Coach Cal Notes and Quotes: Georgia 2.0

Coach Cal took a break from his burgeoning bromance with Larry Brown today to talk about Georgia, where he stands on the potential new arena, what he did on his bye week and also, a lot of Larry Brown... - When asked if he'd seen any improvement over the past couple weeks in regards to the team's overall lack of toughness and the interior deficiencies that were so obvious in Athens, Cal said, "This is the team that really damaged us, so let's see in that time frame if we got better. We'll either say after the game, 'Boy, we got better' or we're going to say, 'We're the same guys.' It'll be one of the two." Here's to the former and a dominant performance by KSR's new favorite centaur. - Cal also addressed the question of where he stands on Rupp renovation versus a totally new arena by saying that he expects Kentucky to be the "gold standard" in every aspect of college basketball and that includes the arena. Jim Gray, if you see this, read "gold standard" as brand new, fantastic and amazing basketball emporium. - When Cal wasn't hangin' with Coach Brown or skirting around arena questions, he was enjoying his bye week in true Cal fashion. He went recruiting on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and they had practices Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. During practice he put the focus on our guys saying, "I'm working on my team. I'm not worried about any other team." - Even though he wasn't worried about them, Cal did address the top Bulldog with very high praise for Trey Thompkins, "He's a veteran...He puts himself in great positions to score... He's a good player." Cal also lauded his ability to hit outside shots, work the pick and roll and connect from the free throw line. Not to neglect our team, Cal noted Josh Harrellson's deft hand at frog gigging. - After he had the game prep pleasantries out of the way, Coach gushed about his new favorite man: Larry Brown. Even though Cal clarified that Larry was "here for me", he gave the players the option to talk to Brown on their own and he said a few of them had done that. Hopefully, the topic was how to best steal money in the NBA. The Knicks and Bobcats can back me up on that one. - Also when asked if Brown would be the Y during the Georgia game Cal said, "I don't think so, he's such a Carolina guy." A shame. That's all I got, folks. We've had to wait a whole week but it's almost game time. Let's avoid that sweep. Go Cats