|
Pre-Radford Media Opportunity
UK Head Coach John Calipari
On Anthony Davis’ scoring…
“He’s just got to get tougher right now, until he does that it doesn’t matter what
we do. He’s got to bend over and play an aggressive game. We throw him the
ball in the high post to drive the ball, but then again you have to be physical,
you have to bend over, you have to play through bumps. You’ve got to play in
an aggressive way; you have to bend over, which he is still learning. You just
have to bend, it’s not hard to bend those knees; if you are standing straight up
and down you have no leverage. Most guys are not strong from the waist up, but
from the waist down, that’s where they get their leverage. So if you are standing
straight up and down, you have no strength and then you have no balance and
then you look like you are flopping around out there. He’s doing great. He has got
to be stronger; he’s got to play lower.”
On playing through contact…
“The (Old Dominion) game got physical, Terrence (Jones) didn’t play through
bumps, Michael (Kidd-Gilchrist) didn’t play through the bumps. The only guy that
played through the bumps was Darius (Miller) and he got the ball wherever he
wanted on the court.”
On having six guys playing between 25 and 31 minutes…
“Probably need to be down a little bit in the time. But again, we just need to get
better acclimated with each other. I’ve got to do a better job with Marquis Teague
because obviously he is not understanding since he is not playing the way I want
him to so that comes back to me; because he is listening, and he wants to do the
right thing, so he’s obviously just not understanding so that comes back to me.”
On what this team will ultimately do well against the zone…
“I think we will drive the ball and shoot the ball well if you’re going to give us
those opportunities. We should rebound well, in a zone no one really has a man,
they have areas, that means you just go after the rebound. If you notice, late in
the game, all we did was throw it to the post, shoot it and go rebound and that’s
how we ended up being up 10, 11, 12 at the end of the game.”
On Marquis Teague…
“He’s got a ways to go; he has a long way to go. He’s turning it over way too
much. Most of them are of the variety, what’s the hardest thing I can do here
versus just throwing it to him. Just give it up early; he is taking one or two extra
dribbles before he passes. Again, I’ve just got to coach him, he’ll listen and
learn.”
On Darius Miller’s role…
“He may be starting; the way he played last game I may put him in the starting
lineup. Some guys went back to playing passive and they aren’t going to be on
the floor. The first three minutes of the game Michael (Kidd-Gilchrist) wasn’t
there, he didn’t play well. We have to keep looking as we go and we’ll figure it
out.”
On Darius Miller being OK with coming off the bench…
“They all better be OK with coming off the bench. That person has to be able to
come in and lift the game, his energy lifts the game. Whether it’s him or anybody
else who comes off the bench that is what you want. We won a few games with
him there but if he wasn’t on the court in the last game then we don’t win the
game. He’s been there; he’s done it on the national stage while these other guys
are still learning. We’ve got a good group; I like the team, I like their attitudes.
I think we had a little bit of a wake-up call, but a lot of it was that we didn’t do
a great job preparing for a 3-2 (zone). You can’t put that on young players, the
other side is, are we getting better each day?”
On what Radford’s game plan will be…
“If they watched the tape they’re going to try to be physical, they’ll play zone and
they’ll hold the ball. I just watched tape on them and they are a good enough
team to come in here and beat us if we don’t play our game but if we do, it will be
hard for them.”
Players
#23, Anthony Davis, F, Fr.
On blocking shots …
“It came pretty naturally. When I was short, I always wanted to go block shots.
I’ve seen other guys blocking and watched their form. I always tried but I was
too short when I was little. It just came naturally as I grew and I loved it. It’s all
about timing and knowing when they’re going to shoot. Wait for them to shoot or
else you can’t block the shot. You rely on timing. You keep working on something
and it’s going to come. You really can’t work on blocking players’ shots. It’s like a
natural ability to me, but you still have to work on it. I always tried to do it when I
was young and I was shorter. That’s why it came naturally.”
On improving his offensive game outside the paint …
“I think I still have a long way to go. Offense is really not designed for the bigs
to get the ball on the perimeter. So coach (John Calipari) incorporates that into
the offense now. He’s put bigs in the middle or at the perimeter to rotate the ball
and to take a hand off the dribble. So (coach Calipari) is giving us a chance to
showcase all our skills.”
#33, Kyle Wiltjer, F, Fr.
On coach Calipari’s thoughts on his toughness …
“He just wants me to get tougher every day in practice. He said I am going
against Terrence (Jones) every day. If I can defend him and rebound against him
then I can do it against anybody. He just really emphasizes working on getting
tougher. Getting tougher means getting a lot of rebounds and loose balls in your
area.”
On Anthony (Davis) going out with five fouls in the Old Dominion game …
“You have to always be ready to play. With players in foul trouble you especially
have to be ready. I’m just always going to be ready for when coach Calipari
wants to put me in.”
On learning more from the Old Dominion game …
“Most definitely, watching film from that game we definitely saw the things we
need to work on. They showed a lot of zone so I’m guessing coach is going to
work on zone offense a lot now. The thing we did better in the second half of
that game was attacking the gaps in the zone and not settling for jump shots.
It definitely shows us what to work on and it was a good game for us to play
because it shows we have a will to win, even though it was close we still pulled
out the win.”
On teams attempting to slow them down …
“We have to be ready for all sorts of things. When people don’t think they can
match up against us we will see all sorts of defenses. So we’ll just work every
day in practice to be prepared for that.”
On dealing with his minutes fluctuating early in the season …
“I was fine with it, I just try to stay positive and work hard every day in practice. I
don’t worry about my minutes I just worry about the team winning and we got the
wins so I was happy.”
|
