John Calipari tweets plan to fix Kentucky basketball after historically bad start to season
It has been a while since Kentucky basketball fans have seen their team get off to such a slow start. Twenty years, in fact.
For the first time under John Calipari, the Wildcats are 1-3, their slowest start since 2000. After a comfortable season-opening win over Morehead State, the Wildcats have dropped games to Richmond and Kansas before a blowout loss at Georgia Tech on Sunday. It resulted in Kentucky dropping out of the top 25 on Monday after being ranked No. 10 before the season began.
On Monday, Calipari expressed optimism that his team would be able to turn it around, noting that the team needed to improve its mental approach while cutting down the number of turnovers it commits. Sloppy play was a huge theme on Sunday as Josh Pastner’s group converted 21 Wildcats turnovers into 33 points.
We start our yearly in-season camp tomorrow morning and we will be focusing on two things – TOUGHNESS and TURNOVERS – for three sessions every day.
We cannot play for 30 minutes. We need 40 minutes of fight.
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) December 7, 2020
We are talented enough and good enough to win. Now we have to be tough enough to fight through every possession and to make the easiest plays to lower these turnovers.
I haven’t lost faith!! Tomorrow is day one!!
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) December 7, 2020
The good news for the Wildcats: as rough as things have been early on, it can only go up from here as they take on Notre Dame on Saturday in hopes of snapping their 3-game losing streak. But if they don’t figure things out quickly, things could turn much uglier.
We’ll see moving forward if Kentucky’s young squad can put the pieces together and make a run at another SEC regular-season title.