Willie Cauley-Stein: "You want to be part of history" when you come to Kentucky

by:Jack Pilgrim•10/15/16
[caption id="attachment_208261" align="aligncenter" width="756"]Getty Images Getty Images[/caption]

After finishing with 12 points, five rebounds, and four steals in the 124-119 win over Washington, Willie Cauley-Stein touched on what it's like to be part of the Big Blue Nation, the impact Calipari is making on the entire college basketball world, and his return to Lexington.

Check out some post-game footage and quotes:

Willie first dove into his quote from Big Blue Madness last night, where he said "if you come to Kentucky, you're going to be a pro.":

On wanting to be "part of history" at UK, joining a long list of former Cats to make it to the NBA: When asked about those comparing the 2016-17 Kentucky Wildcats to his 38-1 Final Four team, he says if they want to come close, they have to have a similar family relationship among teammates: On Skal's progress with the Kings, along with his relationship with DeMarcus Cousins: "I think (Skal's) coming along good. It's a rookie grind. It's tough to establish yourself young, but he's doing that. It's nice to have him join DeMarcus and I. When I got here, it was with Rajon Rondo and DeMarcus, and with him this year, it's me and DeMarcus, so it's great to bring that Kentucky feel. I feel that DeMarcus really helped my adjustment in my rookie year, and I think I can do that with Skal this year." On not understanding Calipari's methods when he first got to UK: "When I got here, Cal made us sleep over at his house, constantly spend time with our teammates, and I didn't understand why that was. It didn't make any sense to me, especially when I had a tempur-pedic bed and my room 30 seconds away from the practice gym. But after we got so close, it started to all make sense to me, because we got so close to each other and our chemistry built like crazy. I didn't understand why we did some of the things we did at the time at UK. Now, you see that it was all about the family."   @JackPilgrimKSR

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