John Calipari jokes about historic 3-point shooting numbers vs. Texas A&M, team unity

Kentucky attempted 32 3-pointers against Texas A&M in a 76-67 win over the weekend. It’s among the highest 3-point totals during the John Calipari era in Lexington.

After a reporter shared the stat with the Kentucky head coach, Calipari wanted some more information. A lengthy back-and-forth ensued, punctuated with laughter after Calipari’s various quips.

“Gimme the other ones,” Calipari said, asking about the games where Kentucky took more 3s under him. It kicked off the following exchange, where he seemingly wanted to explain that high 3-point volume is a bad indicator.

Reporter 1: “Oh man, you’re really putting me on the spot.”
Calipari: “Go ahead, what were they.”
Reporter 1: “I’m trying to find them.”
Calipari: “Come on now, what’re you doing.” 
Reporter 1 :”Oh man.”
Calipari: “You wanna throw numbers out, throw numbers —”
Reporter 1: “Ok, you made 15 against ETSU.” 
Calipari: “Go Arkansas, you said we took 33.”
Reporter 1: “It’s not even on the board.”
Calipari: “Because because it didn’t go past four.” 
Reporter 2: “10. Made 10.”
Calipari: “10 out of 33?”
Reporter 2: “Against Arkansas in 2010.”
Calipari: “Did we win the game?”
Reporter 2: “I don’t remember. 2010, I’m guessing you did win.”
Calipari: “I’m guessing we didn’t.”
Reporter 3: “ETSU game was in the NCAA Tournament. Made 15 there.”
Calipari: “[Eric] Bledsoe went nuts that game. I wish he would’ve gone nuts in the West Virginia game.”
Reporter 3: “You won the Arkansas game by 31.”
Calipari: “What’s that?”
Reporter 3: “You won the Arkansas game by 31.”
Calipari: “Well, we should be shooting more 3s.”

While Calipari had the jokes on hand when his point got pulled out from underneath him, he did make a salient point or two when discussing the performance against Texas A&M. Of the 32 3s Kentucky attempted, the Wildcats made 11 — a 34.4% clip.

But that was in part because the Wildcats were able to salvage what started as a poor shooting performance.

“You watched the game. Were they open? Yeah. Some of them we missed. Did you go, ‘How in the world did he miss that?’ Because they’re not machines and they’re not robots. And there’re sometimes they miss two, it’s like the next guys misses and the next — it’s contagious,” Calipari said. “But the other side of it is we had the courage to keep shooting. CJ [Fredrick], Antonio [Reeves], they had the courage to keep shooting.”

Calipari also brought up how he’s changed a few tactics to try and bring this group along.

“And as the season went on and we had what everyone used to call ‘Camp Cal,’ every weekend game and weekday game, if there was no class, we stayed in a hotel. We had dinner together, had breakfast together, did everything, wanting them to be with us. I did it last night,” Calipari said.