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UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 4, 2020

John Calipari

Lexington, Kentucky

Kentucky - 71, Missouri - 59

Q. Cal, the obvious question, good win for you guys, great stuff from Nick and Immanuel, but everybody is wondering what's up with Ashton? What's his status?
JOHN CALIPARI: It's an ankle. I had one fear. What do you think my fear was for him?

Q. Achilles?
JOHN CALIPARI: Yeah, that was my fear. Forget about our team. For him, his game and how he plays, it's not his Achilles. He said it's a low ankle sprain. You know high ankle sprains take like two weeks. A low ankle sprain takes 18 hours. So he'll be fine. (Laughter).

Q. John, two consecutive good performances by Nick. Are you ever comfortable with saying a player has punched through and this is who they are from now on?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, here's the problem. Why would you get in a back and forth with another player when you're playing that well? So he hasn't come through all the way. Like you have to really look at it and say, why would I go on a back and forth? I'm playing out of my mind -- rebounding every ball, making shots, making jump shots, making free-throws, making jump hooks, a big rebound stick back that he got. I mean, I'm proud of him, but, again, now it's time to -- he's never been this guy.

So if I'm watching our game and I'm a coach of another team, would you stick in a bad player and say grab his shorts, push him a little bit? Wouldn't you? You'd put in a bad player and push him and shove him, and he pushes back and double technicals, and all of a sudden he'll get out of the game. He doesn't have the composure because he's never been this guy. Now he's this guy, you have a different responsibility. But he did great. I'm proud of him.

Q. John, I understand Johnny was ill today.
JOHN CALIPARI: Yeah.

Q. Your rotation seems to be getting shorter as it is. What do you see as his role, and when is he going to be back?
JOHN CALIPARI: Whose?

Q. Johnny Juzang.
JOHN CALIPARI: He's got to get healthy first. He hasn't been in practice. We kind of separated him from the team because he had a virus. We just said, you know. So he's in one of the rooms in the lodge but off by himself.

Ellen made him vegan cookies last night, and I brought them over and slid them under the door.

Q. So do you still anticipate him playing a significant role down the stretch here?
JOHN CALIPARI: I don't know. We've got to get him healthy and get him on the court. We're still -- look, Kahlil, Keion, and even E.J., they've got to play better. Part of that is just be rougher. You can't have your offense tied or your emotions tied to your offense. You miss a shot, you miss a dunk, so what? Don't have it affect you down the other end because then -- you won't believe this -- we're trying to win. So if you do this and do that and do this and that, we're trying to win. I can't let the game change.

I love all these guys. I'm saying that Immanuel played great. I thought Tyrese was shaky. Again, his offense was shaky, which meant he emotionally wasn't the same as he was the other night. All these young kids, their offense gets their emotions either up or down. You can't be that guy because then you're like this the whole season.

You've got to be, whether I make it -- how about a guy passes me up, I had three shots, and I didn't get them? So what? I'm going to go get an offensive rebound. I'm going to go block the ball. I'm going to go make a rough play and come up with -- I'm going to dive. Or how about this? Crazy thought. I'm going to take a charge. I'm going to do something to help my team. We're not there yet.

Q. Cal, there is so much about the way that happened with Ashton that looked like Achilles. Obviously, you were worried about it. What flashes through your mind as you're in the uncertainty before you know?
JOHN CALIPARI: When I walked off the court, they had me on the TV, and I was trying to get off the TV because I wanted to go back and make sure, but when they told me it wasn't that, okay, we can deal with whatever else it is. Again, maybe he's out. Maybe he doesn't play against Georgia. Then you're all going to see the impact and the importance he has on this team. His will drags these guys.

Now he's not in there. Okay. You want to say this guy's really good or that guy's really good? All right. He's not in there now.

Q. In that way, whether it's short or long term, how important is it for a guy like Immanuel to do what he's done the last two games? Regardless, but especially in case Ashton misses time.
JOHN CALIPARI: He's guarding better. He's rebounding better. He hurt his hand, he said. So he had to have an X-Ray on his hand, I think.

Q. What does Kahlil need to show you in practice to earn more minutes?
JOHN CALIPARI: Just defense and rebounding, and I keep coming back to the same thing. If you're defending and rebounding, we can leave you in the game. He's just got to get a better feel for it. It's all new to him. Keion's the same way. I mean, at one point, the shot went up. Kid muscled him, grabbed it, stuck it back in, and he said he pushed me. Wrong answer. Out. I can't leave him in. He pushed you? Push him back. You've got to fight.

Look, again, when you're in high school, you're going to get 25 shots. So you go and miss your first 12. Then you make five in a row, make a couple, and you go 7 for 25, and you're fine. You go home. Everybody's happy. That's not how it is now. We don't have anybody getting more than 14, 15 shots. So when you have opportunities, you've got to take advantage of them.

And that's like even today. The most anybody shot was Nick Richards at 13 and probably should have shot a few more, would you say? Then everybody else shot 10, 9 -- that's it -- 5, 4. That's who we are here. That's why, if you defend and rebound, make easy plays -- like he and Keion are finishers. They're not place starters. The place starters are Tyrese, Ashton, and Immanuel. Those two finish, make baskets. We'll throw to you, make a basket. One dribble pull-up. You don't have a basket, pitch, cut, bang, we'll come back to you, make shots, make baskets.

But they're learning. This is a process. He had a great workout in the gym today, this morning. It was a voluntary workout today, so they could come in from 9:00 to 9:30 on their own. So Kahlil came in, and Nate came in. The other guys came at 9:30, and we walked through. The game was too early, 2:00 game. And he had a great workout.

Let me just say this. You do that every day, it may not change things for a week or two weeks or three weeks or a month. It may take two months. It may take three months. But you can't get away from what it takes to master my craft. What do I want to do in the game? Then you've got to be able to master that. So that when I do it in the game, I can do it. I'm not turning it over. I'm not -- I know it.

The point of being able to stay in the game -- and I'm telling all of them. Last game we played Louisville, what did I tell my team? Whoever could guard who? Which guy?

Q. Nwora.
JOHN CALIPARI: Whoever could guard Nwora was staying in the game. Those two had their chances. The guy that went in and guarded him the best, Immanuel Quickley, so I left him in. You won't believe this -- we're trying to win.

Q. Coach, do you have any early takes on Georgia? Have you watched any film on them?
JOHN CALIPARI: I haven't watched them at all. I know they beat Memphis today in Memphis, which is a great win, and knowing Tommy, they're going to play fast. They're going to run a bunch of stuff. They've got good players. It's going to be sold out.

We've got a two-day flip. We don't know if Ashton plays. We don't know -- it doesn't look like Johnny will make the trip. So now we're -- you know, trying to get Brad back. Can't get him back (laughter). I wonder, if he came back, would he have to sit out? He's my son, right?

Q. John, where you described with the young guys learning to handle their emotions and not let them dictate, are you surprised E.J. seems to be struggling with that given his relative amount of experience here?
JOHN CALIPARI: Yeah, but, you know, this is all new, and he's going to be fine. I try to tell him be what Anthony Davis was in the National Championship Game. At halftime, he walked in, I can't make a shot. I'm going to block shots and rebound every ball I can get, and I'm going to fly up and down this court and help all of you on defense, but I can't make a shot. He ended up going 1 for 10 in the game, never changed his emotion, and he was the outstanding player of the game going 1 for 10. Be that guy.

But here's the problem. That's really hard. It's easier, just give me some jump shots. Well, that is -- that fight -- and I keep telling them, just be that guy. The offense will come because he's working on it, he's getting better, he's conditioning better. It just doesn't happen when your timetable says.

The question will be, when you're working, can you keep working until it hits? And that's hard because these kids hear stuff. They've got all the clutter telling them how to play. They go to get a haircut, the guy tells them, you should just shoot every ball. I don't know why you listen to everybody. You should just shoot, and they've got to deal with all that. It's part of it.

But we've got great kids. I said this after last game, the guy that cheered hardest for our win was Kahlil. And I looked over because I wanted to see the bench, and he went nuts. He was so happy, and he only played two minutes. It shows what kind of kid he is. Now we've got to get him to break through with us still winning. But he's getting closer.

Q. John, you've been talking for weeks about fight and finish. Is there anything tangible to be learned by your guys? Have you talked to your guys about what the football team just accomplished?
JOHN CALIPARI: We didn't, but they know how I feel because I've talked to them before. Lynn has a will to win, and he dragged everybody. Now, everybody did their job, the staff. Mark and I talked back and forth, I told him amazing job he's done with this program. Think about what he's done here. It's amazing. But he had Lynn Bowden, who willed them -- who thought they were going to throw that ball? And if you thought it, you should have been drug tested, okay?

(Laughter).

And that kid threw that. He wanted to throw it. He's like, I want to be that guy. How about this one, guys? He even played in the game. Why would he have played in the game? Because he cares about the university, he cares about the program, he cared about his teammates, and they all followed him.

And that will to win, just think when you have a bunch of guys, that's when you win national titles. Michael Kidd -- you know what I'm saying -- Darius Miller, a bunch of guys, Terrence, Doron, 22 in the National Championship Game, Marquis Teague -- all the guys, that's when -- but when you have one, it's harder to kind of break through because you're going to lose some games where he can't do it himself.

For us, we learned from Ohio State. It's a two-point game and anybody's ball game with four minutes to go. We turn it over three times, take two bad shots, and they take great shots. They were a veteran team. They did it, we didn't, you get beat.

I thought we did good against Louisville, the execution of what we were trying to do. The last play that got to Nick, the cross screen, boom, back to the basket, that's execution, and that's finishing the game.

I thought we did some good stuff today. The end of the half bothered me, three turnovers, come on now. Three turnovers. If you finish plays, then we're up 12 1/2. It's a different ball game. So we're still learning. We're still in the process.

And like I said, going to Georgia, our hands are full. I haven't seen much, but I know their coach. I know how good he is. I know how hard their team will play. They'll be prepared. The good news is they only have a day and a half too, like us. I can't imagine they'll do much tomorrow, neither will we.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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