Kentucky needs a leader, but does this team have one?

by:Mrs. Tyler Thompson02/10/18

@MrsTylerKSR

Kentucky’s got a lot of problems right now, but the most glaring to John Calipari is leadership, or rather, lack thereof. In the wake of his team’s 85-74 loss to Texas A&M — their third straight — Calipari said that for his team to turn things around, someone must stand up and take charge, and it can’t be him.

“Not right now,” Cal said when asked if there’s a leader on this team. “They need it from me and you can’t have it from [a coach]. You guys know how I am. This has got to be an empowered team and you’ve got one guy playing well (Reporters: “Shai”).”

Kentucky was down by as many as 23 in the second half, but managed to cut that deficit to single digits late in the game; unfortunately, yet again, it was too little, too late. Calipari admitted that he’s tired of waiting around for one of his players to take control.

“Been in this situation a couple of different times at Kentucky. You know every team we play is giving us their best shot. When we get this, we’ll bust through, but it’s getting old right now and it’s getting — each week that goes by, it gets harder and harder to get this thing where you want it to go. At some point, you’re right — you’ve gotta have somebody step up and say hey, enough is enough.”

The worry is, that guy may not exist because they’re all too wrapped up in their own failures.

“Right now, I’m not sure we have that guy and the reason is, it’s hard to talk when you’re not playing well. It’s hard to talk when you’re saying, the guy won’t fight until the game’s down 14 and it’s hard to be that guy to say anything in those meetings.”

With six games left in the regular season, there’s still time for someone to step up, but the clock is ticking.

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