John Calipari jokes about opposing fans treating Kentucky differently

Kentucky head coach John Calipari joked after their win against Texas A&M that opposing fan bases seemed to treat games against the Wildcats differently. Kentucky beat the Aggies 64-58 in a tough road win, as their longtime coach appeared to be in a good mood following their tough game.

John Calipari jokes about opposing fans

“One of the things I’ve done — I’ve invested in t-shirt companies because everywhere we go is a white-out, a blue-out, an orange-out… it doesn’t matter what it is,” said Calipari during a postgame interview on SEC Now.

“You have to give them credit,” continued Calipari of their tough win over Texas A&M. “They smothered Sahvir [Wheeler]. And I did a poor job — I wasn’t doing the right stuff until we said no more ball screens. They took us completely out of it. Second thing was, we needed to see TyTy [Washington] in a big pressure-packed game. He had two turnovers back-to-back, I had to take him out. And then I said ‘I wanna see who you are,’ and he makes big baskets. Jacob Toppin guarded four guys and really played well. Davion [Mintz] played really well.”

As he praised his team for their efforts in the win, Calipari took a moment to make another joke about Kellan Grady‘s struggles on offense during the game. Grady ended his night with just five points while shooting 1-9 from three-point range.

“Kellan [Grady] made a shot or two — maybe he didn’t make a shot or two. Maybe he didn’t make any shots,” joked Calipari. “And I always say ‘you don’t have to make them all, you just can’t miss them all.’ But Oscar [Tshiebwe] rebounded. I thought Lance [Ware] went in and played well.

“All I can tell you is — to get out of here with a win [against] a team that won eight in a row, a team that had all the momentum. How were we down by five at half? I have no idea. We’re 1-for-11 again? And we’re down five. And I told them, let’s just play. We’re in a two-bucket game.”

Kentucky’s win pushed them to 15-3 on the season and into second place in the SEC, just a half-game behind Auburn after jumping Texas A&M. Kentucky’s only losses this season have come from Duke on opening night, Notre Dame and LSU.