John Calipari has message for Aaron Bradshaw, Justin Edwards: 'Gotta be ready for your moment, no excuses'

For the second straight season, Kentucky headed home from the SEC Tournament winless, and John Calipari called out a few of his freshmen after the Texas A&M loss on Friday.

After stringing together a few impressive performances near the end of the season where Kentucky was able to match up with other teams’ physicality, the Wildcats got pushed around by the Aggies. Particularly, freshmen Aaron Bradshaw and Justin Edwards just didn’t have their best stuff against A&M.

“Again, the guys that didn’t play as much — Aaron, just how the game kind of played out. Justin, I mean, we need those guys. When they play well, we win,” said Calipari after the loss.

Edwards had played well of late and was on fire to end the regular season, while Bradshaw’s performance Saturday was really more of the same from what he’s contributed all year.

“That’s the stuff that we need to keep an eye on and just make sure they know you’ve just got to be ready for your moment,” Calipari added. “It’s hard if you’re not playing as much. But you got to be ready for your moment. The rest of their basketball lives, you better be ready for your moment. No excuse, no nothing. Just be ready.”

Assuming Edwards, Bradshaw and the rest of the roster learned that lesson, John Calipari is still excited for what’s ahead despite the loss.

“I got a good team. We’re young. We’re young. I think they’ll be fine … They’re competitive. They got a will to win. Their body language — when we walked in at halftime, they were so good at convincing each other, ‘we’re fine.’ We started pretty good, and then it’s a couple foul shots. All of a sudden you can’t get it any closer.”

Another factor going against the ‘Cats was uncharacteristic turnovers. Kentucky is one of the best teams in the country at taking care of the basketball and they did a poor job on Friday, which allowed runouts and easy buckets against an already-porous UK defense.

“We had some really bad turnovers today that led to baskets. When you’re talking a four- to six-point game, eight-point game, but you gave them three breakaways, think about that. I’m chalking it up to, you know what, they played really good, we didn’t play as well as we’ve been playing, and you lose. Now let’s get these guys ready.”

All eyes towards the NCAA Tournament now for Kentucky and Calipari, who knows his team has Final Four potential.

“I’m excited about going into this tournament. I am. When you can score the ball, you got a chance. Now, c’mon, let’s just guard a little bit. And we did it at Tennessee. Tennessee is one of the best teams in the country. We did it at Auburn. Alabama in the end. So we can do it.”