John Calipari's advice: "We're not freshmen anymore... We've got to start smashing people"

by:Maggie Davis12/29/17

@MaggieDavisKSR

This season more than ever before, Kentucky has had to fight against fierce one-and-done critics. With a team whose core relies heavily on freshmen, inexperience was being used as an excuse for poor performances. And John Calipari was sick of it. "I said today before the game, we're no longer freshmen," Calipari said after the Cats' dominating 90-61 victory over rival Louisville. "I'm not saying it anymore - we're not freshmen now. We're 10 games in, 11 games in, we are not freshmen." And they listened to him. Today, for the most part, Kentucky did not play like freshmen. Sure, there were still the increasingly-frustrating missed dunks, and the team is still working on that defensive precision Cal wants. But Shai Gilgeous-Alexander emerged as a serious team contributor with a will to score today, finishing with a career-high 24 points. PJ Washington, Kevin Knox and Wenyen Gabriel secured seven rebounds each. No individual player had more than three turnovers. Kentucky finished the game at 80 percent from the free throw line. They out-rebounded the Cards 44-37. And Kentucky rejected the same number of shots as Louisville - who is ranked No. 2 in the country in blocked shots - with five rejections. For a team composed mainly of freshmen, they sure didn't play like it today. What was the difference? For Gilgeous-Alexander, it was Calipari's message that it's time to grow up. "Personally, one of the things that stuck out, before the game, Coach said we're no longer freshmen," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "We have enough experience to realize what's going on and put our foot on people's necks, and I think we did that today." Washington agrees. "We feel like we can play with anybody in the country," Washington said. "It's not about our age or anything. We can all play the game of basketball; we've all been playing for a long time. We've just got to keep playing our game and we'll be fine." In addition to telling his team he's through with calling them freshmen, Coach Cal had some more advice for his guys: "We've got to start smashing people. When you drop 11 in the polls, lose in a neutral game to UCLA, pretty good team, I thought we'd be out of the top 25 to be honest with you." Calipari wanted his team to "start smashing people," so what'd they do? They came out and crushed Louisville by a whopping 29 points. They bested the Cards in their field goal percentage, three-point percentage, free-throw percentage, points scored off turnovers, rebounds, steals and assists - just to name a few. Even with a 30-point lead, the Cats didn't let their foot off the gas. Nick Richards slammed a dunk with just 13 seconds remaining; PJ Washington subbed out of the game for the final time and immediately threw down the L's; Gilgeous-Alexander never stopped smiling. For the players as well as the fans, this win was fun. After the game, Gilgeous-Alexander laughed when asked if it was fun to finally roll over a team: "I guess blowing out a win is a little bit more fun than having a close one," Gilgeous-Alexander replied with a smile. I think the BBN agrees.

@MaggieDavisKSR

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2024-03-28