John Calipari instructs during Wednesday's open practice. (Victoria Graff photo)
By LARRY VAUGHT
His team has only lost once, might have the nation’s best player in Anthony Davis and could also be the nation’s best defensive team. Just don’t try convincing Kentucky coach John Calipari that his team is fully ready for March Madness.
“The thing I would tell you is that the way we’re playing them, happy. But I’m not satisfied. I’m just not satisfied because I want to make sure that we’re getting better and I’m looking for areas, where can we grow? But, I’m happy with how we’re playing,” Calipari said. “To go on the road and show the kind of poise we showed (at Vanderbilt), down four with a couple minutes to go. To play Florida, who is at the time playing everybody. To do the things that we’ve done this year with three freshmen starting, a freshman off the bench and two sophomores and then Darius [Miller]. I guess we could be more perfect but the reality is, I’m happy with how we’re playing but I’m not satisfied. I want us to improve on that.â€
Calipari keeps insisting the only way to measure a team is how it is playing in March.
“Now the question is where we can take this and how do we get better,” Calipari said. “I am trying to figure out how to spike this team. I treat every game the same. I don’t care who it is. I don’t give Knute Rockne talks. I don’t get emotional. When you make one game bigger than the other and you have to win it, if you lose it you lose the next three or four and lose your team. Or if you win, you come back down and lose.”
Whatever it takes, Calipari seems to figure out. That doesn’t guarantee and Elite Eight or Final Four, but based on his NCAA resume it’s easy to assume he has more than one idea about how this team can “get better” the next three weeks.
8 Responses to Calipari will find ways to make Kentucky continue “getting better”
Leave a Reply
Blue Zoom Radio Show
Polls
Loading ...Choose Your Favorite!
It’s been a long time since I’ve Crowned someone ” King Of The Bluegrass “, but Coach John Calipari, I’m honored to have you and Mrs Calipari as Our King and Queen…Thank you for all you and your Family do for others and not just BBN, but for All. We are Blessed to call you a true Kentucky Gentleman. Thank You, Gallery721.com
Agreed.
Pretty soon he is going to be Emperor!
Another thing. I’m no coach, obviously. But I know exactly what we need to work on. All year long we have seen our team rise to meet every challenge, IU not withstanding. Even that challenge was met and passed IMO. First major road game, one hell of a hostile environment by all accounts, down for a significant portion of the game and we still were able to storm back and take a lead which was enough to force IU to have to win on a last second hail Mary that fell even with Darius Miller flying in his face and some youthful miscommunications on defense. So I’m fine with that.
What I feel we need a lot of work on is offensive half court against a zone, I would even suggest that Cal put 6 players on the floor to practice against. In the short amount of time VU played zone against us, we just were not effective getting to the middle, and if we did get there there was zero fluidity with ball movement. Of coarse Lamb and Miller knocked down a few three’s and that broke the zone but we should prepare for all eventualities and that means, “What if the shots just don’t go down?” I always go back to 3 for 33 !! Is there anyone in the #BBN who doesn’t recognize that stat? And then just think of the recent tournament issues. We need to improve tremendously in the half court against a zone, I feel.
Syracuse looms, and any Izzo coached team is a very real threat no matter what d they are playing.
They r doing well overall though
Pingback: Big Blue Nation Linkapalooza: Ole Miss Edition – - SportNewsX - Sport News AggregatorSportNewsX – Sport News Aggregator
Why is the zone always our albatross? Can’t you practice DDMO and still teach offense against a 3-2 zone? That does need improvement.
I don’t think they should allow the other team to make any baskets at all! LOL
I think once we get them to missing every shot we will take all 3′s and make those. Never miss a foul shot….like the night they shot 100% from the free throw line. All other teams just don’t need to show up, that would make me happy! LOL
I’m hoping AD gets his triple double tomorrow night!
Go Cats!
I would imagine traditionally we have difficulty against the zone because we rarely play zone ourselves. It is hard to improve our zone offense unless you are able to go against a well-run zone in practice, IMO. That being said, I think that our difficulties against the zone in the Vandy game were because our the player who is key in our zone offense was sitting on the bench. When Darius came back into the game, the zone wasn’t nearly as effective against us because he knows where to go to attack the zone.