Bill Self: "Cal's Got A Really Good Bunch"

After Kansas handed Kentucky its first loss of the season, Bill Self was asked in his postgame press conference to assess the stylistic changes in the new Wildcats. Last season, Self’s ninth-ranked Jayhawks went into Rupp Arena and held Kentucky to 68 points, winning 77-68 in the final SEC/Big 12 Challenge game. Kentucky attempted 16 three-pointers in the January 2023 loss in Lexington.

In the 2023 Champions Classic, Kansas again got the best of Kentucky, but UK’s new brand of basketball took No. 1 KU until the very end, scoring 84 points with 38 attempts from outside. The Wildcats even led by 14 at one point in the second half.

Self said, “Well, we thought that they would spread us and drive us, and they spread us and drove us. We’ve gotta get better at guarding the ball, or it won’t always end up very good.”

He added, “You know, to me, they’re hard to guard with Tre (Mitchell) at the five. They’re harder to guard when he is playing the five. But when they get (Aaron) Bradshaw back, or their other guys, other bigs, that’s gonna be a hard team to deal with.

“Cal’s got a really good bunch.”

Calipari couldn’t ask for much more (other than winning)

Even in defeat, John Calipari liked what he saw in his team, too. Calipari wishes his young Wildcats hadn’t given up the second-half lead and he is upset Kentucky lost yet another Champions Classic game. (That’s four in a row and six of seven.)

Still, he is proud of the way Kentucky played in Game 3 of the season.

“None of us are happy that we lost the game,” Calipari said in his postgame comments. “I’m not happy. I got work to do to help them finish games off, figure out who needs to be in at the end of those games.

“But to come in this environment with this, you know, everything that goes with this, the bells and whistles, and they perform like they did, I couldn’t ask for much more–other than make some free throws and a shot down the stretch and win.”

Kentucky missed its last five three-point shots, all coming in the final 62 seconds of a tight game.

Calipari told the postgame radio show listeners, “We got to learn how to win games at the end, and you could see we were saying post the ball and we took two airball jumpers. I mean, we have to learn, if you’re going to win at the end, you’ve got to do this together.

“Now we had some unbelievable performances for young kids in this environment. And I thought we fought. We battled. I can promise you, I got a tired team right now, but we’ve got to finish it off.”

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