Stuck in his home due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Kentucky head coach John Calipari is making his rounds with various media outlets to break down his team’s season being cut short and what’s next for the Wildcats.
On Friday, Calipari joined the SEC Network for their “SEC House Party” featuring the likes of Laura Rutledge, Tim Tebow, Marcus Spears, and Alyssa Lang, among others, in the hour-long show.
But what did the UK coach have to say during his ten-minute appearance?
Check out KSR’s entire transcript from the show below.
What’s life like in the Calipari household during this time?
We’ve all been in the house, ordering out as much as we can to do things there. We’re trying to get involved with the community in different ways, reaching out. I’m reading a lot. I would suggest to everyone listening to get on a routine. Get up when you get up in the morning, whatever you do, get on a routine. Spend some time for you, your family. We walk the dogs once or twice, try to keep everyone at a distance. My wife’s got me washing my hands 20 times a day, and she counts to 20. Like, us men, we [count fast] and we’re good. We shake it off and go. She’s counting to 20 seconds. If I go out, I’ve got to take my clothes off. The biggest thing is, it’s not [necessarily being] worried about me, it’s if I got it, I give it to someone else. I say that at my age, but you know, with this thing, we don’t know where it’s going. We don’t know how long. My hope is everyone is overreacting and we’re out of this shortly, but no one knows.
What is his go-to snack during quarantine?
You know what I just did today? My kids think I’m crazy, my wife thinks I’m crazy. I boiled a big bowl of pasta, put the sauce in it, and it’s enough for three or four days. I’m gonna be eating pasta. But that’s how I grew up, that was the go-to. Nothing in the refrigerator, but there was always a bowl of pasta to go grab.
How have players adjusted?
With [Tim Tebow] and Marcus [Spears], what was the last game you played in college? Bowl game. What if right before the bowl game, you had worked your whole career, your whole season, and they walk up to you right before the bowl and tell you, “We’re not playing the game?” Devastating. My team was playing well. I’ll just give you the quick story. We find out on the court the day before our league tournament that the tournament is off. “Get on the bus, head home.” An hour outside of Lexington, they tell us, “Nope. No NCAA Tournament.” My kids came back, played pickup, and when they went in and talked about what was happening, a couple of them cried. A couple of them were consoling. It’s like, it’s over. For us right now, we’d still be playing, I’d still be coaching.
What were the individual conversations you had with guys? What was it like telling NBA hopefuls and seniors their Kentucky careers may be over?
What we did, before they left, I had individual meetings with each player and I had the staff in there. I wanted everybody to hear it together individually with my staff. Then we just did a Zoom call yesterday with my entire team to try to keep touching base with them, but the reality of it was five of them have put their name in the draft. We’re trying to figure out how, with the draft [potentially] moving, will they be able to come back to college at a later date than normal? What if they go through the draft and don’t get drafted? Come back to college. This is uncertain times right now, the NBA doesn’t know when we’re going to have a draft. We can’t put these kids in a position where they say, “If I have to make a decision now, then I’m going to go.” And then guys don’t get drafted. Now what do you do? “Oh, they can go to the G-League for a year and figure out the rest of your life because you’re done.” I don’t want to do that to these kids. We’re trying to figure out, it’s almost like a moving target right now for these kids.”
On Johnny Juzang transferring…
I had a young man hit me yesterday, Johnny Juzang. He said, “Coach, I’m going to put my name in the [NCAA transfer] portal.” We had told him before he went back to California, “You’re going to be hit left and right about coming back home.” But we had a great talk, I loved coaching him, he got better all year. This is a unique play. What I said to him was simply, “You’re going to learn to fight here. You learn to take what you want. You learn that when other players are better than you, you figure things out. Nothing is guaranteed.” You lose that, because if you want to be professional, that’s the most important thing you learn here. Learn to fight, learn to take what you want, nothing guaranteed. We’re not making promises, you take it. Don’t lose that. But my feeling will be, five years from now or two years from now, he’s making a decision, he’ll call. “Coach, what do you think?” And I told him, if you choose to come back, I’m fine. I’m not going to hold anything against him. For these young kids, this is a hard deal.
On seniors potentially earning another year of eligibility…
I’m fine with the spring sports because they didn’t play a season. I would say with the seniors in basketball, I’d love to have Nate [Sestina] back, but now you have unintended consequences to some of this stuff. What about the incoming freshmen picking a school based on how many seniors are gone? What about if they give a senior a year back, but he’s graduated? Does he become a graduate transfer if he chooses to? When you talk seniors, 75% of them weren’t going to the NCAA Tournament anyway. There are some unintended consequences. I hope they can figure out how to let seniors do it, but there’s more involved with it. Do you add scholarships to each program? If you add scholarships to the men’s program, you have to do it for the women’s program. You’re going to give it to both.
How do we do this? It’s not that easy. We’re all compassionate, I’d love to have them back again, but it’s a little harder than the spring where they didn’t play at all.
On how a crisis like this could spark necessary change…
One thing I would tell everybody, in all my years of coaching, there’s only one thing that brings about change: a crisis. It’s not meetings, it’s not individual meetings, it’s when, “Uh oh. What just happened?” And it’s a major crisis for everything. We have a chance as coaches to put together a different calendar for recruiting. We have a chances as coaches in the NCAA to say, “If a young man puts his name in the draft, let them stay in the draft. And if he doesn’t get drafted, let him go back to college.” There are things now, because of the crisis, we can now say, “This is right for kids if we do this, this, and this.”
If you missed the live stream, you can check out the replay here:
Go Cats.
