John Calipari shares concerns over lack of big man at Kentucky

Kentucky has the goods in the backcourt, but for John Calipari, it’s the lack of a true big man right now that has him tossing and turning in the middle of the night.

Coach Cal was asked exactly that by Seth Greenberg during the Kentucky basketball pro day on Wednesday: what is the one issue with this current team that “keeps him up at night?” With injuries plaguing his front-court, the answer was pretty easy:

“That…we’re not going to have that big,” said Calipari.

That’s the current state of affairs for the Wildcats. Despite now having 21+ feet worth of seven-footers on the roster, UK had exactly zero of those guys available for its pro day. Two of those towering forwards — Aaron Bradshaw and Ugonna Onyenso — are dealing with foot injuries and reports out of pro day suggested it’ll be another 5-6 weeks until those guys are back on the floor. And foot injuries to seven-footers are absolute killers and normally take much longer to recover from than initially expected.

Luckily, Kentucky has some elite guards on this year’s roster, which is quite versatile as a whole, per Calipari.

“I know our guard play is really good. We have… every player here can dribble, can pass and can shoot — and has a good feel for the game, every one!” the Kentucky head coach remarked. He added that even former Wildcat Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was impressed by this group when he got a chance to see them play this summer in his home country.

“And Shai Alexander told me that in Canada. ‘Coach, I like your team, because they can all pass, dribble and shoot and they got a feel for this.'”

Even with some crucial pieces on the sidelines, this preseason time is a chance for the players to figure out exactly who they’ll be at the college level.

“So now, it becomes… getting them together, getting them to share, getting them to take on roles, getting them to understand… you’re not taking 25 shots here. In a game, you may, but you can’t average that because we got a bunch of other guys that are pretty good too. So it takes time to get to that. And then, if I can get them feeling empowered that it’s their team, and I can step away, and they feel like ‘we’re going to be fine.'”

John Calipari has always been about player-driven leadership, even on his younger teams, which this one is. The ultimate coaching job, in his mind, is to have a team that can coach itself by the end of the season. Right now, he’s just getting started with that process.