UK Pre-Bahama Trip Press Conference (FULL TRANSCRIPT)

Head Coach John Calipari

On how the team looks ...
“They’re doing okay. It’s hard, you’ve got two guys out, so you’re just looking to develop the guys that are here, trying to get them to play off of one another and learn to be better teammates. But, Willie (Cauley-Stein) and Trey (Lyles) being out makes it hard to say ‘Let’s work on chemistry,’ and all those things when two pretty good players aren’t’ playing.”

On if he’s seeing a high level of practice ...
“Yeah, because when you look at it, when Dominique (Hawkins) and Derek (Willis), Derek didn’t shoot the ball well yesterday, two days ago he did shoot the ball, but Dominique will compete, and so yeah, the levels of practice are high. We’re going two hours, less than two hours, I’m not trying to kill them. I got a little bit more aggressive with them yesterday.”

On Tyler Ulis ...
“Well he’s figured out he’s got to pick up full court so then can get into a ball screen and get him down the lane. He controls what’s happening. It’s what happened to us against Connecticut, where they got up on us so we didn’t get a running start. The second thing is he has a great feel for who is open and he delivers the ball to those guys. Yet he can score a little bit. I don’t see his size being a factor, but I imagine it will at some point but I just haven’t seen it to this point and he’s playing against huge guards right now.”

On what he wanted Aaron and Andrew Harrison to get out of this summer ...
“Well the conversation we had was if you put your name in the draft, I’m going to do everything I can to get you drafted in the best position possible. And if you come back, there’s questions that you have to answer, questions that they’re saying, what are the questions they have? And they went ‘one, two three’ and I said ‘ok, then you’ve got to answer those questions, and that’s what we’re going to do. You’re not coming back here just because it’s easiest, it might be the hardest thing for you to do.’ “

On the questions that Aaron and Andrew had for themselves ...
“Those were between us sitting in that room. They knew them, it’s pretty obvious if you’ve watched the questions people have had of them, and the next level had of them, and they’ve got to prove those wrong.”

On what’s different about the Harrisons ...
“They’ve lost weight, so they’re more athletic, they’re playing faster, they’re able to sustain. The other thing is they already know what we’re trying to do, there’s no anxiety. They’re comfortable out on the court, where last year they were trying to figure themselves out, and that’s why you had that body language. So you don’t see any of that this year, and the only time they do anything like that is toward each other, like saying something to each other. Short of that, it’s been pretty good. The competition makes it so that you have to be on point, whether it’s Tyler, Devin (Booker), they can play. And then you’ve got Dominique. And then there’s times that we’re putting Derek Willis at guard, so there’re all of a sudden, you’re coming every day, you have to bring it.”

The value of playing this early ...
“Let’s talk about the downside. It just makes our season really long. Part of what we’ll probably do when we’re down there is I probably won’t coach every game. I’ll let the assistants coach some of the games. Right now, I’m coaching through the whole practice. I’ve got 10 days with them and I’m trying to get them, I need the freshmen to know what I’m like to a degree. Right now, everybody’s happy go-lucky, when we get ready to play games it’ll be a little different, but at least they get the idea of what they’ll be held accountable for. When we get down there, we’re playing six games in eight days against professional players, which means we probably shouldn’t win any of the games, and I don’t want it to be about winning and losing right now. I want it to be about development. Are we getting better, are we learning to play off of one another, when adversity hits, how do we deal with it? All those things, we’re trying to learn, and that’s what I want to use the experience for. But, it extends our season now. In most cases, we’re playing until April. So you’re talking a season that went another, you know.”

On the options he has ...
“I worry about developing individual players. How do we get each of these guys better? How do we put them in a position to be the best version of them? We’re figuring it out right now. Some guys are playing better at the front court, some guys you can move to that swing position, some guys you move them to the swing and they’re not doing as well. So they have to get in this gym. Right now, we’ve got guys at 11:00 at night, four or five guys in here. The guys that have watched the practice, and one or two of you that know anything about basketball, when you watch it... You didn’t get that? [Reporter: “I’m surprised you said two or three.”] I said one or two. You’ll see that they’re not backing down from each other. The young guys are competing, the older guys are coming. They’re not getting bogged down in one play. They know, they’re going up and down. The issue right now is that we have no subs. So when we go two hours, it’s fully a two hour practice. We aren’t doing much on defense, I’m just trying to get them offensively trying to create a good shot each time down the court, trying to get them to play off of one other, we’re doing a little bit of defense. We’ll do some pressing, but probably not as much as I wanted to do during this time. It’s been good. Again, these young men come here because they want to be developed as players. As you develop them, they want to be on a team they enjoy playing with, and then they want to win. And let me explain, that’s the order. There ain’t any other way around. We can all think that. So our job, and we stay focused on it, I don’t get off point, is process takes time. But I think they’re doing pretty good right now. I wish Trey and Willie were playing, but they’re not, and that gives us a chance to really get other guys a really good look and gets them ready to go. But at the end of the day, those two are going to be a big part of what we do.”

On the matchup between Dakari Johnson and Karl-Anthony Towns ...
“Well, Dakari has lost weight and he sees a challenge, and he’s going for it. Karl is way better than I thought from when I saw him in high school. I mean I coached him a little bit, but he never got in games and he was mostly (only in) practices. We were playing so many games he really didn’t do that much with the (Dominican) National team. In high school you saw him, and again, he has a ways to go now. What I’m seeing right now is a very active player that is skilled, and runs better than I ever thought he would run. And that’s now, without really getting into the season and doing anything. So, Dakari has lost weight and he’s running better than he’s ever run in his life. But, it’s great because every time either one of them backs up they get scored on or rebounded on. Like ‘ah.’ You’re learning that every possession matters and you cannot give up on a possession until either they get the ball or you get the ball. They’re learning right now. You stop playing; the guy you’re guarding can probably score. He’ll go back door (or) he’ll move to an area where he can shoot it. That includes the guards, now. They stop playing, they get scored on. That is what has made this pretty good. Let me say, and we want to talk about the 10 practices, these guys have played pickup before when I was out. They were playing every day. I haven’t had many teams in my time that would call each other and get together. Does one guy want to do his own thing? The other dude was a goof ball. These three were serious about it, and they were mad at this guy. These guys play just about every day they can play. Now, they’re not because they’re running up and down (the court) for two hours (at practice). But, prior to this they were playing. And then (because of that) you don’t have to do as much conditioning. You don’t have to do as much in the two hours a week. As long as they’re getting up and down the court playing it’s a good thing.”

On how you balance their desire to play and an extra-long season ...
“That’s why we’re going to two-platoon. There may be one game that I’ll play eight or nine guys. But, short of that we’re going to play five guys in, five guys out. Switch rotations, do all of those things. And again, I’m going to let the assistants coach many of the games. Mainly because I don’t think we can win those games. What happens to these guys whether we win or lose, they’re hungry after the game. I’ll let them take an ‘L’ on national television and see how hungry they are then. I’m trying to teach them.”

On with the number of returners if he is teaching at a higher level this summer ...
“The biggest things is I have guys that understand, so I can do it the way that I used to coach which is get to the back and watch what they’re doing. I talk them through (stuff). You’re not at the front, you’re at the back and watch what they’re doing. Many of the things they’re talking each other through. Dakari is talking. The twins are talking. Alex is talking. Marcus is talking. They’re able to talk to each other because they know what to say. People came into our gym last year, we have eight new players and they’re all freshmen. Was it eight? Nine? Well, no one talks. They didn’t know what to say. They had no idea what to say or what was going on. There were times they were like, ‘Hey, hey, hey.’ What does that mean? Like when you say ‘hey,’ what am I supposed to do? Now you have guys that are back a year. They have a better idea. They’re more comfortable. And, they’re challenged. I mean, this team has a fight, they did last year. The majority of the guys are back, so that fight hasn’t changed.”

On the idea of the platoon lineup ...
“We may (experiment a little). We are scrimmaging today. So, I’m going to try different combinations today just to feel them out. Now, the only reason I didn’t want to do that is because it will put us behind of what I’m trying to do. We’re going to do some things today, and we’re going to (do) these five play these five and then jumble them. Then we’re going to jumble them again. And we may jumble them one more time. Play six minute periods or segments. Let them play that way and see what it looks like. There are all kinds of things you can do. You can play seven guys in a rotation. And then have the bomb squad come in, five guys come in for five straight minutes. Then you rotate those other guys for seven minutes. I mean there are all kinds of things that we can do. At the end of the day, you want to win. Yet, early on in the season it is more important that you learn. Okay, what exactly are these guys? This isn’t normal. Again, I come back to this isn’t ‘Cal Ball.’ This (isn’t) is how we’re going to play every year. We don’t know how we’re going to play every year. Why is that? I have different players every year, and different strengths and different weaknesses. If I tried to play a certain way and it’s detrimental to the players, but it’s for me and my way of (thinking), I mean we don’t know. I mean, I would like to press more. But, if we start pressing and it doesn’t look good and it doesn’t fit this team, then we won’t. We’ve been working on zone right now. You know Tony (Barbee) has been talking to me about zone. This would be a great zone team, but as soon as they make a 3, we’re out of the zone. I’m just telling you, I know that.”

On his relationship with the twins this season and if they are more comfortable...
“They had habits that they had to understand weren’t going to work. Let me tell you something, if you’re doing something your whole career and it gets you a scholarship to Kentucky, the most coveted scholarship in the country – just give me an offer so I can publicly tweet that I got that offer – and you did certain things to get that offer and get you that scholarship and now you’re thinking, ‘Well now I’m going to change?’ No, your first thought is, ‘This got me here so I’m going to go with it’. But what got you here a lot of times isn’t going to get you there, that next level and I’m talking about as a player to be a better version of yourself. What got you here may not work to get you there. You know why? Because you’re 7-foot tall and the dude playing against you was a non- athletic 6-3 kid that just held you. Well, you aren’t playing against 6-3 un-athletic dudes. The guy against you is 7-foot or you’re a guard and everyone on the floor was a guard and you jump center sometimes. Well guess what? That’s not what this looks like, so what got you here may not get you there and that’s the case with the twins. I just think that they needed me to give them better direction and they needed me to basically better define their roles, but why do you think I had to wait so long? Why did it take so long? Why didn’t I walk in the first day and say this is how you’re going to play? Basketball Bennies, why do you think? Why didn’t I do it from the day I walked in? I wasn’t sure. Now, I could make it about me and say you’re going to play this way or I could watch them play and say the best thing now that I’ve been with you for months, the best way to play and us to play is this. It took me two and a half months. They weren’t here in the summer. By not being here in the summer they got behind the eight ball conditioning-wise, so it took us half a year to get them in condition, so we could really see alright what can they do?”

On Alex Poythress playing on the perimeter...
“He’s done okay, but so has Derek (Willis). We still haven’t seen Trey (Lyles) in that role. I mean we could play like we did with Michael Kidd (Gilchrist) as a 3 and you play with a bigger 3 who is more of a post-up, rebounder, slasher and shot-blocker. We’ve done it and why did we do it? Because it was the best thing for him and the best thing for our team. Then again, do you play with a smaller shooting player at the 3? We don’t know yet and that’s why we’re going on this trip and that’s why I’m teasing you about the coaching. I do want to step back and evaluate and it’s hard to evaluate when you’re trying to coach through. It’s hard to take a bigger picture and a bigger vision of what we’re trying to do. I’ll say it again – you’re talking about three professional teams with guys some of them as old as 37 and 38 years old. I coached that one team. Then you have the French team with professional players and they say the Puerto Rican team is a national team, but those 12 are professional too. They’re not 19. They’re older kids too. Then it’s on national television too, so now Jay Bilas is doing the game with J-Will (Jason Williams) and whoever else is doing it. Who knows how these guys are going to react? But it will be neat. The last time we did this, we went to Canada and it was like ‘Man I hope this team stinks because we do’. Most people take these trips for one reason: to get 10 days of practice in. They do it and they go play teams they know they are good enough to beat and they go beat those teams by 50 and they come back and they used the 10 practice days. I think this team needed something a little different and that’s why we’re doing this. I’m not sure anyone has done what we’re doing before. I think it’s the first time anybody – Jerry (Tipton) you can check – I don’t think anybody has done this where they are flying in a bunch of professional teams to play this and come after us.”

On John Wall being cut by Team USA...
“Disappointed and I thought he played well in the games I watched, but again it was a numbers game. I’m happy for Demarcus (Cousins). I’m happy for Anthony (Davis) and Derrick Rose. I mean he (Rose) was doing things there – I sat through those things before and I saw them again and I told him that I was so proud of him. They did their thing. I tried to tell Demarcus this and even John. The team to make is in ’16. Those two are in their prime. I mean you are going to be talking about two hopefully, both of them all-stars. Totally different, totally different approach. The ’16 team is the team. It’s nice that they went out and practiced and tried out. Hey, great pick-up games. Unbelievable pick-up games for those two weeks, but the reality of it is that ’16 team is the one you want to be playing on and striving for that. I think they handled themselves with class and so did Bradley Beal. I spent some time with him. I asked him if he had ever beat Kentucky and we talked a little bit. I mean there were guys that didn’t make the team that are really, really good and in two years they’ll have another chance to make it.”


Kentucky Players


#2, Aaron Harrison, G, So.

On what he has worked on from the end of the last season ...
“Definitely my body and getting stronger and more athletic.”

On the questions that he needs to answer to the professional scouts this season ...
“Were we athletic enough and were we quick enough to guard our position and I think that we worked hard this summer.”

On his early impression of the newcomers ...
“Great players, really. Tyler (Ulis) is a great player in the lane, makes passes and is a great knock- down shooter. They are great players.”

On being prepared for John Calipari practices now that he is in year two ...
“You just have to be mentally ready to practice each and every day. You just go in and get better. That comes with getting older and being mature and just taking it more serious.”

On getting to work out as a team over the summer and its advantages ...
“I wasn’t here last summer, so by coming in and getting these practice days in, I can already tell that they are going to help us when the season starts up.”

#5, Andrew Harrison, G, So.

On how practice has been ...
“It’s been good. Twisted my ankle a little bit earlier in the week, but I’m getting better now and it’s been a lot of competition.”

On why he lost weight ...
“Just trying to be the best player I can be. I feel a lot faster, a lot quicker, jump a little higher now. I feel like I’m the best player I can be right now.”

On how different it is for him and his brother to have been through a year and be here a summer, unlike last year ... “I don’t think it was just that. I think it was just us realizing how much work it actually takes to be great. Just realizing or just getting that confidence you had back in high school, just feeling like you’re the best player. That’s what it really was.”

On how much more comfortable he is now having been through a whole year of Cal practices ...
“I’m a lot more comfortable. I feel like I take on a leadership role and I’m having fun with a lot of guys asking me questions and stuff, and I try to help them as much as I can.”

On being more talkative and whether it’s been a concerted effort to talk more ... “Yeah, I’m trying to talk a lot more, especially these past few days because I twisted my ankle a little bit, so I’m trying to make up for the speed and stuff by talking. It just comes with being older. Nineteen, I guess, is being older on this team. Just being able to lead these guys.”

On how important it is for the freshmen to see guys who know what they’re doing ...
“It’s important. You’ve just got to attack those guys every day and just got to let them know what it takes; make them keep up with you.”

On if it was an easy or tough process when he decided to come back ...
“It was tough. I’m sure every kid wants to go to the NBA and I definitely thought I was good enough. I just wanted to win a national championship and better myself and maybe rise my stock a little bit.”

On how much weight he’s lost ...
“About 12 pounds.”

On if that’s a lot ...
“Um, yeah. I was like 220, 222. I’m down to like 212, 210-ish now. I’m just trying to work as hard as I can.”

On if there something tough he had to give up ...
“Just eating better really. Of course you have to run and all that stuff, but if you eat the wrong things it’s not going to work. So I’ve been working on eating a lot of green stuff and just stuff like that.”

On if he’s much quicker ...
“I think so. I feel like I’m a lot quicker and starting to play defense a lot better. I’m reading passing lanes and being able to explode to the rim and stuff like that.”

On how the more organized pick-up games have helped ...
“It’s competitive. Everyone likes to compete on this team. Everyone loves to play the game whether it’s a game in Rupp or just us playing in the gym. It’s fun. We love playing the game and we’re just enjoying playing with each other.”

On what challenges he and Tyler Ulis present to each other ...
“Tyler is very quick. He picks me up full court in practice and stuff, so it makes me focus on just bringing the ball up the court every time and using my speed and also my height and stuff. With Tyler you have to play him. He’s a great passer and he’s pretty quick.”

On how he’s going to drive opponents crazy ...
“You just have to pick up on defense full court. He’s a pest on defense and that will definitely be one of his advantages.”

On how his relationship with Cal is different ...
“I feel like he trusts me a lot more and I trust him. It should be a good year. I’m looking forward to it.”

On what he wanted to work on this year when he decided to come back ...
“Lost some weight and people saying I wasn’t that athletic and stuff like that. I just want to prove people wrong and also the main thing, I want to win a national championship. That’s the biggest reason I came back.”

On how much the end of the year last year and the way he was playing has to do with the trust he and Cal have for one another now ... “A lot. He saw how hard I worked over the summer and how committed I am to this. I know how committed he is and we just have an understanding.”


#22, Alex Poythress, F, Jr.

On playing more on the perimeter... “I feel like I am getting more comfortable each and every day playing out there. Cal told me great job playing out there. Letting me play out there and try to prove myself.”

On this year’s team... “It is competitive. There are so many people out there that are competitive so there are a lot of battles out there.”

On becoming more of an attacking player like he was in high school... “When you play in high school, it is kind of like you’re a one man team. You know you kind of do

everything for your team to succeed. But that is different once you get here because you have such great guards that you just try to get them the ball and do whatever you can to help the team.”

On his three point shot development... “I feel like yeah I have (improved). I have been working on it a lot lately and with the coaches at night just trying to get better.”


On the team practicing late at night... “A lot of us are in there a lot all the time whenever we can. We are all a bunch of gym rats really.”

On which of the freshmen have impressed him the most... “Tyler has done a real good job of finding people. Also playing with his size, he has done a great job doing what he can.”

On how well Tyler plays with his size... “Yeah a little bit, you know you are not used to playing people that small unless you are in high school. It is good to have someone that small who can do great things.”

On the Bahamas trip... “It is going to be tough, but you know we have been preparing for them and practicing for a long time. Just going to get there and take care of business. Play the game right and try to do what we can down there.”

On Cal allowing the assistant coaches to coach some of the Bahamas games... “You know he just wants us to do a great job and just wants us out here with the talent. He can see what he can do to improve us for in the fall.”

On he and Dakari losing weight during the offseason... “It all just started in the weight room. We did more conditioning like agility, bike more, and water treadmill. We have just been getting up every morning for weights and doing different things in the weight room I feel like it has all paid off.”

On the mindset of this team with more players coming back... “Yeah people know what to expect and know how hard it is to get there. We are just trying to do whatever it takes. We know it is not going to get done today. We know it is going to be a long process so we are just ready to get the job done and start.”

On how playing more pickup games has brought together the team both on and off the court...
“Yeah we play pickup games all the time which has also helped with our conditioning. We all just love to play.”