John Calipari hints at playing two 7-footers together: 'I got a couple tweaks in mind.'

Uh oh. That word has popped back into John Calipari’s vocabulary again. It’s officially “tweak” season…

After the NCAA Tournament bracket was released on Sunday night and Kentucky received its 3-seed in the South Region, Calipari spoke with reporters to talk about the matchup and what’s at stake for this group of Wildcats.

It didn’t take long for Kentucky’s subpar defense, which ranks 108th in the country, per KenPom, to get brought up.

Will the ‘Cats be capable of playing good enough defense to make a serious run? Calipari mentioned a possible solution while hinting that he has others in the back pocket.

“We may have a couple tweaks,” Calipari said. “I got some things I think I’m gonna have to try to do. So I got a couple tweaks in mind if a team has guards that just break us down. What else can we do? How about if I put both seven-footers in? It may take away a little offense but now you got two seven-footers, a little harder to score at the rim. So there are some different things we can do.”

This isn’t the first time that Calipari has teased the idea of playing two seven-footers together, although that combination has never truly played out on the hardwood. Only a handful of times this season have at least two of Kentucky’s three seven-footers — Ugonna Onyenso, Zvonimir Ivisic, and Aaron Bradshaw — been on the floor at the same time. The sample size is too small to draw any serious conclusions.

Perhaps that will change going into the Big Dance. We shall see…

A couple of the main issues on defense for Kentucky have been the inability to prevent straight-line drives and get over ball screens. And while the defense actually appeared to be improving in some regard heading into the SEC Tournament, Texas A&M proved that might not be the case — thus the possible need for some extra insurance under the basket.

“They’ve gotten so much better,” Calipari said of Kentucky’s guards on defense. “But what happens is a guy scores one or two and he gets beer muscles and now he’s throwing ’em on big guys. (Texas A&M) made a lot of tough shots. When I watched the tape, we had some breakdowns defensively, got beat to a few balls, had unnecessary turnovers, like five or six, unnecessary that led for baskets… But when I watch the tape I’m like we’ll be all right. You know why? Because they never stop fighting. They fought the whole game.”

Kentucky’s defense doesn’t have to be great to make the Elite 8 and beyond, it just needs to be good enough. Could sacrificing some offense to boost the defense be the key?

Subscribe to the KSR YouTube Channel for press conferences, interviews, original shows, fan features, and exclusive content.