HEAD COACH JOHN CALIPARI
On when he found out about the opponent change and how difficult that is this late in the week …
“They had talked about it that morning, yesterday morning. I think it may have hit something yesterday or the night before. But it was late. All I said is we need to have it by noon because we’re doing all of this stuff and now we have to totally change. That means we’ve got to watch tape and I don’t want to start watching tape until you tell me it’s done and every coach has agreed to do it. I said we would, that it doesn’t bother me, but we’re all in the same boat. There’s no–UCLA was probably preparing for us and now they’re probably preparing for Ohio State and same vice versa. North Carolina wasn’t preparing for us; they were preparing for Ohio State. So, we’re all in the same boat. Either game was going to be hard. I mean, UCLA is a terrific team. They play tough, and so is North Carolina. Both of them are top-20 teams. Either one, it didn’t matter, it was going to be a hard game.”
On how much this time of Camp Cal and a week’s time in between games has helped and where he’s seen the most progress …
“The thing that they hopefully understand is that you’re trying to play efficient offensively. You can’t have 25 turnovers and win a college basketball game. Defensively, you’ve got to fight. This next game, now with Carolina, they’re outrebounding their opponents by 18 rebounds a game and they’ve played a good schedule (vs.) Texas and Stanford and Iowa and UNLV. The teams that they’ve played, they’re outrebounding them by 18,and it’s literally, you know, you’re going to have to fight. You’regoing to have to go body-to-body. Guards are going to have to stick their nose in. Our guards are going to have to get 15 rebounds, 10 rebounds. They have to (in order) to give yourselves a chance. Yeah, we’ve gotten better. We haven’t been able to scrimmage the last couple of days. We’ve had some guys out with some stuff. But the guys that were there got better. The issue becomes feeling the success that goes along with you’regetting better, and that’s what’s been hard. And it’s been hard because of veteran teams. We’ve got to have a breakthrough at some point.”
On the possibility of missing guys for Saturday’s game due to injury …
“Well, I hope not. But, you know, we’ll see. I mean, we need guys to practice today. We have to scrimmage some today. We’ve gotten a lot done, but we’ve got to go up and down a little bit to get the flow of the game a little bit. Carolina kind of plays that, whether you make it or miss, they’re flying it up your back,and so you kind of have to get used to some of that kind of stuff. It’s hard on a quick turn, but it’s hard for all of us.”
On the point guard play …
“Well, we’re playing Terrence (Clarke) there. Devin (Askew) is the backup that way. I like Devin and Davion (Mintz) and Terrence in together because I’ve done it before where you’re playing three point guards at one time. I like having the ball in Terrence’s hands. And like I said, we’re going to see. This is one of those games where they’re hard showing on pick-and-rolls, they’ll trap you some, they’ll deny, they’ll make it hard to catch. Are you fighting to get open as hard as they are fighting to catch you to get you from catching it? But that’s where this thing is kind of flowing. The biggest thing is what unit did we put on there and how did that unit play together and were we efficient offensively and did we fight on defense? This game is going to have the added, OK, you can fight the whole possession, but you better rebound, and that means five guys. You better gang rebound because they do.’”
On determining who are play starters and who are play finishers …
“It’s a work in progress, but we’re narrowing in a little bit. What I don’t want to do is change game to game. I want to go with it. We’ve played enough games to give us an idea. The second piece of it is, we have to tell some guys you’re not going to shoot 3s. None. And I said, most college teams they have two, maybe three. There are a couple that have four or five. But they’re giving up something. Either athleticism. They’re giving up something. Toughness, you know. Defensively. Something’sgiven up if you have four or five 3-point shooters. Normal teams will have two, maybe a third that can shoot some, but those two shoot the most. We’ve had like eight guys that thought it was OK shoot 3s. And no, it isn’t OK. The other thing is we’ve got to look for baskets, not just 3s. If that ball goes into the paint or a drive into the paint, and it’s kicked out, let it go. But as the ball is swinging, we’re running offense. A 2 is as good as a 3. You make a couple of 2s, that’s OK too now. We’ve just got to get them accepting the roles they have, getting them to focus on game planning. I mean, we’re just sloppy, execution sloppy, game plan. I told them today. My thing that I said to them: ‘You don’t think any less of yourself. You just think of yourself less. You still have confidence in how hard you worked and all ofthose things. You’re just not in the game just thinking of yourself. You should be thinking of the team and your teammates. Don’t think any less of yourself. Just think about yourself less.’ We’ve got to think in unison right now. And again, let me go back. We’re all in the same boat here. But they would have been at my house 20 times already in between practices, for dinners, some film. We’re together. We’ve been there twice. Twice. We will have had dinners together. We will have had functions. They would be in each other’s rooms. They would be playing videos. They would be in the locker room. None of that’s happening. We have 10 new players that don’tknow each other. And it’s hard when they’re only together for two and a half hours on the court. So, we’re doing some things that hopefully we stay safe, but I’m trying to say, we’ve got to get to know one another, trust one another as much off the court as on. Like I said, you want to see where we are. You want to see that. Did you learn from the Notre Dame second half of what you’re capable of doing? And then, don’t think any less of yourself; just think of yourself less. Think of the team more.’”
On the balance of playing with a sense of urgency but not playing too fast …
“Well, again, efficiency, execution, having a flow to the game. We try to get it right away. We try to post it right away. We try to shoot it right away. It’s not there it goes to the other side. There’s 20 seconds left on the clock, what’s the flow of the game now? What are we doing? There’s seven, eight seconds left and you’ve got the ball, what’s the flow of the game say we do now? I mean, we’re trying to teach all of that and trust each other. Execution, still not there. Not great screening, not greatspacing, opportunities to drive. All of those things we’ve been working on. But I will say, and I say this to you, the 18 or 20 things we need to improve on, we can’t work on 18, 20 things. Let’s do these four or five things and let’s get better at these four or five.”
On if there’s anything he could have done to make guys like Johnny Juzang, Jemarl Baker, Mychal Mulder more effective while they were a part of Kentucky …
“Well, the guys they were playing behind it’s like I could have said, ‘They’re going to take 20 of your minutes. How would you feel about that?’ That’s the hard thing about this. Immanuel Quickley said it last night the best. Immanuel Quickley stuck it out and said, ‘What I learned there and where my confidence comes from is Coach made us fight for everything. And either I took it or someone else took it.’ And that’s what makes it what it is here. I wish Johnny well. We did everything we could to help him play right away, knowing that we were going to play him. And now that we don’t get to play him, I still hope he does well.”
On the chances Quickley, Julius Randle and Kevin Knox have to making the Knicks a playoff team and if he talks to every NBA team before a draft to give input on his players …
“More than half. Some of them may not be looking at our kids, but usually it’s more than half. I don’t want to put that on their team or their staff, Thibs (Tom Thibodeau), but I like what they’re doing. I like what it looks like. I like their competitive spirit. They’re all, it seems like, again, they’ve all bought in to what’s going on and how they’re trying to play in New York. So,I’m happy for them, happy for all three of those guys. And you brought up Mychal Mulder. Happy for Mychal Mulder. It’s a great story. The hardest thing in college basketball is being a junior college player and then going to a high major, major school. Because normally it takes you time to get adjustments. But here’s again, Mychal Mulder, toughed it out, fought like heck. Wish he would have done more. I wanted him to do more.He wanted (to do more here). But he had a good career here. And now sticking it out, fighting it, he’s on a roster. From what I understand. Did they keep him on the roster, Eric (Lindsey)? Still on the roster. I couldn’t be more happy for him.”
On the bus ride to Atlanta and if that was because of budget cuts or COVID and what affect that has on a team …
“It was two things. First of all, at that time when we made the decision, I thought it would be safer for COVID. No, it wasn’tanybody saying, ‘We’re doing this.’ I liked the fact that we were saving the department money, but it was more based on safety. And you ready? I thought it was a four-hour bus ride. I did. And when they told me it was six hours, I go, ‘What are you talking about? We’re going to Atlanta.’ They said, ‘It’s six hours. It’s six!’ And I only learned that about four or five days before the bus ride. And you know what, I’m not putting it on (anyone else). It was 12 hours in a short period of time we were on a bus. I’m telling you, I was on a bus that long one time in my life and that was when I was in college. I took a bus to the Poconos to work the Five Star Basketball Camp. Well, maybe at (UNC) Wilmington. We went to Ashville (North Carolina) one time and we drove a bus. It was – oof. It was a bad bus too. So that’s on me. That was my mistake, but I thought it was four hours away. That’s how much I’m driving around. I’m kind of like the guy that doesn’t know how much milk costs even though I do. I’m at Kroger more than you could believe.”
On if they are busing or flying to Cleveland …
“No, we’re flying to Cleveland.”
On Keyontae Johnson collapsing last weekend and if it puts basketball in a different perspective during the pandemic …
“No one is telling us (what the details are). We know he had COVID, but I would hope if there was something related to COVID they would let us all know because I have a couple of kids who had it earlier. But the second thing is I lived it. I lived it with Marcus Camby. In 1995, we were at St. Bonaventure and Donta Bright came running in the locker room prior to the game and said, ‘Coach, Marcus fell out. Marcus fell out.’ And I went out and he was unconscious in the hallway. Breathing but totally knocked out, unconscious. I took him to the hospital. I didn’tcoach the game. I went to the hospital with him and stayed and stayed overnight. Bruiser (Flint) stayed with me. When we got back, he went to another hospital. They never found out what it was. They never had an idea what it was. They say 70% of those kinds of things you never know why it happened. The rest of the season I was really conscious of him, especially when he first came back. If he went down and grabbed his knees, my stomach was in my throat. It was something obviously, but he played the rest of the year and he had a terrific 17 years in the NBA. So, let’s hope that it’s the same. But, if it has something to do with COVID, I would say every coach in the country would like to know if it did.”