LEXINGTON, Ky. — This Kentucky men’s basketball preseason has come with a few warning labels from John Calipari.
In the days after the Blue-White Game, the UK coach harped on his Wildcats’ defense. “I watched the tape,” he said after that scrimmage. “We stink defensively.”
Immediately before and after the team’s first exhibition game — when the Cats’ defense held Missouri Western State to 38 points — rebounding was a cause of concern for Calipari, who pointed out that the Division-II Griffons outrebounded the No. 4-ranked Wildcats, questioning his players’ toughness around the basket. “This thing is a man’s game,” he said. “It really is.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Calipari posted a message to Kentucky fans on his Twitter account. He said he liked “the pieces” of this UK team but warned: “We’re not where we need to be right now.” He also added that things could be “a little shaky” for his Cats in November and December.
The regular-season opener is Monday, but Final Four weekend — the ultimate goal — is still five months into the future. Surely no one expected Calipari to express many contented feelings about the current state of his squad at this point on the calendar. There’s always room for improvement, especially at this time of year.
A major difference between this Calipari roster and pretty much every other one that’s come before it, however, is the messaging from Kentucky’s coaches will be hitting experienced ears.
This team features four scholarship players — Oscar Tshiebwe, Sahvir Wheeler, Jacob Toppin and Antonio Reeves — with at least three seasons of Division I basketball on their résumés (five if you count CJ Fredrick, who is entering his fifth year of college, with two redshirt seasons). No other team in Calipari’s previous 13 seasons at UK has featured more than two such players.
This team also has six scholarship returnees from last season’s roster. The only team in the Calipari era with more returnees was the 2014-15 squad that nearly went undefeated.
Calipari is saying the necessary things publicly to motivate his players to get better. Behind the scenes, these Wildcats are apparently picking things up at an accelerated rate.
“Cal says every day: ‘We’re ahead.’ And you can tell in practice,” Fredrick said. “He doesn’t have to say things twice. He likes what’s going on. And it’s a little different this year — guys are going to him. He’ll tell us something, and then we’ll go up to him like, ‘Hey, what about this? Instead of Jacob setting the screen, why doesn’t so-and-so set the screen. Why don’t we try this?’
“So it’s a different dynamic this year. And it’s been really fun.”
Five of Calipari’s rosters at Kentucky have had three or fewer returning scholarship players. One was the 2020-21 team that finished 9-16. One was the NIT team from the 2012-13 season. Another was the 2017-18 team that lost to Kansas State in the Sweet Sixteen. Those are widely accepted as Calipari’s three least-accomplished UK squads. (The other two with three or fewer returnees are the 2018-19 team that sophomore PJ Washington and graduate transfer Reid Travis helped lead to the Elite Eight, and the 2013-14 national runners-up that had just three returnees but featured a record six McDonald’s All-American freshmen and, ultimately, lost 11 games).
Experience clearly matters for something, even in an era filled with one-and-done stars.
This season’s roster does feature four freshmen and another newcomer — Reeves, who transferred in after three seasons at Illinois State — but the number of fresh faces is low by Calipari era standards. And ask the teenagers about their experience so far, they’ll tell you the veteran presence has been a major help in these first few months on campus. Ask who they lean on, and you’re likely to get a different name each time. Tshiebwe, Wheeler, Toppin, Fredrick and junior forward Lance Ware have all been mentioned as helpers by the younger guys. Even Reeves, who arrived on campus at the same time as the freshmen, has been singled out as an older player who can share some of what he’s seen through his years of college experience.
“And it’s to the point where, actually, when Cal starts going into his description of things and recollection of events that have happened, the guys already know the answers,” said associate coach Orlando Antigua. “And they’ll start saying it before Cal.
“They’re able to think in terms of how Cal is already thinking and trying to paint the picture for the rest of the team. They’re able to help add their color to that painting.”
A different process
Does having so many veteran players make things easier on Kentucky’s coaches?
Antigua grinned.
“Please describe that word: ‘easier,’ ” he said, the tone conveying that nothing is ever “easy” when it comes to coaching a college basketball team in the preseason. Are things “relatively easier” compared to other, younger teams.
“Yeah, ‘relative.’ Better word,” Antigua said with a laugh. “... When you have kids that have returned, it’s easier to be able to have them communicate what the sacrifice is. What the expectations are. When you have a bunch of freshmen, you have to teach them what that is.
“It speeds up the process. It certainly does. It speeds up the process, because then there are certain things that you don’t have to go into teaching. There are certain things that you can talk about and they can understand. You don’t have to demonstrate. You don’t have to show film. They understand what it is. So it allows you to move quicker into other things that require more time and detail.”
This team also benefited from playing four exhibition games in the Bahamas in August — and practicing in the weeks leading up to those games — another opportunity to better acquaint themselves with each other and give everyone a head start on the regular season.
That’s made the collective learning process easier.
“We actually played four games together, so we have a sense of how each one of us plays,” Toppin said. “We also have a very smart group of guys. And everyone buys into the game plan or practice plan, and they’re really willing to learn and understand what it’s going to take to be a great team. And everything is dialed in, in that way.”
Tshiebwe said the early practices have been “a lot of fun” and competitive. By his and other accounts, there’s also been a quick transition to an overall team-first mentality, before a real game has even been played.
“You should never come here and say, ‘I’m going to get mine and go.’ No,” Tshiebwe said. “You come here and say, ‘I am willing to help this team.’ You have to be willing to do anything to help this team.”
Buying into such a mentality has to be a little easier when the reigning national player of the year is the one preaching the message. And so many other experienced Cats are doing the same.
Fredrick, who missed all of last season with a torn hamstring, did a lot of watching in his first year on campus. One thing about Calipari’s coaching style was quite apparent.
“He doesn’t like to tell you things twice,” he said. “And you really need to pay attention, because there’s a lot of stuff. And he goes fast.”
A team of newcomers might ask a ton of questions, slowing down the process. A team filled with veterans allows those players an alternative outlet, making for an easier transition.
Last week, Calipari — after criticizing the team’s defense — acknowledged as much. Veteran players know what they’re doing, and they can usually explain it well to their younger teammates, he said. The UK coach told a story of how one veteran on this team stopped a younger player who’d had a bad preseason game in the hallway, tried to cheer him up.
“And this is what’s great about having great kids,” Calipari said. “He said, ‘Look, you got to put this behind you now. You go have a great night’s sleep.’
“So it’s nice to have veterans that can say, ‘I’ve been through it.’ ”
Kentucky’s coaches only get so much time with their players, especially in the all-important preseason. Practice time and other team activities are restricted to a set number of hours each week. Away from the court, Antigua says, is where older teammates can show younger ones the standards of the program.
“Cal does a lot of teaching. We all do a lot of teaching,” he said. “And our players do. You can see them talking to the other young guys. The guys that might have made an error or something like that, and they’re communicating. And that’s what you want. That’s when it becomes a player-led team. Rather than a coach-led team. And then our job is just to be able to facilitate that, to get them to a point where they’re taking ownership of the team.
“And then they take you however far they want to take you.”
