John Calipari remains confident in Kentucky's ability to go on deep run in March

John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats made the NCAA Tournament as a six seed after an up-and-down season. Still, Calipari thinks that this Kentucky team is capable of a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.

Calipari explained why he believes that Kentucky can break through, even though they haven’t had loads of postseason experience as a group.

“You’ve got to break through,” John Calipari said. “You’ve got to break through. Breaking through is your mindset. It’s a champion’s mindset, which is I’m going to make the plays I’m supposed to make, and we’re going to do this together. You trust your teammates.”

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“We had breakdowns. You want to talk some of the layups, there was miscommunication. The guy breaks through, he was supposed to be picked up, he wasn’t picked up. We had some of those today,” Calipari continued.

“But I still believe in this team. I think this team can go on a deep run. We do got to get healthy. Jacob [Toppin] didn’t practice but one day last week. Cason [Wallace] practiced one day last week. I wasn’t even sure they were going to play. I thought we were going to end up having to do what we did at Arkansas: just figure out how to get it up the court. That’s what I thought we were going to do.”

Last season, Kentucky was upset by St. Peter’s in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. This year, the Wildcats will take on Providence in the first round.

“All of a sudden we can go, but they did not practice. Neither did CJ [Fredrick].”

John Calipari on Kentucky playing with a vengeance

In the NCAA Tournament, John Calipari expects the Kentucky Wildcats to come out with a vengeance.

“That’s what we’re going to talk about right there. Every time we’ve taken a spill? The whole country jumps on us. It seems like they come back with a vengeance. That is the plan,” Calipari said.

“We got beat…Some of the games we got beat, it’s not like we got beat by a hundred. It’s a bucket here or a bucket there. You get beat. But learning how to win is a big part of this too. We’ve won some really good games against really good teams.”