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CBS SPORTS CLASSICDecember 21, 2019Chris HoltmannKyle YoungKaleb WessonLas Vegas, Nevada Ohio State - 71, Kentucky - 65 THE MODERATOR: We'll start with an opening statement from Coach and then take questions for the student-athletes. CHRIS HOLTMANN: Okay. Yeah, I thought it was a really good college basketball game. Got the utmost respect for Coach Calipari, his team, that program. So, obviously, to get a win in a somewhat neutral site is fun. But tremendous -- they're going to have a great year. John's teams always get better as the year goes on. They're going to have a great year. Players win games like this. We said that going into the game. Players win games like this and these guys and others stepped up and made plays. THE MODERATOR: Take questions for the players, please. Q. You didn't trail for the final 28 minutes. They kept cutting it to three, cutting it to one. You guys always seemed to have an answer. What did it take to answer every challenge they threw to you in the second half? KALEB WESSON: Poise possessions, but I feel like we just came out and we tried to get the best shot on every possession. I feel like that helped us get the win today. KYLE YOUNG: That was one thing we preached on in the huddles. We knew it was going to get loud at times. So when that happened we knew we had to stay within each other, trust each other, trust our brothers, and we were able to do that. Q. In the last game when Nate Sestina was scoreless, and he broke his wrist, five threes today. I'm wondering how much of a surprise -- how much of an impact did he make, do you think? KALEB WESSON: He made an impact coming off the bench, scoring 17 points. When you have a guy like that on your team, that's good for your team, having a boost like that off the bench. KYLE YOUNG: He's a great player. We've played him previously, so we knew what his game was about. We knew he's a player who made big shots. Q. For both of you: You guys took several charges today and blocked, I think, seven or eight shots. Just what do those type of defensive plays do for, like, the team's psyche? KYLE YOUNG: It's huge. Being in the right position at the right time, we knew we had to be in gaps in order to make that play and that's a huge swing for us. It's energy, gets us going. When guys give up their body for the team like that, we can only be happy, so it's good. KALEB WESSON: Like what he said. No, giving up your body for your team, that's something we try to preach because we're a brotherhood, try to play every possession. Q. You guys both talk about poise. What did you learn about D.J. Carton tonight? He had the ball in his hands a lot, seemed to make the right play more often than not in those last 10, 15 minutes. KYLE YOUNG: We know what kind of player D.J. is. We know what he can bring to us. We know he was able to stay poised tonight, make some big plays for us down the stretch and we're just happy to have him out there. Q. You guys have a couple of big wins already this season. To win this game today here in Vegas on national television, what does it say about where you guys are going into the holidays at 11-1 with some of the wins you have? KALEB WESSON: I feel like it just shows we started out good. There is still a lot of season left, but I thought we started out pretty well. And our coach prepared us at the beginning of the season and we continue, we're going to continue to do that going forward. Q. Thinking of the Walker 3 there with 26 seconds to go. I'm wondering if there was a play that's sort of like, we're winning this game. It's a possession-by-possession thing, but we're winning. Was it that play or some other play that -- KALEB WESSON: There was a lot of those plays out there tonight, regardless. Like you said, Walk's 3, you got to shoot free throws at the end closing the game, you got some of the charges we took, the blocks we had, some of the big rebounds we pulled down. You can go to any play during the game, but we just, we came out, we played hard today and came up with the win. Q. Kaleb, it looked like first play of the second half was drawn up for you in the post. Was there a talk at halftime about getting you more touches in the paint? KALEB WESSON: Not talking to me about getting more touches, but that was a play we drew up. The coaches drew it up and my teammates found me in the right spot and we just executed. Q. Both of you: Coach alluded that it was a semi-neutral game, but there were a ton of Kentucky fans. After you guys won, you ran into the crowd and gave high-fives to the Ohio State fans. Was that an impromptu thing? KALEB WESSON: No, we just try to show love to our fans for coming out to road games. We understand it's hard to get out to road games, spending the money to come watch us play. We appreciate that. Q. Kaleb, can you critique or grade Andre's chase-down block there? KALEB WESSON: It was all right. (Laughing) It was cool. Nice to see. Everybody said ooh aah. We had to go on to the next play. I was ready to go on to the next play. Everybody was, like, you know. Q. Their big guys, Kentucky's true, kind of true post players have been inconsistent at best for a couple years now. Did you guys feel like that was an area that maybe you could enforce your will on them a little bit. They struggled to score inside today. It seemed like you guys were really bothering them. KALEB WESSON: Getting paint touches was a big thing for us, whether it's post play or driving or ball screens, anything. So we tried to stay to our game plan and we executed pretty well today. Q. Kaleb, you're sometimes someone who sort of wears your emotions on your sleeve, and I just wondered, when you see D.J. has a game like he does, and late in the game it just seemed like he was playing under control, yet at the same time was also emotional and showing that. How -- what did you see from him, because I know at times I've seen similar emotion from you? KALEB WESSON: We just, when D.J. comes out, he's a big-time player. We all are big-time players. And for him to be able to, at a young age to be able to control his emotions during big games like this, you're playing a blue blood team, you know you're going to have a lot of hype too, so him coming out being a young guy, showing that poise, being able to make plays, and then when he gets emotional being able to calm down and still get on to the next play, it's big. Q. I don't want to exaggerate, but how much did this have like a NCAA post-season feel to it? The punch, counterpunch? KALEB WESSON: Like you said, the counterpunches, teams going back and forth for a 40-minute grind is what we try to talk about at the beginning of the game. And I feel like we went out there with that mindset and that mentality and came out with a win. Q. What will it mean to get Dwayne back in the pregame huddles and things like that? KYLE YOUNG: It's huge. He's really important to us. You can tell when we're missing somebody like that, a fantastic shooter like he is. But just to have everybody back and we're all together as one, that's where we kind of do our best. Q. We talked about turnovers this year and, obviously, the first half that was an issue. What was the talk at halftime or in huddles about cutting those down? And how were you guys able to do that in the second half? KALEB WESSON: We understood that they were a handsy team. Guys out there, you got Ashton Hagans and they play good on this side of the ball. And so just being able to stay solid, being able to take care of the ball, slow them down, not trying to rush. That's what they try to do, pressure you, and then you get out of what you're doing. So we tried to stay in what we were doing and just stay poised during the possessions and it worked for us. THE MODERATOR: All right. Thanks guys. We'll let you get back to your team. Take questions for Coach. Q. There were a lot of key plays there by a lot of your guys down the stretch, but I'm wondering the -- there was one, I think, it was a one-possession or two-possession game, it looks like Richards was going to get a layup and D.J. comes from the backside out of nowhere. When we talk about D.J. learning and growing, I know everyone likes to see his handle and his drives and stuff, but is that just as important, if not more important, his awareness to make a play like that? CHRIS HOLTMANN: It's just as important to me. That's for sure. It's just as important -- he's learning. He's not there yet. Neither are any of our freshmen. I don't think any freshmen across the country is there when it comes to understanding all of the positioning that's required and, really, more than anything, the attention to detail off the ball defensively. But he made a critical play there. He's got strong hands, he's quick, he anticipates well, and when he's alert off the ball defensively, he can really be effective. Q. You've beat three Top-10 teams now. What is the, I don't know, the trait or characteristic that sticks out to you, I mean, not necessarily like the obvious thing, but just like from a coaching perspective that maybe not everyone would notice in those three games? CHRIS HOLTMANN: I think we played fearless in those games. I think that's important for your guys to play loose and fearless. Understand it's not going to be perfect. You've got to have players that are gutsy enough to do that. I thought we responded to the emotion of the game. You guys said that it had a real, I don't know, it wasn't always great in terms of how either team played, but had a real good feel to it in terms of the energy in the building. And I thought we responded with good poise. But we just want our guys to be aggressive and fearless in those moments, and they have. Q. You guys are, obviously, among the elite teams this season, but to come to an event like this with blue bloods all over the place here and come out looking as the best team, what does that mean for the program going forward? CHRIS HOLTMANN: Yeah, I hesitate to talk about best team right now. Who knows. There's a lot of season left to be played. John's track record for getting players -- or getting teams to play their best in March is, obviously, well documented. So that's all we're trying to do. We said after the Minnesota game, we're trying to learn and move forward. Not one game defines us. Not one of those three wins defines us. It's a long season. We're just trying to get better. We'll see if we can do that. Our league's a bear. Our league is a bear. So we got a great West Virginia team coming up after Christmas. Q. Right now Kentucky, obviously, has some warts. When you were diagnosing and game planning, what warts stick out the most where they've got to make progress and try to fix this thing? CHRIS HOLTMANN: Yeah, I think they're going to be fine. I really do. I think, obviously, the game the other night was, I thought that Utah played really well. But they will shoot the ball well. I think Sestina gives them, obviously -- he was difficult for us. We were -- at halftime, we had our entire halftime was consumed with how are we going to guard his ball screens. And we talked about a few different things from switching to full rotating. I think he's important for them. They will shoot it better moving forward. I know that. And I think they're going to be fine. But, obviously, that's what everybody points to is shooting and offense. I really think that will come, for sure. Q. I think it was after the under 8 timeout you came out and played zone a few possessions. What was the thought process there? CHRIS HOLTMANN: We didn't really go into the game -- actually I didn't even talk to our players about playing zone. We have it in our bag, but I did not discuss it, I did not anticipate going and playing zone. But literally I'm watching just one more game this morning and I just had that thought, like I probably want to give it a look for a possession or two. And I didn't even tell the staff, but it was just one of those kind of game-time decisions. Q. How much did this game sort of demand a competitive spirit from both teams and how well do you think both teams responded? CHRIS HOLTMANN: I thought they had great competitive spirit. I really did. And you expected that, right, after -- we certainly expected that they were going to come out and I thought they really did. I just thought our guys certainly did as well and they responded to every minute -- I think about the three in the first half that Andre Wesson hit, where the momentum of the game could have gotten away a little bit, I think maybe if they had went up a point or two. There were a lot of those plays where we were able to stymie their momentum just enough. But I thought the game had a really good a really good life and competitiveness to it. Q. You talked about both fearlessness and poise and I feel like for a freshman point guard that can sometimes probably be difficult to balance those, but it seemed like D.J. only had one turnover and he also made some clutch plays down in the second half. How did you see him just balancing those and going through that mentally? CHRIS HOLTMANN: I think he did a good job with it, he did a good job with the emotion of the game. It helps, as I said, to have some older guys with him because, as he should, he listens to Kaleb and C.J. and Kyle and Andre. I think that's important when you have a freshman point guard out there that he can take a lead from some of those guys. They level him out at times, but give him credit, a lot of credit, he made obviously a lot of plays, his back door playoff on the side out of bounds between him and Kaleb was a really good instinctive play. So give him a lot of credit. The isolation play on Sestina was a good play and I thought defensively he made some strides. Q. We talked to you a lot this week about your ties to the Lexington area and I wonder what this felt like to you now that it's over with, preparing for this and getting a chance against your hometown team? CHRIS HOLTMANN: Yeah, you know, I just, I think it was really -- you're so locked in and dialed in and preparing your team for -- obviously Kentucky's Kentucky, so they're not just another opponent, they're a tremendous program, tremendous coach, tremendous players and obviously I am from there. But it was really about our players executing and that's what I tried to lose myself in. And I'm sure my brother enjoyed it, mom and dad did, but, you know, we'll move forward. Q. I know it's a blue blood sport like we talked about, but setting up your team to be No. 1 in country and things didn't quite go as planned. Coach Cal said yesterday that he thought you were the No. 1 team in the country. So do you have a message for the haters now that you maybe proved that true? JOHN CALIPARI: Coach Cal, I notice, has a way of saying things like that, right, to edit into the game. He anointed us the No. 1 there going into this game and I probably would have done the same, to be honest with you. But, no, we're not putting any stock into the haters or No. 1, we got our fannies drilled at Minnesota. But listen, it's a great win leading into Christmas, I don't want to understate it, it's a great win leading into Christmas. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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