If time flies when you’re having fun, what does it do when your whole week consists of finals, waking up for 7 a.m. workouts with Rock Oliver and afternoon practices with a coach like John Calipari who is holding you accountable for everything you do?
Time slows.
After a week of no games and “Camp Cal,” Ryan Harrow, for one, is ready to get back to playing games again.
“A game tomorrow will be real good,” said a smiling Harrow. “We’ve been playing against each other all week and going through these hard practices, so we’re ready to take it out on somebody else.”
Kentucky will get a much-needed break from practice on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. to take on Lipscomb – UK‘s first game in a week – but after that, it’s another week off for more early morning conditioning sessions and afternoon tune-ups.
The only difference will be no finals next week and no restrictions on practice time. As Harrow described it, it’s “just basketball, basketball, basketball, really.”
All the basketball is starting to pay off, freshman guard Archie Goodwin said Friday.
“I think that we’re definitely getting a lot better,” Goodwin said. “(Coach) said it himself as well. We sense it, and just the way that practices have been going, it’s been helping us out a lot as a team and individually with all the work that we’ve been putting in. I feel a lot of confidence in us right now.”
Coach Cal acknowledged the increased confidence on Thursday when he tweeted to his 1.2 million Twitter followers that he was “really encouraged” by UK’s latest practice. He also said Thursday’s practice was the most fun his team has had in two months.
Calipari wouldn’t, however, go as far as to say it will make a difference in the upcoming games.
We will see,” Calipari said. “Demonstrated performance on that basketball court shows.”
Calipari used junior guard Jarrod Polson as an example. For most of the season, Polson was one of the guys not getting in the gym before or after practice. He’s been there lately, Coach Cal said, and it’s resulted in a different player.
“It’s not what I’m saying or not saying, it’s what he’s doing to build his own self-esteem,” Calipari said. “What we’re forcing them to do is be held accountable, we’re forcing them to get up early and work out, which is mental toughness, and that they’re held responsible for each other. That’s what I’m doing. We’re getting better, but you’ve got to go and perform on the basketball court.”
Calipari said his team may not get better, but it will be tougher – physically and mentally – his players will hold each other accountable and they will play through possessions.
“We just quit on our teammates way too much,” Coach Cal said. “Just quit. ‘It’s OK.’ It’s not OK.”
To illustrate giving up on possessions isn’t acceptable, Calipari has used the fear of 34-second suicides to not only hold individuals accountable but to force them to hold each other accountable. The way Coach Cal explains it, the players get so tired of running that they eventually speak up and start getting on each other to perform.
“I’ve had guys say to me, ‘Why should I run? Why are we running?’ Because we all lose,” Calipari said. “When he does that right there, we all lose, including you, so get on the baseline and run 34 seconds.”
If the players make the 34-second suicide but aren’t running hard enough, Calipari will cut the time to 33, 32 or even 30 seconds. Sometimes, Calipari said, it takes hitting “rock bottom” for people to change.
Listening to Harrow talk Friday, it appears as though Calipari’s idea is working. Harrow said the shared experience of doing something miserable together is forcing the players to come together and hold each other accountable.
“If one person slacks off while we’re working, it’s just going to make it that much harder in the mornings, so all of us have to work together to get it done and get out of there as fast as we can,” Harrow said.
UK is down from about 20 suicides per practice earlier in the week to 10, a pretty good indication that there has been improvement, but there is still a long ways to go, particularly with communication.
Calipari has been saying since the beginning of the year that his team is far too quiet, and he got confirmation Thursday from an undisclosed person watching practice that it was the quietest team he’s ever seen.
The lack of communication is a result of players worrying too much about themselves and doing their job and their job only, Calipari explained.
“If a team is a quiet team — even though those kids are good kids — they don’t understand that’s being selfish,” Coach Cal said. “They don’t know. ‘I passed the ball.’ It’s not about that. You’re into your own thing if you’re not communicating with your team.”
Calipari said he’s willing to “drag” his players and coach “effort, intensity, focus and concentration,” but the time spent doing that takes away from him teaching X’s and O’s and situations.
“He can (drag us), but until we do it, we’re not going to be the great team that we can be,” Goodwin said.
Goodwin, who called himself the most competitive player on the team, is trying to do the dragging by leading by example. He admits he needs to do more talking, but to do the dragging, he’s making sure he finishes first in the sprints.
“I don’t know if it’s I need to, but I choose to. … I do it because I want to,” Goodwin said.
In hindsight, Calipari said he wishes he would have been coaching his team like he is now earlier in the season, but the good news is he still has plenty of time to adjust. After the game Saturday, it’s back to “basketball, basketball, basketball,” unless of course the Cats need a little more running to get the point across.
“Early in the season, November, December is just, all I’m trying to do is learn about my team so I know what I have to do,” Calipari said. “Obviously, whatever I guessed early was wrong, so now we’re trying to readjust and they’re trying to readjust. It’s been tougher on them, but they’ve responded.”
Next Game
Alabama vs Kentucky (On time)
