‘Secret’ scrimmages have been all the rage in college basketball the last few years, with Kentucky’s first opponent of the season, Michigan State, losing to Gonzaga last week behind closed doors. Today, John Calipari told reporters he’d like for his team to participate in private scrimmages against other Power 5 opponents to prepare for the season, but it all comes down to one thing: money.
“It’s solely money. I’d like to scrimmage vs. having two exhibitions but I also have the feel of what the athletic department needs and if they ever said, hey we’re good because have an extra home game if you want to do it, we would do it.”
Calipari pointed out that, unlike most programs, Kentucky can rake in a lot of money for an exhibition game thanks to its uniquely devoted fan base.
“It becomes money that is budgeted. These many home games, this many exhibitions, it’s budgeted and in that setting, let’s just say, I’ll throw a number, it’s a million dollars. Well, it’s coming from something. So, is it coming from swimming? Is it coming from the volleyball team? Where it coming from? Baseball? It’s coming from something.
“But I get it and if we weren’t hurting anything to go play an exhibition game — most teams don’t make what we do on a home game. Maybe they make very little on a home game. That’s not the case with us.”
Say UK did participate in a private scrimmage next year; who would you want it to be against?
On Thursday afternoon, the Greater Louisville UK Alumni Club, in corporate partnership with Central Bank, hosted the 2019 Wildcat Tip-off Luncheon, featuring head basketball coaches John Calipari and Matthew Mitchell on Millionaires Row at Churchill Downs.
When Calipari took the podium, the Kentucky men’s coach discussed the state of his program, recruiting success, and Ellen Calipari’s popular Instagram page, among other topics.
When asked about what he likes about the 2019-20 roster and how they’ve progressed since arriving on campus this summer, Calipari went through the entire team top-to-bottom.
He started with his star ball-handlers lining the backcourt.
“You have Ashton [Hagans] and Immanuel [Quickley],” Calipari said. “Anyone that went to the Blue-White [Game] or watched it, how much better is Immanuel Quickley? He’s not even the same player. You have Tyrese Maxey, who is going to be really good.”
In terms of his wings, he started with freshman guard Johnny Juzang, who Calipari said is getting “beat up” in practice a bit. As a result, he’s missing shots.
“You have Johnny Juzang, who is… I called him into the office, they’re beating him up a little bit in practice, grabbing him, he’s not used to it,” he said. “So now, he’s not making shots, which is his game. I said, “You’ve never had to go this hard. You’ve never gotten beat up like this. Now you’ve got no legs to make a shot when you do make a shot.” I told him he’s got to get comfortable in this setting. Right now, he’s uncomfortable. I need him to be comfortable being uncomfortable. He’s going to do it.”
As for freshman forward Kahlil Whitney, after mixed reviews during the summer, Calipari said he had his “best practice” as a Wildcat this week.
“Kahlil [Whitney] had his best practice two days ago,” he said. “I always get worried, I have my feet on the panic button for individual players. But he came through.”
And forwards Keion Brooks and Nate Sestina? Two major bright spots.
“And then you have Keion Brooks, who is way better than we thought. He gives us flexibility,” he said. “And how many of you like Nate Sestina? You know?”
He then told a funny story of talking to the Bucknell coaching staff about getting Sestina on campus and how happy he is that it was able to come to fruition.
“I’m not into taking grad transfers unless it’s from a Power Five where they feed them and get what they need,” he said. “But a mid-major, I think it wrecks programs, gets coaches fired. I try to stay away from it. This kid was from Bucknell. The assistant coach called me and said, “Look, we’ve got a kid you need to consider. He’s a gradate student.” I said, “Wait a minute. Graduate student? Is there something wrong with him?” Why would you be sending him to me? Why wouldn’t you keep him? I said I wasn’t for it.” He said, “Here at Bucknell we don’t have graduate programs.” I said, “Invent one? Create one? Are you crazy?” So I took him, and we are so happy with him.
What does he like about Sestina?
“He’s a leader, he talks, he plays hard, he shows effort,” Calipari said. “He also shoots it like Derek Willis used to shoot it. Remember Derek? When we spread things out? That’s what this kid can do.”
As for EJ Montgomery, Nick Richards, and Dontaie Allen, he kept it short and sweet.
“EJ [Montgomery] and Nick [Richards], they’re getting much better. Really improved,” Calipari said. “Dontaie [Allen] hasn’t started practicing yet, so he’s doing stuff individually. But his knee and his shoulder set him back.”
At the conclusion of the summer, the general consensus around the program was that the 2019-20 roster could be one of Calipari’s best on the defensive end of the floor.
When asked about his thoughts on that with the season finally here, the Kentucky head coach said the potential is still there, but they are coming up short in one aspect. While they have elite perimeter defenders and shot blockers, he said they will need to build a bit more toughness on the glass.
“If we’re not a great defensive team, we’ll be [at worst] just okay,” he said. “We would still have a good year, it just wouldn’t be anything special. Being a great defensive team means you start on the ball, your guards can really guard. We all know Ashton and Tyrese, they can both do that. It starts there. The second piece of that is whether we have shot blockers behind them. So as they make these guys play, shot blockers can go get balls, which lowers their shooting percentage. We have that.
“Now, do you have the toughness to come down with rebounds?” Calipari continued. “Or do you do everything right, stop the ball, and force bad shots, but the guy muscles his way through for the [offensive] rebound and an easy basket? I worry about that part for us right now. We’re doing a lot of toughness things, but if any of you ever played or coached, you juggle balls. The more you do the “banging banging,” we have nine scholarship players. [If you’re not careful], you’ll be at six. But I don’t think we have a choice, so our practices have been pretty physical.
On the other end of the floor, Calipari also said passing the ball is a point of emphasis, something they will need to improve if they want to live up to their impressive potential.
“Offensively, just getting them to pass the ball,” he said. “There are times one person will pass the ball and I will stop practice, say, “Hey everyone, give him a hand for passing. He never passes!” [On the flip side], Tyler Herro never passed… I told him, “You’re the worst passer I’ve ever coached.” Now, if he has six assists or something, he’ll send me a text, “Hey, I had six assists today.” And I’ll respond, “Yeah, well you’re the worst passer to ever have six assists. How about that?” So we’re just trying to get them to pass the ball a little bit more, they’re trying to figure out who they are. It just takes time.”
In case you missed the entire video from yesterday afternoon, take a look here:
All summer, we’ve been guessing what Kentucky’s starting lineup would be. Ahead of Sunday’s exhibition vs. Georgetown College, UK included a projected starting lineup in the game notes and it includes…Ashton Hagans, Kahlil Whitney, Tyrese Maxey, Nick Richards and EJ Montgomery.
Now before you start overreacting to a projected starting lineup for an exhibition game, UK also told the reporters at today’s media opportunity that they only put five guys on there because they had to, so there’s no guarantee those five will be the ones to tip off vs. the Tigers.
Still, Whitney at the three!
John Calipari is about to meet with reporters to address Sunday’s exhibition vs. Georgetown College. Watch live below courtesy of UK Sports Video.