we fouled him once and he scored a three even when we were in that.
But I think we could have gone earlier to that. But hindsight when you’re coaching, if you did something and we had won this game you’re a genius and if you don’t do it, you know, you’re the bad guy and all that stuff. Like I said, I thought the preparation was what it needed to be, because you cannot in this tournament come in and start changing. You change everything, now they get tight.
Now they think too much versus just play. So we made some gist adjustments to what we were doing offensively. We’re one of the best zone teams in the country, to be honest with you, and we missed a bunch of shots today.
Q. John, what kind of an impact does a game like this have and Saint Peter’s a couple years ago just on your philosophy moving forward? Does that mean different scheduling approaches? Does that mean different roster approaches in terms of veterans?
It’s a good question. Like, I’ve done this with young teams my whole career, and it’s going to be hard for me to change that, because we’ve helped so many young people and their families that I don’t see myself just saying, ‘OK, we’re not going to recruit freshmen.’ I mean, the thing that we’ve been blessed with is families bring their sons to us and we do what we’re supposed to do to help them prepare for the rest of their lives.
But I’ve taken some older guys, and we’ve done it. I like what we were doing offensively. How do we get tougher? How do we get more physical? My teams defensively in rebounding have all been better than this, but we’ve never been like this offensively. I kind of like coaching the way I did this year.So we’ve gotta figure out who’s coming back and who’s not. We got this transfer stuff going on. We may not need it. We have an unbelievable group coming in that I feel really good about. We add some guys and they stay. I mean, you know — I’m going to — I’ll meet with them tonight. I talked to them after.
But I’m going to meet with them in my room tonight, and these guys took this really hard. I mean, they took it really hard. I mean they’re — and I took it hard.
I’ll say it again. I feel bad for our fans who all traveled again. They’re here. These kids — they know they’re playing for these fans and our fans, who are the best in the country. They travel; they’re everywhere. And I imagine they’re hurting like we are hurting. So I’ll look at other ways that we can do stuff, but, you know, there’s — this thing here, it’s a different animal.
We’ve been able to help so many kids and win so many games and Final Fours,national titles and all this stuff, win league championships with young guys. It’s changed on us. All of a sudden it’s gotten really old. So we’re playing teams that our average age is 19. Their average age is 24 and 25. So do I change because of that? Maybe add a couple older guys to supplement. But that’s what these two did. And if Tre doesn’t get hurt, it’s a little bit different, but — thank you.
This story was originally published March 21, 2024 at 11:02 PM.
