Calipari ready to play "any team, any place, any time" in case of COVID cancellations

As of now, Kentucky vs. Missouri tomorrow night is on. Although Cuonzo Martin tested positive for COVID on Sunday, there were no positives among the Tiger players. As we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, anything can happen, so John Calipari is doing his best to make sure Kentucky is prepared in case of future cancellations. He spent a good chunk of today’s press conference detailing contingency plans and calling upon the powers that be to relax the scheduling rules to keep the season on track.

“You’re down three games, you’re not making them up. And if there’s ten days or seven days you know you’re not playing and you’re not going to play those games, we need to just replace them. These kids need to play games. If both teams are healthy, if the officials are healthy, play the ball game.”

Kentucky has already plugged two opponents into the schedule due to COVID cancellations. The Cats played North Carolina instead of Ohio State and Western Kentucky instead of Louisville. In the midst of the scheduling chaos, Calipari also spoke to Gonzaga, Texas, and Ohio State about potentially playing games should an opponent drop out. He brought up those negotiations again today, telling reporters he’s willing to play “any team, any place, any time.”

“It may mean us adding a home-and-home for next year. It may mean having a game here where we’ve got to travel or it may mean a neutral game with Gonzaga in Chicago or Dallas or somewhere. But we need to play games. My career has been any team, any place, any time; that’s been who I’ve been.

“Now, when you have an arena that seats this many and you make as much as we make on home games, you’ve gotta play some home games. You’re not returning so that you take care of tennis and all the other sports programs. But it’s a case now, this is different. This happens and you’re missing two or three games in a row, there’s no space to make up those games. So, let’s play against who’s ready to play.”

Indiana “could be a possibility”

You can’t talk scheduling in the Calipari Era without someone mentioning Indiana. When asked if “any team, any place, any time” included Indiana, Calipari didn’t rule out a game vs. the Hoosiers but reminded reporters he’s proposed a neutral site game several times to no avail.

“That could be a possibility. Again, we’d have to look at both things. Where we would play it? I’m still — they had a chance, Indiana, to be in the CBS Sports Classic. They chose not to. We had a chance of playing in Indianapolis. They chose not to.”

Calipari added that with things changing by the minute or even second, there is no time for negotiations.

“When you’re doing this scheduling, you do it within 16-20 hours. It’s not like, okay, let’s negotiate. There is nothing. Here’s the game. Are we playing or not? Bang. We don’t play. Next. Here we go.”

So, unless Mike Woodson is willing to play at a neutral site, I’m guessing that answer is still no.

“We’re definitely the best team in the country when it comes to COVID protocols”

Every Kentucky player and member of the coaching staff is fully vaccinated and boosted. Because of that, Calipari says the team will only test players when they are symptomatic. He also said the team is keeping to itself in an attempt to mitigate the spread.

“If I go out, I go to games but I try to keep a mask on,” Calipari said. “Whether anyone else does or not, keep a mask on. I tell them, you have to mitigate. You’re together, you’re fine but you’ve got to mitigate other opportunities where you’re mixing with people.”

Both Jacob Toppin and TyTy Washington expressed confidence in Kentucky’s protocols.

“We’re definitely the best team in the country when it comes to COVID protocols,” Toppin said (in a statement that hopefully doesn’t come back to haunt us.). “Everyone’s healthy and we’re all doing the necessary precautions that we need to do so we can play games. And Coach always said, if there are games canceled, we’ll have other games. We’re going to have backups to our backups.”

“I think about COVID a lot,” Washington said. “It just changed everything. It changed the entire world. When I’m in my room, I think about little stuff like that. But as far as when it comes to the basketball standpoint, I’m fully vaccinated. So is our whole program. We all got the boosters so when we’re out there on the court, that’s our main focus. We’re not really worried about COVID or anything of that nature because we know we did what we had to do to be as safe as possible.”

Calling for more scheduling flexibility from the SEC

Last week, the SEC adjusted its COVID policy for the rest of the 2021-22 men’s and women’s basketball seasons. From now on, if a team has seven scholarship players and one countable coach, they must play. If not, the game will be rescheduled or declared a no-contest. The league could also follow in other conferences’ footsteps by adjusting quarantine times for asymptomatic individuals based on the CDC’s revised guidance. John Calipari wants to see more flexibility when it comes to scheduling from the folks in Hoover.

“Looking ahead, schedule-wise, the league would have to cooperate for us to add games. They would have to cooperate and say, ‘Okay, I see what you’re saying. There’s not going to be [rescheduled] dates.’ And we play more games.”

“Four league games are canceled. Alright, let’s play three other games or two, at least and there’s still room to add a team or two from our league. Or, maybe, two teams in our league are healthy, then you guys play. Let’s play it that way but I think we’ve got to be nimble and flexible because we don’t know where this is going.”

As for the NCAA Tournament, Calipari has faith it will happen, even if it’s back in a bubble.

“They’ll figure it out and we’ll have a tournament. We know the extreme would be a bubble. Extreme. I’m hoping it’s not that but my concern right now is my players, our program, that we’re getting better, that we’re mitigating, that we’re safe, that we’re not getting anybody else sick. Not just worried about us, I’m worried about, do we get it and give it to somebody else? So, we’re doing all the things that we’ve got to do.”