John Calipari media day transcript

Q.  Coach, you said earlier that you want to win every game you play, but then you said, if you just wanted to win college games, you’d play Julius down low.  Can you talk about the seeming inconsistency with those statements.

COACH CALIPARI:  If I’m about my players and I do right by their growth, we’ll win our college games, make it simple for you.

So there’s    I’m just going to worry about winning college games.  Whatever happens after, that’s not on me.  Or I can say I’m really going to work on these individual players even if I know we win more games with them here, I’m going to teach them here, and if I really teach them and they get going, we’ll win college games.  It’s just a different approach.

Okay, we got a system.  Here’s how    we don’t have a system here.  We’re going to run more dribble drive this year since 2008 with this team and these rules, which means we’re going to face a lot of zones and a lot of sagging defenses.  So we’ve got to be prepared.

Q.  Since you’ve now been here about 25 years, Cal    it probably feels like that    how have you changed as a coach since you left Memphis?

COACH CALIPARI:  The only thing I’ll tell you, we have a video that we take into homes in recruiting, and it has me at the first press conference.  Did you chase me?  No, you chased the other guy.

And when I    when people see that picture and they see me standing there, they’re like, you’ve aged more than (President) Obama.  In this job, you age.  It’s just part of what you do.  You’re on a treadmill, and I love it.  I love the fact that our fans are so active and a part of it.  I mean, we have a Media Day, and look at this.  It’s ridiculous.  This is what it is here.

It’s a different deal.  It just is.  But it’s what you strive for when you’re coaching.  You want to be a part of that kind of program, and the hard thing is sustaining that.  I always say, you take mediocre players and try to win, that’s one thing.  But go take the best players and get those guys to come together as a team and then win with that team, it’s a different thing.

I was just talking to a guy driving in here who helped build a company in Louisville, left the company, went out west, and is trying to rebrand another company.  You know what he said?  Two totally different jobs.  Totally different.  I built a company out of nothing.  Now I’m coming to an established company, and we’re trying to rebrand and take it to another    it’s two other    this is different than most of those kinds of things.  It’s a different deal.

Q.  I’m wondering if you can give us a comment on Tod Lanter, Sam Malone, and Brian Long, what they bring or any sort of comment on their contribution.

COACH CALIPARI:  The walk ons, it’s tough because I’m coaching those 12 guys, and those walk ons, it’s hard here because it’s hard to get on the court.

Now, you look at Jarrod Polson, guess what, he was that walk on.  Now all of a sudden, if you watched tape yesterday, people walked off and said, man, he’s good.  Now think about who he’s had to play against every day for four years.  Think about the guards he’s had to guard and be out there with.

So you want those guys to grow.  They’re good kids.  They’re as big a part of the team as anybody.  They just don’t get on the floor that much.

Q.  John, one of your players before you all began workouts, said that in the pickup games, defense has been really something to see.  I see you grinning.  Is that an attitude you want to hear?

COACH CALIPARI:  Yeah, but I don’t know if they always played zone and now they’re playing man and they think they’re really playing.

We have not talked about defense at all.  So there’s all kind of ways of doing this job.  You can help them offensively and build their confidence and then go to your defense when you’ve got confident players, or you start right with the defense, and we’re going to make that our staple, and then it kind of squelches that offense because the defense gets ahead of the offense and the offense can’t even make plays.

We just do it the other way.  That doesn’t mean it’s the right way, but you want to establish that.  We’ve always become a pretty good defensive team, but we’ve done nothing.  Haven’t done pick and roll defense, post defense, playing the screen.  All we do in a dribble drive, you’ve got to guard the dribble, and they start figuring out how to guard the driver, and that’s the hardest thing to teach in the game.

Q.  Cal, what is your thought process when you have this many talented players on your roster in terms of dealing with egos, bruised feelings, things like that, playing time such as    I mean, you’re in control, but how do you

COACH CALIPARI:  Not really.  They’re in control.  They    the thing that makes this tougher in a normal situation, if it you remember what Coach (Dean) Smith used to do at North Carolina, they’d have their top seven or eight, and then they’d bring in the bomb squad five.  Remember they used to do that?

And they’d just say, you’re going to play four straight minutes a half, and you’re going to play four straight.  But he had a veteran team of eight that didn’t need that extra time.

The problem we have right now is we have a brand new team every year, so it’s hard to say, okay, we’re going to play these seven or eight, and these five are going to play four minutes.

But the whole thing is they earn it.  No one’s promised anything here.  You’re going to have to earn minutes.

I tell them the thing about sharing the ball, we played Louisville in the semifinal game in the NCAA Tournament.  No one took more than nine shots.  No one took more than nine shots.  We had the number one and two pick in the draft, and six guys got drafted.  So obviously, shots don’t matter.

Had a guy come in, I’m just not maybe getting the ball enough.  Really?  So you think that’s what    how they’re going to judge you, you getting the ball and scoring.  You really think that’s how    no.  So why are you worrying about that?  Go rebound, defend, run the floor, make baskets, do the things that help us win and make you look good.  So you just have to explain it.

The other thing is, as long as the kids know you’re about them, you’re not saying I’m about you but really you’re about the program or yourself.  As long as you’re about them, they’ll listen.  They trust you, they’ll play hard.  You’re not getting as many minutes because of this and this, but we’ve got your back.  You’re fine.  You’re going to be good.  That’s a challenge when you have a good, full team.

Q.  John, after 2010, you said that you had to figure out that last little skip over the hump for a young team, and obviously, they did it in 2012.  What is that element?  What can you call upon for these guys?

COACH CALIPARI:  This will be a team that, when they get teams down, will they bury them, or do they go to showtime?  Do they let up off the gas?  If you ask me right now, that will be our Achilles heel early.  We’ll let up off the gas.  We’ll have it going good and then back up because that’s what they’ve done their whole lives, and they’re 18 years old.

So some of it is you’ve got to get dinged.  Sometimes you’ve got to take losses to prove a point.  Our game with Indiana helped propel us in another direction in 2012.  So I think that’s what will be the case, but I don’t know.

Let them get on the court.  We’ve got tough games early.  We’ve got one of the best schedules in the country.  We’ve got one of the most inexperienced teams in the country.  So it will be interesting.