Tennessee rallied from a 17-point second half deficit to upset 6th ranked Kentucky at Rupp Arena Tuesday night, ending the Wildcats eight game winning streak.
Below is everything John Calipari had to say about the loss and what the Wildcats do moving forward.
Q. How alarming, if at all, is it to have a late game performance like this, this close to post-season?
JOHN CALIPARI: Any time you’re up 17 and there’s whatever it was left, the game got physical and we couldn’t compete. It just got physical. We tried different ways to try to score and we just, we had nothing. Couldn’t throw it to the post. Tried to open up the court, wasn’t getting by people.
But give credit to Tennessee. They could have gone away down 17, but that’s Rick Barnes, I mean, he’s a terrific coach. He never wavered. He kept telling them. (John) Fulkerson killed us, obviously. We tried some different things. There was a couple where we were trying to trap, and guys didn’t go down. We’re like, Why didn’t you go? I mean, there was a lot of stuff, but, you know, you’re trying to win every game, but it’s crazy, you just don’t. And you have a dud like this, but don’t make it about us. This is about Tennessee and how they played. They played physical, they went at (John) Fulkerson, (John) Fulkerson caught every ball, we caught none in the post. He then scored 27, made his free throws. And they made some unbelievable shots, some threes when they needed to. They just kept coming. We had our chances. It was a couple minutes to go and it was anybody’s ball game.
Q. You’ve coached against (John) Fulkerson for three years now, how much different is he as a player than what you’ve seen before?
JOHN CALIPARI: He’s just gotten better and better. He works really hard he fights for everything and he has a way of getting that shot up and off, I mean, he does. And he scored on Nick (Richards), he scored on Nate (Sestina), he scored on EJ (Montgomery), we tried everybody. We tried trapping, we tried a lot of different things to slow him down, but he was a tough cover for us.
Q. What did you make of, I don’t know what was being said, but it looked like Ashton (Hagans) and Nick (Richards) several times down the stretch were kind of going at each other after plays.
JOHN CALIPARI: Neither one played particularly well, so probably telling each other, You’re not playing well, and neither are you, neither are you, neither are you.
Q. Did you have any concerns about body language there? It seemed like guys were slumped shoulders —
JOHN CALIPARI: Mine or theirs?
Q. Either.
JOHN CALIPARI: Yeah, look, you — we have been on a heck of a run. This team has done a lot of good stuff, and the one thing we worry about is if the game is going to be physical, like, Nick’s (Richards) getting, you know, then we have got to learn to play in these kinds of games. You have a lead — we came out of a timeout or I had to call one, we’re running a play to try to get something near that basket, we take a jump shot. Like, just shoot it. Like, What? And again, for all the guys, if you want that thing near that rim, just ask for it, we’ll throw it to you. So, it was total. I mean, again, you have a 17-point lead as a coach, you should win the game. Come on.
We got manhandled, I got manhandled. It was, this is one that, you know, I know I got to watch the tape. I’m not going to look forward to watching this tape, but you got to watch the tape. Now we got another tough one. We go to Florida.
Q. Along those lines there were a couple three rebounds that Tennessee got offensive rebounds, put backs late. Was that just an effort thing or what did you see there?
JOHN CALIPARI: Well, we fumbled, I think, two that were in our hands. And, again, when it gets physical, you’re not looking at the ball. You’re looking at who is hitting you. And I’m not saying there was a foul. I’m just saying you got to learn to play through that. And then when we did rotate, we didn’t, our guards didn’t crack down. There was a lot of breakdowns. I’ll have to watch the tape. And what I told them after, You got to learn from this, guys. You let go of one. You got to learn. And you got to take responsibility yourself and how you played. But they’re all tied to each other and I’ve said that all season. There’s two things: If we don’t play physical, we’re not going to win. We won’t advance. Second thing is, this team is tied to each other. So, when one or two of the guys don’t play well, it affects everybody. And here’s what I would say, playing well doesn’t mean you are shooting all the balls and making them. No, it means you’re fighting, you’re connected defensively, you’re coming up with loose balls and rebounds, you’re covering for each other, you’re talking. When we do that together, we’re a good defensive team, we’re a pretty good offensive team. When we don’t or a couple guys don’t play well, it’s a hard deal. I tell you the other guy that was pretty good was Keion (Brooks Jr). Keion did some good stuff. And one thing you do as a coach, you — normally when things are happening, you’ll go with guys that you know have been in those situations and have made those plays even though they’re struggling. You’re thinking they will bust through. Then when you had to do it over again, you would say, If I would have known this, I would have said I’m going with these two. But you don’t know that. You don’t know. The normal situation for me is I would go with the guys that got you there and hope they bust through and really, they didn’t. But let me say this, don’t take tonight’s — to come in this building and do what they did, Tennessee, come on now. To come in this building, be down 17 and come back and win? And I hate to tell you, win going away. Come on now. That means they beat us by 25 in 15 minutes. But they could have beat us by 50? I mean, that’s — give them credit.
Q. You guys have had several games this year where you had a 10-, 15-point lead and let teams back in but still won. Can your guys learn something different from not escaping that situation and having it actually come back on them?
JOHN CALIPARI: If you’re not willing to play physical, you’re not winning. You’re going to get in games and there’s going to be, they’re going to let it go. Now, you can, He’s pushing me, I don’t know what to tell you. The second thing is it’s the same coming off screens, going to the basket for layups, it’s physical. Can’t miss layups based on the fact that, Well, the guy came at me and bumped me. They didn’t. They made them. We missed them.
