Coach Cal: "There is a standard here -- and it's a high standard. ... That standard of national titles has been here."

John Calipari turned his phone off for the weekend and returned to hundreds of missed calls and text messages following Kentucky‘s loss to Oakland in the NCAA Tournament. He feels about how you’d expect the leader of this program to feel when it hasn’t been to a second weekend in five years with two first-round exits in three tries.

“Have had better weekends, hurting. Our team, players and staff, their families, we’re all hurting. I’m hurting for them, but I’m hurting,” he said during his call-in radio show. “I’m hurting for our fans. I know many fans out there are hurting. No one is hurting more than me right now.”

He’s hurting because he knows Kentucky is not living up to its standards under his watch, one that demands annual excellence — no excuses. That’s not what this is and it’s not what it’s been.

“We have a standard here. I said early on, they don’t put Final Four banners up, only national championship banners,” Calipari said. “My standard is we’re playing to play deep into the NCAA Tournament and compete for national titles, win national titles. I wanted this job knowing that was the case. I love this job knowing that was the case. I’ve never left this job. That is what the standard is for me.

“… We’re not changing the standard and we’re chasing what we chase here, which is championships.”

In his own words, that’s just something you accept when you take this job. The highs are high and the lows are low. And unfortunately for him, the lows have been infinitely more consistent than the highs as of late.

“There is a standard here. And it’s a high standard. If you play or coach here, you’ve got to know what that standard is and love it, relish it. It’s hard,” he added. “And also if you lose a game, I mean, our fans are engaged but they’re also engaged when you lose.”

That’s why he’s committed to turning this thing around, no matter how hard he has to work for it. Calipari says he wants to prove he can still do “something special” as the leader of this program.

Not anywhere else, here.

“I talked about the standard, that is the standard that I believe in, that I think we can do. That standard of national titles has been here, from Coach (Adolph) Rupp on,” he said. “The only thing that I’m saying to all our fans, you know I’m gonna work. I’m gonna work for this state, work for this program and this university. Really work for these young people. And that’s my commitment. I’m not changing, 24/7, let’s go. Whether it’s recruiting, all the stuff that we’ve got to do, that is the commitment that I give to the fans and I haven’t changed.

“This is like wearing a coat, it never goes away. But I love it, this is what I want. This is what I wanted, this is why I never left. This is it. Now it’s, let’s come together and let’s go do something. Let’s do something special, we can do it. We’ve done it, let’s do it again.”