In a way, as Julius Randle went into beast mode and carried Kentucky back into the Michigan State game Tuesday night, John Calipari hoped his team wouldn't pull it out. In a way, he was glad his team lost.
“Probably the worst thing for this team and this staff would have been coming back and winning at the buzzer,” Calipari said. “I know it would've been great for TV.”
And great for the Kentucky fans, but not for the Wildcats. To effect change, a loss was needed, Calipari explained Friday.
“If you win, sometimes you look through all the stuff, and it's hard to get through to those guys,” said Coach Cal, who noted he felt ill for the better part of a day because of the loss. “The only thing that brings about change is a crisis. In this sport that I coach, it's a loss. You lose, there's a crisis. There's a crisis in the staff, there's a crisis on the team, there's a crisis in the program. We got to change this.”
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.