John Calipari shoulders blame for Kentucky's struggles, insists mistakes are "fixable"

Kentucky picked up its first SEC win of the season tonight, beating LSU 74-71. The final four minutes were stressful, but the Cats were able to build on the changes they made vs. Louisville vs. a quality opponent. As he did on Saturday after the win over the Cards, John Calipari shouldered some of the blame for Kentucky’s poor start to the season in his postgame conversation with Tom Leach.

“I’m holding all these guys accountable,” Cal said. “I’m coaching like I always have but I’m telling you that I told them, I love their frame of mind right now. But I also — you know who else’s frame of mind I really like? Mine. Like, I’m in a good place, even though we should have won the first game, played awful a couple of games. We looked like we were never coached.

“But, knowing we had to be more deliberate. We can’t just rush and do it. We’re not that kind of team. So, now we’re playing in a way that we’re really efficient, now we’ve got to continue to talk and get better defensively.”

Outside of the final four minutes (when fatigue was clearly a factor), Kentucky’s offense looked better vs. LSU. The Cats shot 51.9% from the floor, 38.9% (7-18) from three, and had 18 assists to only six turnovers. They led by 10 points with 10:42 to go, but the Tigers refused to go away. While Adam Miller and Cam Hayes were hitting threes, Kentucky’s offense stalled down the stretch. Thankfully, Jacob Toppin saved the day, but there’s no denying the Cats still need to work on closing out games.

“It’s all fixable, how we finish off, what we do and in how we play with nine, eight seconds on the clock, who should have the ball at that point, it’s all fixable,” Calipari said in his postgame press conference.

“It’s all fixable,” he echoed in his conversation with Tom Leach. “If you don’t have a point guard, if you can’t shoot, if you don’t have Oscar [Tshiebwe], if you don’t have toughness, it ain’t fixable. You know what’s fixable? Go recruit or go in the transfer portal. We’re fine. It’s like next year’s class and the junior class we’re on. We’re fine.”

In fact, Calipari told Leach that he’s skipping a recruiting trip to Florida tomorrow to stay in Lexington with his team.

“They wanted me to go to Florida tomorrow, watch a game and then fly back. I said I’m not doing it. I’m about this team right now. Now I texted all the kids and said, I can’t come, I gotta stay here but I’m sending an assistant. And he’s got to fly commercial, which he’s real happy about. And he’ll go and be there with you. But I got to be with this team.”

Calipari said he hasn’t lost any excitement about this group, instead pointing the finger at himself for their shortcomings thus far.

“Our mistakes are all fixable. I’m telling you this team, I’m watching games and I’ve got to do a better job. I’m just being honest.“

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Calipari insists he’s not changing his coaching style

Following the win over Louisville on Saturday, Oscar Tshiebwe told reporters he had a conversation with Calipari about being more positive with certain players in the wake of the loss to Missouri, specifically Jacob Toppin. The shift in tone seemed to work, resulting in the feel-good victory over the Cardinals, in which Toppin scored a season-high 24 points.

“You want to be so hard on them, sometimes you really mess up their minds. You are making it worse,” Tshiebwe said on Saturday. “And Coach, he came out, now he started motivating them boys. ‘Nah man you’re good, man! Come and see me! Do this, do this!’ And kids now are stepping up because they hear more positive stuff.“

Oscar Tshiebwe talks about Calipari becoming more positive with this team.

"I tell coach 'You want to be so hard on them, sometimes you really mess up their mind, make it worse.' Now he's motivating more… players start stepping up because they hear more positive stuff."#BBN pic.twitter.com/DuYC0OybU3

— Tristan Pharis (@TristanUda) December 31, 2022

Toppin followed that performance up with another strong one tonight, finishing with 21 points (9-13 FG, 1-1 3PT, 2-2 FT), 3 rebounds, and 3 assists. During his press conference tonight, Calipari was asked about his conversation with Oscar about Toppin and interrupted the reporter to clarify what happened.

“Oscar said after Louisville, you and he had talked about you being more positive towards some of–“

“No, that’s not true,” Calipari said. “I don’t know who told you that. No.”

“What I told [Toppin] is, ‘I believe in you and I’m holding you accountable but you’re capable of doing whatever you choose to do. But you’ve got to believe in yourself.’ And I told him, not more positive, ‘If you screw up, I’m just leaving it alone. So I’m not going to try to correct you in the game. We’ll correct you after.’

“It wasn’t, ‘You’re okay,’ and he got dunked on. ‘Yeah, really you’re fine’; he got dunked on again. ‘You’re going to’ — but he reached out to Bob Rotella, sports psychologist, and he put himself in a different place. 

“So I mean, it’s important but it’s not — no. I’m the same coach. I coach the same way. I don’t know who said that that we told — you know, he was just being more positive. What? I coach. I encourage.”

After tonight’s win, Goose Givens asked Oscar about the conversation with Calipari last week.

“Coach always has been positive and coach has been motivating all the guys, but some of them, I just feel like they were just having some public mental problems,” Oscar said. “Coach has been great. Coach has been great. I just told Coach, we got this. I went to see him. I said, Coach, we got this.

“There are some guys, they need to you say, like, ‘Okay, come to my office.’ Some guys, sometimes when you just always helping them and just tell them, ‘You’ve got it.’ You need sometimes, some guys, they are not mentally strong. I have told him they need to hear some good stuff sometimes, that’s why I had the conversation. But he has been great all year. He has been motivating everybody, I just feel like there were some guys who were just not mentally strong to hear all this stuff. Coach is just pushing to help them. I just told him, Coach, you’re good, sometimes they don’t take that. It’s just too much.”

No social media ban

When asked if he’s considered a social media ban for the team this season, Calipari joked that he called President Biden to see if they could, but said the players need to learn to tune out the clutter themselves.

“No. Because they have got to learn to live with it. And if you’re going to — here is what I’m always saying. The good stuff is poison. It’s poison. Don’t read it. You’re never quite as good as it seems and it’s never quite as bad as it seems. The bad stuff creates anxiety, so why would you read it? Why would you look at it? It’s hard. These kids are on their phones all the time.”

As for Calipari, he’s ready to tune it all out and coach his team.

“But all I can tell you folks is, I’m coaching this team. I don’t listen to the clutter, do not care, and when they, anybody out there wants to say, ‘You this,’ ‘You’re the worst,’ ‘You’ve got horns,’ ‘You’ve got this.’ You know what I said? I agree. Can I move on and coach my team now?”