John Calipari details thoughts on Joe B. Hall's 1-3-1

Kentucky head coach John Calipari used the legendary Joe B. Hall’s 1-3-1 defense on the opening possession of their game against Tennessee last Saturday. His Wildcats gave up two points, but it was two points Calipari is willing to live with.

“I waited and it was after the shoot around that we had [Saturday] morning, but I was going to do it knowing [Tennessee would] probably score a basket,” Calipari said. “But so what? On Senior night we put in every senior, we don’t care how long they can play.”

Coach Hall died Saturday morning and left not only the Big Blue Nation, but the basketball world as a whole in a state of mourning. All throughout the country coaches and players alike showed tribute to someone Kentucky fans see as royalty.

With Hall’s deteriorating health over the past couple years, he wasn’t able to be around the program as much as he had liked. Before hand, he was hanging out watching practice at the Joe Craft Center at least four days a week. He also joked around with Calipari about using his signature 1-3-1 defensive scheme.

Calipari wouldn’t budge even when other former coaches wanted him to implement it into his game plan.

“I’ve never used it at all,” Calipari said. “Seth Greenberg tried to talk me into using it and we would spend hours on the phone and then I wouldn’t use it, so I’ve never used it as I if as far as I can remember.”

That didn’t stop Hall from attempting to change the fellow Hall of Famer’s mind.

“[Hall] said ‘I coached my granddaughter’s sixth grade team and put it in and we went on a win streak.’ He told me that and I laughed, but that’s why I did it,” Calipari said. “And that’s why I was gonna [use it], I just didn’t want to give everybody [the idea] that we’re going to do it.”

During an interview on “College Gameday,” Calipari said he was going to coach against Tennessee with a rolled-up program in his hand, a Joe B. trademark. Calipari also said he didn’t have time to install it the 1-3-1 into the plan for the game. 

“If I had more time to do it. We play at 1 p.m. I don’t know if I could do that to the kids but I will have a rolled-up program.”

That, obviously, was a lie and the Wildcats did it, much to the adulation of the crowd on hand at Rupp Arena. Kentucky eventually routed their rival Volunteers 107-79 in a historic beatdown, something Hall would have loved to witness live with 20,000 of the people he loved the most.