LEXINGTON, Ky. — John Calipari sounded pumped up.
The Kentucky basketball coach was on a Zoom call Tuesday with the local media, his first such give-and-take with the fourth estate in quite awhile. But then we hadn’t seen much of or heard much from Calipari over the summer months. Turns out, there was a reason for that.
Cal had COVID-19. Rumors of that circulated when the coach didn’t show up for the NBA draft, as has been his custom, and also missed some of the summer recruiting camps. Tuesday, Calipari confirmed his diagnosis, saying he tested positive despite being vaccinated. The coach said he had only mild symptoms but did quarantine.
Why did he wait until September to go public? Cal said he didn’t want to discourage people from getting the vaccine. OK, but as a high-profile public figure, Calipari’s case could have served as an early warning to people that even if you get the vaccine, you are not completely safe. With the delta variant, you can still contract a breakthrough infection. Be careful. The difference, as Calipari stressed Tuesday, is that if you are vaccinated and test positive, you are much less likely to become seriously ill or require hospitalization.
(Personal plea: Get the vaccine.)
So maybe health reasons are why Calipari sounded enthusiastic on Tuesday. Or maybe he’s just glad to get back to basketball. You know, normal basketball, unlike the poor imitation we saw in 2020-21 with no summer workouts, a truncated training camp and, well, very few victories. Not that you need to be reminded, but the Cats were 9-16 last year. In men’s basketball.
“I’m moving on,” Calipari said Tuesday.
Summer workouts are back. From his office overlooking the practice floor at the Joe Craft Center, Calipari said he doesn’t see one or two players working out at a time; he sees six or seven at a time. He reported that the team is bonding, doing the things he wants his team to do heading into fall practice in October.
The cupcakes are back. Last year, the pandemic didn’t afford Kentucky the non-conference guarantee games the Cats use to build confidence on the always new roster. This year, there are plenty of those team-building opportunities, especially at Rupp Arena. There are way too many in my view, but Cal didn’t sound Tuesday like he’s budging off his scheduling stance. Instead, he claims those in the know tell him the SEC will be tougher than ever in 2021-22.
That might well be true, but Calipari’s Cats will be better. It wasn’t just COVID-19 that knocked last year’s team off stride. There were deficiencies in areas where Cal’s teams are not normally deficient. He appears to have addressed those abnormalities, mainly through the transfer portal. Kellan Grady (Davidson) and CJ Fredrick (Iowa) bring perimeter shooting. Sahvir Wheeler (Georgia) brings point guard experience. Oscar Tshiebwe (West Virginia) brings muscle.
Then there’s the staff shake-up. With Orlando Antigua’s return and Chin Coleman jumping on board, UK’s recruiting appears to have regained momentum. When asked about that, Calipari responded that he believed every one of his recruiting classes at Kentucky were either ranked No. 1 or No. 2 by the gurus. He then conceded the original point.
“My best teams, we had a really good young team,” Calipari said Tuesday, “but there was veteran leadership within the team.”
His 2021-22 team should have that, from returnees and newcomers. Keion Brooks is entering his third season as a Cat. He knows the ropes. Grady, Fredrick, Wheeler and Tshiebwe have veteran experience in high-level college basketball.
Will they mesh? We’ll see. But they have a much better chance of doing so now than a year ago, what with an actual summer and the promise of a closer-to-normal fall and an early schedule — after the Champions Classic opener against Duke, of course — that will allow the head coach the ability to experiment and figure some things out.
“That’s going to be a blip on the screen,” Calipari said Tuesday of last season. “I’m like, ‘OK, let’s go, let’s get this started.’ ”
