John Calipari convinced Kentucky can still do "special things"

Kentucky‘s season has been nothing short of a disaster at the midway point. Sitting at 10-5 with a resume that reflects a team sitting firmly outside the NCAA Tournament field, along with a tough road ahead as the meat of the SEC schedule hits, it’s hard to be overly optimistic about the long-term outlook.

On the outside, at least. Inside the program, though, confidence remains high that the Wildcats are capable of a special finish. It’s a story the team is excited to write.

“My focus is on the next game. That’s why fan support is important to these kids, and it’s out there. There are some people that are mad that we lost those games and I’d say I’m mad,” John Calipari said during his call-in radio show Monday evening. “I’m more concerned about, how do I fix this with these kids? How do we play with this group? This group is different than the group we had last year. But this group still, in my mind, in my mind, can do some special things. And the story we write, we’re writing. No one else is writing it for us. We’re going to write this story.”

Things just aren’t coming easy for this current group. Open shots aren’t falling, simple scoring opportunities aren’t presenting themselves and they’re simply not taking care of business on the road. Put it all together and you get a fairly ugly product at this point.

“I’ve had teams struggle. I’ve had teams go on the road — and Alabama is a good team. I mean, they’re good. They’re good. But I don’t think we’re as bad as we played,” Calipari said. “I want to give them credit, maybe they made us play the way we played. Maybe. But the shots we had that we normally make, we almost missed them all. It’s hard to play when you’re not making those open shots or getting to the rim like we need to.”

The pieces, though, are there. Kentucky has the talent to win these games, but the execution simply hasn’t been good enough. The mentality hasn’t either.

That’s the message he’s stressing to his team. If they can hang in there mentally, they can easily compete physically. Expectations are high, but production and success overall can be even higher.

Calipari believes the turnaround is coming.

“I said to them today, ‘We’ve got good players. Go play good. We’ve got good players.’ I’m telling them, you’ve got to get on from one play and go next whether it goes bad or good. Go next. Here we go, each possession,” Calipari said. “Like, hugging guys, ‘I believe in you.’ If you go in and miss four, it’s hard to be confident. That’s the mental toughness of this sport we’re in.”

“The expectations here are really high. Fine. When I took the job, I said, ‘This isn’t for every coach and this isn’t for every player. This is Kentucky.’ The standards are high, and we fed that beast. And you’ve got to keep feeding them. You’re feeding them a lot. So I’m saying to these guys, ‘We’re good enough to do this.'”

It starts on the defensive end of the floor, Calipari says, an area Kentucky has struggled with against quality competition. The toughness hasn’t been there on that end of the floor, neither has the fight. The Wildcats also haven’t been selfless enough offensively, with ball movement and spacing being serious issues for the team this season. “Our spacing stinks right now,” the UK head coach said.

For Kentucky to be Kentucky, change is necessary across the board. An identity has to be found on both ends of the floor.

“The other side of this when you talk about my teams historically and you look at the identity of our teams, it’s always been great defense, tough defense that led to good offense,” Calipari said. “Fight, 50/50 balls, first to the floor on loose balls, taking charges. The other thing my teams have historically done, they’ve been great rebounding teams with tough rebounders, two-handed rebounds. That leads to offense.

“Lastly, an offense that attacks and touches the lane, but shares the ball because we get five or six guys in double figures. It’s not one or two guys, we share it. There’s ball movement, player movement. I’ve just got to get these guys with that identity. This is Kentucky, this is how we do this.”

Admittedly, the story sucks so far. Certainly not the page-turner we hoped for when the season began. Still, though, there is still technically over half a season — and half the story — to go in the regular season before a final conclusion will be made.

Calipari is confident that final conclusion will be worth celebrating.