“The children eventually fought. ”
John Calipari’s team did not win at Rupp Arena on Tuesday night, but they fought like hell.
With 12 points behind, with just over six minutes of play, Kentucky still looks like the same old Kentucky team we lost many times before. They simply did not have the juice to come back and win. You can feel it.
“We were eight or ten down, and then we made a chance and I had to go on them because they did that hanging head again,” Calipari recalled in the UK Sports Radio Network post-show. “That is, we have four baskets down. There are five minutes to go. Let’s go! Play! Throw daggers. We threw daggers today. ”
Calipari begged his team this week to throw daggers. He begs them all season to come together as a team. He struggled to push the right buttons to make each individual trust each other. Tonight, Calipari can see this team as one, manifesting in something simple that is often overlooked: huddles.
‘If you play badly, what do you do to help our team win? Maybe it’s talk. Maybe it’s to block. Maybe you dive on the floor. Maybe you fly and give an extra pass because you know I can not take a chance now. What are you doing to help us win? Or do you hang your head because of how you play? Today they started when they turned around.
“I loved it – we talked about huddles. It’s hard to hang out together when two guys do not want to come in because they are so upset about the way they play. Today you saw those huddles? It’s like my teams of the past, the last thirty years. ”
Calipari then started shouting, ‘They’ve gathered! They grabbed each other! They were on top of each other! They challenge each other. Eventually! They FINALLY need each other! Now we have to build from there. ‘
Kentucky’s time is running out to build on what Calipari saw today. Regardless of the outcome of tonight’s match, they finally scored some important goals
“Our team fought like a fight and eventually they won the last four minutes of the game,” Calipari said. ‘This team had to rely on each other instead of trying to be one-on-one on offense and on defense. Eventually we were together because we are new that we need each other.‘