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UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 18, 2019

John Calipari

Lexington, Kentucky

Blue - 80, White - 81

Q. An assumption that Nate was coming in, veteran voice in the locker room. I don't know how much else was expected -- (video interrupted.)
COACH CALIPARI: The same guy he was a year ago and -- he's stronger, he has a better idea what we do and what.

Q. You added a big man from the baseball team today. Just wanted to get some thoughts on how much you needed another body, I guess.
COACH CALIPARI: Yeah, we just -- what we figured out is we're fine unless someone gets hurt and then we need one or two more guys. You know, Zan and Dante are both out right now, and so we said, why don't we add Michael Jordan to our team.

So we couldn't took him, so we took Ben Jordan. And he's 6-9 and he's got a great way about him, a great disposition, and obviously I keep telling EJ, as soon as he gets in a little better shape he's going to be dunking on you.

But he's big, 6-9, long-armed, pretty good basketball savvy, feel. He's the leading rebounder and shot-blocker in his school's history, like eighth leading scorer in his school's history. Basketball, obviously really good baseball player.

Q. Wanted to ask about Nick Richards. How comfortable did he look? How confident do you think he was today from what you saw on the court?
COACH CALIPARI: He was better. Now in the end he got tired and then he kind of reverted and just told him that it shows you what you have to do.

I told the guys after, look, I'm going to learn about you, but you've got to learn about yourself, too. Some of you guys have to know the way I'm trying to get you to play, you fought it a little bit, and you turned it over and lost balls and missed shots.

You've got to understand that you have to look at it and don't blame anybody. Look within and say, okay, I've got to do this a little different. We had some guys that have just flown with it and try to do the right stuff, and I'll be honest with you, they all look pretty good. For that setting with us -- like the zone offense looked bad. You know why? Because we put it in yesterday. Three out, two in.

How about that zone offense. We didn't have anything else we went with. We didn't, so there were times that didn't look real good and it kind of slowed us down.

Q. How much does something like tonight -- how well does that translate into what's going to happen in the regular season.
COACH CALIPARI: You don't know, but here is what it does. You get -- the kids smell popcorn, there's numbers on their backs and there's people in the seats. Now we have some guys that missed a lot of shots. They have been making shots, but uh-oh, smell the popcorn, number's on your back, people in the seats. It's a little different. I got on Tyrese, he banked-missed the free throw. You kidding me? You bank-missed that free throw.

"It came off."

"What do you mean it came off? You bank-missed a free throw."

Again, these kids are excited. You could see that they are together. I mean, if you watch them on the court, they are. We've got to get a couple more guys at the level that Nate is playing at, intensity-wise. Just be more intense. Be more tough. Go after balls. We will look at rebound attempts. We are going to have some guys in the 50s, 50 percent. You didn't even try. How you going to rebound?

And they will be able to learn from this, that's what this becomes. You know, it's about learning and like I said, we really did not run anything. We didn't. It was more of a random, you know, some pick-and-rolls, some elbows, some throwing at a head swing and trying to post at some.

Q. It was great seeing the alumni back this weekend. It's obvious you realize the importance of having them back to the tradition of the program. This past summer when there was that little dust-up, were you upset about how --
COACH CALIPARI: What dust-up?

Q. About this or that player feeling uncomfortable about coming back.
COACH CALIPARI: I didn't know that. Was I supposed to know that? I'm not here in the summer, so I don't know what they saying and are doing. Anyway, somebody said they weren't comfortable coming back?

Q. Yeah, coming back to practice.
COACH CALIPARI: I've done this a long time, and the former coaches and former players, know -- now, if there's a reason you're mad because of somebody else, and they are making you mad, I can't do anything about that.

But me personally, every -- we're going to have 500 people at our practice tomorrow and they are going to be alums. So it's not an issue with us in our team in this program.

But you know, I would tell you every player that has played here -- I just was in there with Reggie and his wife, Reggie war Ford, they know that I'm here, if I can help, if you want to come to practice, but this is -- you know, this is -- sometimes you realize it's about these players now. That's sometimes hard. But you know, always welcome here.

Q. That has to be hard so coordinate. Obviously a priority in your mind to have these guys back.
COACH CALIPARI: Most of it's handled by Dwyane, or people in my office. It's hard for me to do it personally, but I think that everyone knows my stance in this, and you know, we're going to do whatever we can.

This program, you know, when you talk family -- and you have to understand now, I've said from day one, this program did not start with me. Like okay, it only became a program when I came here, and I never was that way. I haven't been.

This program started with Coach Rupp, who coached here 45 years and then it went to another great one, Coach Joe B. Hall, who is a dear friend who was in practice three days ago; came in.

I'm kind of like this seat -- I rent this seat. This is not me. I just happen to be this guy in line. I've always felt that way about every job I've had. Didn't start with me, whether it was Jack Leaman at UMASS, whether it was Gene Bartow at Memphis.

But I didn't know that. Hopefully -- I'll ask more questions in the back about who, what, where, why.

Q. A few three-point shots, maybe not by design this early on. What have you noticed from the team with the new three-point line and the spacing and how they have take tone that?
COACH CALIPARI: You know, Johnny missed all four, and we are expecting him to make shots. I told him he's flat-footed. You can't shoot them flat footed. You have to jump. You have to shoot the same way every time and that means go meet the ball and let it go.

You know, tie Reece missed some shots. So when you talk those two being 1-for -- whatever they were, that's not good for us. Now, we're not a team that wants to shoot 30 threes, but when you look at the combined threes, we shot 41, which is, you know, it's all our guys, 20 and 20. 41 is not bad, and then we went to the zone and then we started moving it more. But we will shoot some threes from our bigs, especially Nate, because he can do it.

Q. How does it strike you that there's a full house for madness, which is more of a show, and yet tonight is basketball more so, and there's a lot of empty seats.
COACH CALIPARI: Geez, I thought there were 13,000, and our students weren't here. I will say this. If you go around the country and say it's your home games, you would average 13,000, there's about 250 programs that say: Let me sign on the dotted line. And this is an exhibition against ourselves when I thought we might be playing 4-on-4 because of the injuries, because I couldn't get Ben to play. He didn't start practicing with us.

So this is crazy. I mean, they paid to see us scrimmage. This wasn't people just walking off the street now. They had to pay to get a ticket to come to the game, and 13,000 come; only here could that happen. Only here.

Q. How do you think Ashton played tonight?
COACH CALIPARI: I thought he played good. He's got a better feel. He's shooting the ball better. His decision-making is good. He's trying to get people involved. You can talk to him. He understands things. I had to go out on the Court 1 time with tie Reece because there are things that he was doing that we had not talked about, and I didn't want him to keep doing some different things.

But Ashton I thought did good.

Q. What was the -- did you bring Ben in, work him out, get a good look to have an idea of whether he can --
COACH CALIPARI: No, we just figured out he was a former high school basketball player, and you know -- and he was 6-9. I said -- and we need another big guy. We're one shot. Brendan, it's not fair for him to go inside and have to be playing against Nick and Nate. It's just not.

Q. Have you guys figured out what to do in the spring when baseball starts up?
COACH CALIPARI: He's a baseball player. You know, I wish we were -- I wish it was like high school roles where two or three days a week we could scrimmage, because I have enough guys for that. Like bring in another team and let's scrimmage, and let's go this weekend and scrimmage, and I'd be fine with the numbers.

The problem is, if you know me, I like to go competitive and it's five-on-five. So we've been doing four-on-four, not all bad for this team because there's still habits that get a break, and they are going to have to figure out.

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