John Calipari says Kentucky spent a day working on zone

It was a typical Thanksgiving holiday for the Kentucky basketball team. The Wildcats spent time at the Salvation Army, enjoyed a meal together at John Calipari’s house, reviewed film, installed a zone defense, scrimmaged, spread holiday cheer…

… wait, zone?

Yes, Kentucky spent an entire morning practice this week working on zone, both how to score against one and running it entirely on defense.

“We spent a morning on zone. Just saying,” Calipari said during his call-in radio show Monday evening. “One of the reasons you’ve gotta have a good zone is so you can play against it, to make sure against a good team that plays zone that you can score. So we messed around with zone. When you go two-a-days, you have time.”

Just to make sure he heard him correctly, show host Tom Leach cut through the conversation: “You mean you played zone defense?”

Calipari doubled down, adding that the extra practice time thanks to the holiday break, along with the team returning to full strength paved the way for the uncharacteristic change. It was a mini-camp of sorts — a preview of Camp Cal before the real Camp Cal takes place around Christmas.

“Yeah, we broke it down, we showed it on tape. We showed it,” he said. “Then we showed them the breakdowns and then we did it together, then did the breakdowns and then did it against each other. When you have the time, and it’s your whole group — this was kind of a mini-camp. I just didn’t want to, you know, Friday and Saturday were really hard days, then Sunday was hard. But we did it at two o’clock a little mini-camp, yeah.

“We got a lot of work in, stuff that we needed to get in.”

Calipari has adamantly avoided playing zone during his time at Kentucky, as it’s harder to hold individual players accountable for breakdowns than it is with man-to-man. He’s also said in the past that his players won’t run zone in the NBA and he’d rather help prepare them for the next level — while also winning games at this level, of course.

“When they leave us, how much zone are they going to play?” Calipari said in an appearance on KSR back in 2017. “Am I just trying to win college games? If I don’t have to, why would you play zone? I mean, if you have to surrender and play some zone, okay, maybe I would. … I don’t need to be a genius and, ‘look at him coach them up’ and ‘he put in a zone, this guy’s a genius. That’s Cal ball.’

“I don’t care about that. Am I helping these kids get better? Are we playing in a way that we can win?”

It’s been utilized very sparingly over the years, quick to change direction on 3-point makes from the opposition. One of the most recent instances? An open look from former Georgia star Anthony Edwards back in January of 2020 when the Wildcats tried it in a game.

“We went zone. I had Nate (Sestina) in instead of Keion (Brooks). I wish I would have done it differently,” Calipari said at the time. “We gave them — my man got a three and you know me, ‘Guys, that’s it, no more zone, so don’t even tell me about the zone.’

“I mean, the guy was open, their best shooter. You’re in a zone. One guy’s not shooting: him. We gave him the shot. Well, I would rather be man-to-man and have Immanuel (Quickley) hanging on him or Ashton (Hagans).”

Fast forward a couple of years, and Calipari is flirting with the idea of running zone again.

Any chance it gets thrown in anytime soon?