What pressure? Coach Cal takes Kentucky bowling before dancing: "We're built for March. Let's go prove it."

Worried about the setback in Nashville derailing Kentucky’s progress after emerging as the hottest team in the SEC to close out the regular season? Don’t be. Rather than worrying about the SEC Tournament championship — Auburn won that inside Bridgestone Arena on Sunday — John Calipari took the Cats bowling when they got back to Lexington.

He entered the week minimizing the importance of conference tournament season, a take that wound up being overwhelmingly correct. It sucked leaving Nashville after a single day, but considering the first- and second-place finishers in the SEC were one-and-done losers and closed as first- and second-place finishers within the league on the official NCAA Tournament seed list, can you blame the approach? I criticized it immediately after the fact and feel dumb knowing Auburn, crowned champion of the league just a few hours before the bracket reveal, was rewarded with a potential Sweet 16 pairing vs. No. 1 overall seed UConn as a measly No. 4 seed.

Extra rest and a better draw? Fair enough. You win, Cal.

All of that is why he feels no pressure entering March Madness, just as he’s said all along.

“I don’t feel that, come on now. Come on,” Calipari said following the bracket reveal. “I’ve done this how long? And what’s the worst that could happen? It’s already happened to me. What’s the worst? (Getting fired), that’s the worst. I’ve already been through that. This ain’t about me, this is about these kids. That’s the reason I try to take all the pressure off them.

“If it were your child when we’re going into this or any other tournament, ‘We’ve got to win this, you’ve got to play your best.’ That’s how you want me to coach? Now there are people that can do that, ‘If they don’t do this or they don’t do that,’ they’re not fans of this program or these kids. What they’re trying to do is put more pressure on them so they don’t play well so they can double down on what they’ve said. I don’t buy into it.

“My job is to get them fresh and loose and then be focused and locked down when we practice. And then let’s see where it goes. I think I’ve got a good team, but they’re gonna have to go perform.”

So rather than watch the SEC Tournament semifinals and finals — he says he didn’t see any of it — he took his team bowling on Sunday.

“We did something funny today. Oh, it’ll make people mad. We took them bowling. ‘Ooh they took — why weren’t they playing in that championship?’ I took them bowling and we competed against each other,” he said, adding that a team of Kareem Watkins, Reed Sheppard, Grant Darbyshire and Ugonna Onyenso won. Tre Mitchell was the individual winner, scoring over 200 and telling the team after he kept his bowling talents a secret entering the day.

“All we did was laugh and joke. I just want them to be free and loose,” Calipari said.

From there, the team celebrated by watching a highlight tape of their best individual moments to show exactly what they’re capable of these next few weeks and everything they overcame to get to this point.

All of those “built for March” quotes throughout the regular season? Coach Cal stands by them.

Now it’s time to prove it.

“You know what we did downstairs? We watched an unbelievable video of our season and the games we played, the mountains we climbed and our unbelievable fans behind them enjoying it as the clutter was out there. ‘If they don’t and if they’ — let’s just play this tournament and let us all have fun,” he said. “If anybody has those things, ‘what if and what if,’ they’re not a fan. They’re trying to get this off point. I’m good, I’m like let’s go.

“I’ve done a lot of these. How many? I don’t even know how many games I’ve coached in the NCAA, but it’s been a lot. We lost way more — oh, no. We’ve done fine. I’m looking at this team saying what I’ve said for how many weeks? We’re built for March. Let’s go, let’s prove it.”

The SEC Tournament is weird. On one end, it’s something the fans pour their time and money into without much return on investment in recent memory. On the other, it does not matter when it comes to March Madness. It can punch you a ticket if you’re on the outside looking in as an at-large — looking at you, Oregon and NC State — but you’re not rewarded by winning the whole thing. If anything, you’re put at a disadvantage because the turnaround to the “real stuff,” as Calipari called it after the loss in Nashville, is quicker.

The players wanted to win the games for the fans and hated the early exit, he just didn’t want to add pressure on them to go bring home the trophy because he knew how meaningless that actually was in the grand scheme of things.

“When I watched the tape, I’m like, we’ll be alright. You know why? They never stopped fighting. They fought the whole game. Our fans should be excited about it. Now, I feel bad for the fans that went to Nashville to see this team. I feel bad,” Calipari said. “You should have been in the locker room after the game, dudes were in tears. Dudes were in tears. Anybody that tells you they don’t care about that tournament, you look at them and say, ‘You’re not telling the truth.’ They care, I just don’t put pressure on them. I say we’re playing for a seed.

“‘Don’t worry about the tournament, let’s play for a seed and win games.’ It’s how I’ve approached it. If we lose, what am I going to do? I take responsibility. I’m not trying to put this on these kids. Other people are because they’re not fans of ours. They’re trying to beat the kids down a little bit, they’re trying to get them to think, ‘What if this happens, what if that happens? Do you feel that you have to do…’

“They’re not fans of ours. Our fans are rejoicing, we have a heck of a team going into this. Hard draw, but there were a lot of hard draws in that thing.”

The only difference? Maybe a seed line, jumping from a No. 3 to a 2. They were the No. 11 overall seed as is, good for the third-best No. 3. Add another Quad 1 win to the resume and you’re in the conversation, potentially.

But considering how things unfolded? Yeah, hard to argue with any of it.

“If we could have gotten by that first one, I think we would’ve had a No. 2 just on what was happening,” Calipari said. “By losing, I thought we’ve done so much throughout the year, you can’t take away now and say, ‘Well this team won their last two, so they’re above you.’ Like an Auburn, who has played great, but we beat them pretty good at their place. That was two and a half months ago. No, that was a couple weeks ago.”

If you’re home, might as well go bowling before the real stuff starts.