Marshall head coach Dan D'Antoni both praises and pokes fun at Kentucky

The Marshall Thundering Herd’s head coach, Dan D’Antoni, gave a press conference on Friday that I didn’t know I needed. In short, the guy is an absolute character.

A news reporter for a station out of Huntington, West Virginia told me after the game that he has trumpets announce his entrance at home press conferences to make it as big of a deal as possible. While I couldn’t find any video evidence of this, based on the personality we saw on Friday, it checks out.

The first words out of his mouth were, “We got our butt beat.” While objectively true, what coach says that to kick off his media appearance? Here are some more highlights from a stellar 12 minutes behind the mic:

Praise for Kentucky’s offense

In his opening statement, D’Antoni then praised Kentucky’s offense while throwing some slight jabs at Calipari.

“They pass the ball around. They shoot it. I hadn’t seen Cal do that. I’ll give him his dues. He came into the modern times. Passing the ball, throwing it around, shooting 3s. Who is that? I didn’t know that was Calipari.”

This is, of course, what all the Basketball Bennies have been saying, so it is good to hear some validation from an actual basketball coach. D’Antoni went on to claim some familial credit for Kentucky’s style of play.

“[Kentucky] plays the way my brother started. You can thank my brother for your team.”

His brother is longtime NBA great Mike D’Antoni who rose to prominence by implementing the Seven Seconds or Less offense with the Phoenix Suns back in the mid-2000s with MVP Steve Nash at point guard. The premise of this philosophy was quite simply to work on getting a shot up within the first seven seconds of the shot clock.

“Kentucky is playing the way you should. It’s fun. It’s good for the fans. I’m not a fan of this sumo wrestling basketball. This is athletes moving the ball. Sharing it. They’re skilled. It’s fun to watch, win or lose.”

Fun. There’s that word again. Also, did he just call Oscar Tshiebwe a sumo wrestler?

“I’m not making excuses but…”

D’Antoni was adamant about how unprepared his team was for this game. “It’s hard to come off of three [games] of vacation, sleep one night, and come here to play.”

Marshall just got back from playing in the Cayman Islands where they went 1-2 in the originally named tournament, the Cayman Islands Classic. Most coaches wouldn’t call a road trip like that a vacation but it wouldn’t surprise me to hear they spent a lot of time on the beach.

He went on to say, “You act like I had time to prepare. We just got home…I looked at [Kentucky], but I’m not big on watching the other team.”

D’Antoni also lamented about how the transfer portal has decimated his roster.

“We got poached last year by people like y’all. You spent all your money. Okay, that’s fine. That’s the way the landscape is now.” He later got more specific. “We lost a guy [from last year] to Utah, a guy that’s now at Florida, one that’s at Misssissippi State. We only have one [returning] starter.”

Of note, no one on Kentucky’s roster played at Kentucky last year.

D’Antoni shares his Kentucky connections

Without saying his name, Dan D’Antoni gave a shoutout to John Welsh. “Kentucky has a workout guy, he worked out with me, not with me, but for the Nuggets. I know [their] workout guy.”

He later threw back to a not so recent Kentucky connection. “Do you know who my coach was in college? Anybody? Any of your Kentucky blue hards? Ellis Johnson. You ever heard of him? He was the first All American under Adolph Rupp. That was my coach. You see all these screens in transition? He had us doing that in the ’60s.

“You want to go the history books you Kentucky blue shirts. [Ellis Johnson] was a good man.”

The entire presser is worth a watch, which is something you don’t often hear about an opposing coach: