Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: John Calipari, James Young and Julius Randle Pre SEC Tournament

Mar 8, 2014; Gainesville, FL, USA; Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari talks with guard Aaron Harrison (2) and guard Andrew Harrison (5) against the Florida Gators during the first half at Stephen C. O

At the Joe Craft Center on Tuesday afternoon, all media wanted to ask about was the upcoming “tweak” that John Calipari has implemented within his team. In fact, Julius Randle was asked about it 3 different times within a short period of time. Calipari even had the team practicing with pads this week, but no one was willing to give away the tweak, I guess Big Blue Nation will just have to wait and see on Friday. Let’s see what else our Wildcats said in the Pre SEC Tournament media opportunity.

John Calipari

On the “tweak” he made in Monday’s practice

"What we did yesterday, first thing was defensively it was physical. ‘Put your arms up, let me see your hands and then foul with your body then do it on every drive and every post up.’ For two reasons, one we can play against it cause that’s how everybody’s playing now. And I’m not just talking our league. I’m watching around the country. Then the second thing is if we get in the game and we’ve got to play that way then we’ve got to play that way cause you can’t, you know, we went for a season saying, ‘Hands off, you can’t touch the body.’ You know, obviously as each month and week went on it got more and more physical. So basically we’re back to where we were a year ago when everybody said, ‘You foul on every possession to win.’ So we just had to practice that way."

On whether or not this tweak will be noticeable

"Now, I think what you’ll do is you’ll see a different team when you watch Friday. If you know anything about basketball, you’ll know exactly what I did. If you don’t know anything about basketball, you’ll get everybody else’s tweets and read their blogs and say, ‘What is he saying they did? Because I don’t know basketball, so I hope somebody knows so I can write like I know"

On if the tweak changed the way the players were thinking

"Yeah. It changed how they thought from where they were to where I wanted them to be. But this, you know, again, all that we’re doing carried over, and I believe it will. Now, adversity is going to hit and come together and show us what you’re capable of doing together, looking and leaning on one another. So, and again, this tournament is, I mean, Tennessee is playing as well as anybody in the country. They are beating people by 30. Thirty."

On why he felt the need to apologize to his team

"Because it was very clear when you saw it. You run a business and do something for real, and all the sudden you have this business and something’s not working right – and you can’t put your finger on it. And you do a couple things and you try this and, ‘Eh, Ok …’ and then something happens and you look and say, ‘That was it!’ And I think they all kind of got it. And like I said, I’m just disappointed in me that I didn’t do it earlier. Why didn’t I catch this and why wasn’t I thinking in those terms? I think a lot of things this year, there were so many things we were having to do to get individual players right and then get them together and then get them to fight through things. There were a lot of things. And now it’s: Let’s go. Let’s do this"

On if he’s ever made a tweak so late in a season

"Usually it was earlier, ’cause I caught it earlier. I really – I think it was the drugs I was taking for a while that got me where I wasn’t thinking right. But normally I would catch it and try something earlier, because this isn’t the first time I’ve tweaked it this way. But we will see."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjpQ0trWrv8&list=UUMiQaPdMqT_y61X661X2LGg

Julius Randle

On being named SEC Freshman of the Year

"Humbled. Great honor. And, it just goes to show how good of teammates I have. How good of a coach I have."

On what the tweak is

"(Grinning) I can’t tell you, you gotta wait until Friday, but we all excited about it."

On if it’s a little tweak or big tweak

"Gotta wait until FridayNothing from me."

With a lot of grins, Julius Randle wouldn’t give in to the media questioning him about the practice Monday, just saying it was “physical” or the upcoming tweak. It seems as if the players have been sworn to secrecy, or at least want it to be a huge surprise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOD9XPaMID4&list=UUMiQaPdMqT_y61X661X2LGg

James Young

On if the tweak feels like the “magical solution”

"I wouldn’t say all that, but it definitely helps us."

On the tweak

"You’ll just have to wait until Friday to see."

On potentially playing LSU, Friday

"We have to stop Johnny O’Bryant."

On what’s one thing they need to focus on going into the post season

"We have to play more physical."