John Calipari, Kentucky planning to come back with a vengeance in the NCAA Tournament

Kentucky has seen its fair share of ups and downs this season. Still, the Wildcats, like every other team in the NCAA Tournament field, can’t afford any more downs. With that in mind, John Calipari wants his players focused on how they’ve responded after losses and criticism in order to start the final step of their campaign on the right foot.

Calipari wants his team to be the one that has ‘come back with a vengeance’ when they hit the court in Greensboro this week. He knows they lost again to make their stay a quick one in the SEC Tournament and is hoping to now see the team that has had some very loud answers to their disappointing failures.

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“That’s what we’re going to talk about right there. Every time we’ve taken a spill? The whole country jumps on us,” Calipari said. “It seems like they come back with a vengeance. That is the plan.”

“We got beat…Some of the games we got beat, it’s not like we got beat by a hundred. It’s a bucket here or a bucket there. You get beat. But learning how to win is a big part of this too,” said Calipari. “We’ve won some really good games against really good teams.”

If you look at Kentucky’s schedule, it doesn’t always make sense when piecing it together. Take their shocking January 10th home loss to South Carolina. After losing to Alabama by 26, they picked up a Quad 4 loss to the Gamecocks in Lexington. Then, four days later, they miraculously went to Knoxville and won short-handed against Tennessee. That ended up being the first victory of a stretch of six wins in seven games.

Do the exercise again after their 0-2 week against Arkansas and Georgia in early February. Those losses had everyone feeling as though everything was ready in the coffin besides the nail. Still, they found a way to rip off four more wins afterward, and five of their next six, to end up comfortably making the NCAA Tournament.

Double-digit losses aren’t exactly something that the Kentucky faithful appreciate very much. Still, all of this is to say that last week’s loss to Vanderbilt provides the Wildcats yet another opportunity to do something that they’ve proven to do well all season long – bounce back. It’s now on Calipari and his team to pull that rabbit out of their hat one more time starting with their matchup on Friday night against Providence.