By JOSH NEWMAN
Kentucky head coach John Calipari addressed the media on Thursday morning in Lexington. His answer to the very first question echoed what a lot of college basketball fans thought as his Wildcats’ pursuit of a 40-0 season was stopped by Wisconsin in the Final Four.
“First of all, I never thought we were going to lose last year,” Calipari said. “When we won a couple of games and how we won them, and then what we did to West Virginia (a 78-39 Sweet 16 win), I just didn’t think we’d lose. It hurts because we had a chance, and even though we made history, we had a chance to be one of those iconic teams.
“I haven’t spent a lot of time reflecting, but the thing with this job is that stuff never ends. You’re always doing something. Even when I took some time earlier after the season, we were still in the throes of recruiting and I was on the phone, but it hurt us all. We all thought we were winning the whole thing. We thought we were going 40-0.”
Following the drubbing of West Virginia, Kentucky survived a scare from Notre Dame in the Elite Eight to move to 38-0, then fell to the Badgers in the national semifinals, 71-64, before seven players declared for the NBA Draft. Among those seven, Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Devin Booker and Trey Lyles are expected to be selected inside the first 20 picks on June 25. Towns is projected as the No. 1 overall pick by DraftExpress.com.
“Wisconsin at their best, they’re good,” Calipari said. “When you talk about teams last year: Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Arizona, us, Duke, maybe one or two more, maybe Michigan State, which was playing well at the end. Those were the teams and we had to go through most of them to get there. The hard thing about that tournament is one game someone plays out of their mind and one game you don’t play up to par.
“I don’t think there was anybody in the universe that didn’t think we were winning the game because we always did. It surprised me how we finished, but it happened. And you gotta give Wisconsin credit.”
Next season will look radically different for Kentucky, not just because of all the defections to the NBA, but how Calipari will manage the roster. He famously platooned last season with so many options, but Calipari has already said he will not do that again in 2015-16 season.
“No. 1, I had never done it, and so there were all kinds of things we were dealing with, and not just on the basketball court,” Calipari said. “You’re basically having to sell how we’re doing this and how it’s going to benefit each player, and it did. Karl-Anthony Towns got better and now he’s projected as the No. 1 pick. Willie Cauley-Stein got better. If we had played six or seven guys, could Willie or Karl have done what they had done? I don’t know. I do know this, we got better with the way we did it.”
Kentucky will open next season on Nov. 13 against the University of Albany. The Wildcats have a loaded non-conference schedule that includes games at UCLA, at Kansas, vs. Louisville and against Ohio State at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
