John Calipari tells bandwagon fans to "jump in the very back and hold on"
After a bumpy first half of the season, Kentucky Basketball finally has some momentum rolling, building on the upset of Tennessee with an 85-71 comeback win vs. Georgia. The Cats turned an 8-point halftime deficit into a 14-point victory, which had John Calipari feeling so good he made his postgame radio interview one for the ages. You can watch it all here or just read my favorite parts below in your best Cal voice.
“Anybody throwing me a ball, I’ll give you $20 if you throw it off Tom’s head.”
You knew we were in for a fun appearance when Cal offered fans who were throwing him basketballs to sign $20 if they hit Tom Leach in the head. He thanked the fans for sticking around several times, even offering to sign things he normally wouldn’t, like the 3-point and “R” rebound signs, cups, and shirts.
“I just want to thank you all. You stayed. It’s midnight. What’s wrong with you? But I signed everything today. Now, I’m gonna say to everybody listening, do not — if we lose, I don’t sign anything. If you [bring] cups — I sign balls. I don’t sign cups, hats, the three-ball, the rebound thing, shirts. I signed all that today. Okay. You could walk out and say, ‘You know what, I’m glad we stayed because I got this signed, that signed I even took some pictures. I never do that.”
He stopped the show because the speaker at Rupp wasn’t working
Calipari stopped the show during the second segment because the speaker at Rupp Arena wasn’t working.
“They can’t hear me. Well, they can’t hear me. Can someone shut that off? Please? I’m not I’ll go on when they [fix it].”
Thankfully, the issue was resolved somewhat quickly, but Calipari at one point seemed fine just shouting his comments to the crowd of fans in attendance before Leach got him to put the headset back on.
“I told them at halftime, ‘Dudes, we’re winning this!'”
At halftime, it felt like we might be in for a repeat performance of last Tuesday’s loss to South Carolina. Kentucky trailed by eight, shooting only 33.3% from the floor while allowing Georgia to make 55.6% of its shots. Calipari took his voice to screeching levels when talking about why his team looked so bad the first 20 minutes.
“Now tell me what happened in the first half. They got downhill but what happened to us? [Screaming] If you miss every shot, you’re gonna be down! You will be down!”
“I told them at halftime, ‘Dudes were winning this. Make a shot or two and watch what happens.’ And then we started with the post-up to Oscar [Tshiebwe], just kept it, and then all of a sudden we went from down eight to up two and we kept fighting and we made free throws. But I asked them after, ‘When are you gonna believe me, how good we can be? Why am I — You should believe more than I believe!'”
He has a message for bandwagon fans
Calipari extended that last sentence to the fanbase, acknowledging the frustration many in the Big Blue Nation have felt this season.
“I still, I’m telling you, I believe in this team. I know some people jumped off the bandwagon. I know. When you jump back on, you gotta jump in the very back and hold on to the rail. But this team can do this if they choose to do it.”
He explained his comments about Oscar needing to get back in the gym
On his call-in show Monday night, Calipari said that Oscar Tshiebwe needed to spend more time in the gym like he did last season, which many interpreted as a challenge to the big man. If so, it worked, resulting in a career night for Oscar, who finished with 37 points and 24 rebounds. As he did in his press conference, Calipari insisted he wasn’t taking a shot at Oscar.
“Now I made a statement last night. I got on him two weeks ago. ‘You’re doing this and this. Get in that gym. That’s why you were who you were. You’re not playing like you were a year ago.’ He’s been in there two weeks, how’s it look now?”
“So, that’s what I did. I wasn’t being mean, calling out Oscar. I just told you, he had to get back in that gym and now you see him. He’s busting back to where he needs to go.”
He addressed the technical foul
After receiving a coach’s box warning in the first half, Calipari got a technical in the second after stepping too far onto the court. He brought it up on the radio, claiming his toes were just “over the line.”
“If we play this way, and someone banks one in or does something crazy, or they call it technical because my toes were over the line and it costs you, okay, you got to accept it. Move on. Next game.”
If Calipari meant the three-point line and not the baseline, he is correct.
“Just keep being positive for these kids”
If it feels like most of Calipari’s postgame radio remarks were about the fans, it’s because they were. He praised the crowd at Rupp for sticking with the team after a bad first half, even as the game dragged long into the night.
“The fans today were so into this game that it carried us. That’s what fans do. They carry us. And again, I’ll say it: just keep being positive for these kids. If you’re mad, be mad at me. ‘Can’t stand him, never could, one-and-done, ruined basketball.’ Whatever you want to say, you know what I’ll say? I agree with you. Let us move on and just be about these kids.”
Calipari also shot down the notion that he doesn’t love the fanbase, imploring the BBN to keep the faith, even through bad halves and occasional losses.
“Don’t ever listen to, ‘He’s not for the fans.’ I’m for all of you people. I’ll do anything I can to help you. You come in in the morning when I’m having coffee and you bother me but I take that picture anyway. You know, and I’ll say this, it’s supposed to be — I see smiles. You know what you may lose a game every once in a while, oh my God, but you can still smile and say, we’re gonna be all right. I’ve seen this picture before. I told you we could write our own story.”
Long way to go, but tonight was an entertaining chapter.
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