Cal says the team will practice HARD today
John Calipari knows Thursday’s game will get physical. Last night, he told Tom Leach that today, he is putting his team through a hard practice to prepare them for a “rough house game.”
“We are going to practice hard tomorrow. Normally late in the year, I’m not going to do this, but this game coming up, it’s going to be a rough house game,” Cal said. “You’ve got to be prepared or you’ll get knocked out in the first five minutes. I mean literally. We’ve got to go hard tomorrow.”
Cal said that on Monday, he showed both Devin Booker and Trey Lyles tape of themselves in hopes it will help them clean up their games, and in Devin’s case, get him back on track.
“We showed tape to Devin of how he was shooting the ball, showed Trey of himself. Both of those guys, ‘Here’s the best version of you what it looks like.’ Sometimes guys get a little sloppy and it’s not just in their head. They get a little sloppy and you’ve got to tell them ‘look at when you were right, look what it looked like.'”
For the record, Cal’s not concerned with the Cats’ poor shooting percentages over the weekend. In fact, he spun it as a positive because he’s Cal.
“I’m not worried about our shooting to be honest with you. I’m really not. What’s great is, you shoot 37% and win by double digits. We could have won by 20, you know that,” Cal said. “That tells your team there’s no pressure on you to make shots. We can win when we’re missing most of our shots if you’ll defend, rebound, and play together. Make your free throws, don’t turn it over much. That’s what you want them to feel.”
11 Comments for Cal says the team will practice HARD today
I bet they have a good fluffer to pull this one off.
Jokes aside, this is going to be a good week for players like Hawkins and Lee to simulate the press in practice. I think having the ability to send a team of 5 out there that can battle is a big advantage especially with a half week to prepare.
It’s not great but here is John Robic in photos of Walsh Cavaliers. I will never, ever get this time back, BUT it is on company time.
Page 139: Team photo
Page 140: Robic and his hair looking on from the bench
141: Again- looking on from the bench
http://cdm16722.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p167
I think Lyles has been playing great. Maybe Cal needs a little more.
Bottom line is if Booker starts hitting at the pace he was earlier in the year, it’s lights out for everyone else in the tournament. If not, we can still win it but we might be in for some uncomfortable moments in games.
not to hate on Booker, but:
Beginning of season:
21 games, 39/77 (50.6%) from 3, 26 assists/ 14 turnovers
Last 15 games:
15 games, 15/56 (26.7%) from 3, 15 assists/21 turnovers
slump or hit the freshman wall or what? I mean you can’t expect a guy to hit at a 50% clip for an entire season, but there’s been a few airballs in there
You do realize that is 40% from the 3 pont line for the season, right? Anyone who expects mor ethan that has unreasonable expectations. Even Tony Gwynn went 3 games without a hit occasionally.
I like the comment, “Make your free throws”.
This will be a factor in our next game.
Cal has, unfortunately, lost 2 National Championships because his Teams couldn’t do this well…
Yeah, but unless things change drastically this is not much of a concern. This team has been very good on FT shooting this year. Even our bigs, with the exception of Marcus, are shooting very well from the line.
Just be careful guys. Don’t want anyone getting hurt at this point in the season.
agree man. makes me a bit on edge to have a “knock down drag out” practice. nobody gets hurt.
This is the kind of game where or depth will really come into play…And not so much in the game itself, but in the practices leading up to it. No other team in the country is better equipped to simulate WVU’s press than Kentucky. We may not be able to wear them down like we can other teams, but we’ll be well-prepared, and we have multiple quality ballhandlers. I just think their gimmicky press will work against them…Assuming Huggins doesn’t change something up.