Head Coach John Calipari
On sticking with starters through the course of the game …
“Doesn’t matter who you start. It’s who finishes the game, so probably as we go through game plans and people are nicked up,we’ll see. I’m not as worried about who starts as maybe the clutter out there. I’m more worried about, OK, who am I finishing with? And, I like that team, but you know, EJ (Montgomery) may step up and be the monster we want him to be and all of a sudden, he plays more or Keion (Brooks Jr.) at four because this is a small, small team. Or Kahlil (Whitney) at four for that matter, so we’ll have to see.”
On people underrating Immanuel Quickley’s defense …
“Oh yeah. He’s really bothering people and making it difficult. That’s what a good defender does. Another guy who looks like all this and stands in front of the guy and the guy feels nothing by him being guarded. Immanuel occupies the guy’s eyes. You gotta worry about where Immanuel is. Obviously, we know where Ashton (Hagans) is and Tyrese (Maxey) is a pretty good defender. People, what they loved, the people that evaluate, they loved that he (Maxey) had eight assists, seven rebounds and four blocks. They said, ‘That’s a winner. That’s how you win basketball games.’ And, that’s who everybody wants on their team. That’s a Jamal Murray number, and, you know, he did well. Ashton came out, went home, got a little excited, took a few too many jump shots, but at the end of the day, the kid has a will to win and drags the rest of us. Kind of like (Lynn) Bowden did. He is that. He’s Lynn Bowden for us. … May be able to throw the ball better. I don’t know. [Media laughs.]”
On if Kentucky can run with Alabama …
“Well, we are who we are. You guys know that if we play a team that wants to play a game in the 50s, we’ll do that and if we play a fast team, we’ll try to score 100. So, we’ll see how the game goes. The difference is they run to shoot 3s. They’re not running for layups. They’re not running for post-ups. Even if they throw ahead and drive, they’re driving to find somebody for a 3. So, it’s a little different in how the game goes. They’ve done a great job. I mean, I watched (the) Florida (game), they should have won. They should never have lost that game. They know it. They had Penn State. Penn State led them for two minutes on the road. So, when you start looking at records, you can’t look at records when you start talking. The games they lost early, they weren’t ready to play this style yet. They hadn’t bought in. Now they have and they’re–this will be a really hard game for us to win. I don’t care if it’s at home, on the road, on I-95, this is a hard one to play and it’ll be a hard game for us to win.”
On the matchup between Hagans and Kira Lewis Jr. …
“Good for both of them. Kira’s playing well. He’s playing fast. He’s shooting balls. He plays 38 minutes a game. He’s good. They’re good. (John) Petty’s good. I mean, they’re good. They’ve got guys who were twos and threes who are now fours and fives. They were twos and threes and now they’re fours and fives, which means your four and five better be able to play. You’ve got hands down, they’re shooting. They’re taking 3s. They’re – like when you watch them, because I’m not watching a whole lot of college games because I’ve got those Alaskan shows I’ve gotta catch so – but when I watch this tape, I was stunned at how they’re really spacing this court and how and what they’re doing.”
On Nate Oats and if there’s any similarities to the Buffalo team the Wildcats faced in the NCAA Tournament in 2018 …
“They’re different. I’ll tell you what he’s doing: He’s doing a lot of the dribble-drive stuff. He’s doing some of it from five out. They’re trying to get you in rotations and on those rotations they’re either shooting it or running it downhill. They’re spacing like the dribble-drive. With the team that he has, he’s coaching them the way that teams needs to play. The Buffalo team did some post-up stuff. This team will, but it’s not – their game is they’re going to shoot 35 3s. If they make 16, 16, 15, 18 – move on to the next game. It’s hard. That’s a lot for us to (make up). And again, we’ve got to make six or seven. You’ve got to make six or seven because they’re going to hook seven in.”