Even if his team was billed as the top team in the country to start the year, and even if there were beliefs that his team could go undefeated, don't tell John Calipari that his 10-loss group failed to meet expectations.
“It wasn't disappointing,” Coach Cal said.
But he didn't mind people talking about the disappointment when his players were struggling because “that's what they had to hear.”
“They had to hear how bad they were as players, how selfish they were,” he said. “(People said), ‘They're not together. This isn't a team. You can't do this. This is what's wrong.' They had to deal with that.”
Calipari seemed to hint that the criticism brought his team together, and after hitting rock bottom against South Carolina, it appears to be true.
Walter Cornett, of Glendale, Kentucky, is the owner and operator of Walter's Wildcat World. He founded WildcatWorld.com in 1998 making it one of the oldest Kentucky basketball fan sites in operation today.