Hello HOB. Hope everyone is having a great New Year so far. Hard to believe we're already eight days in. Seasons seem to fly by when you've got a fun team like this one. We'll be following along with the Coach Cal radio show again tonight. I'll share the major talking points here for those of you who may not be able to listen in live. Show starts at 6 ET...
* Big key at Floria was hanging in there with them on the glass. The offensive glass is where FLA really excels, and the Cats held their own.
* Rob Dillingham was awful in the first half. "I mean reallllllllllly bad," Cal stresses. Every pass was a hero pass. Cal talked to him at halftime and said, I'm sticking with you. Just do the easy play. He found Reed at the end. Big play. Easy play. Aaron Bradshaw was SEC Freshman of the Week after playing an awful first half himself. That tells you it doesn't matter how you start, you have the ability and mindset to switch it and play better. Past teams may have started bad an not had that ability to hit the switch, the mental toughness. These kids will battle and fight.
* Didn't pass it to each other like they have been. Part of that was not making shots they'll usually make and letting that affect them. Good to win that game, kinda lucky, while not shooting the ball as well as they should.
* Praised DJ for attacking the rim, keeping pressure on the Florida defense with his ability to drive.
* Ugo gave them a lot in the time he was out there. Did not really draw up those offensive plays for him. Laughs about the long one that he threw in.
* Adou Thiero was unable to practice today. He remains day-to-day. But one man's issue is another man's opportunity, and Ugonna Onyenso is taking advantage.
* On Big Z... I'm anxious for this to happen for him. (Interesting. Sounds kinda optimistic.) People were saying there was no way he'd return after he went home for the holidays. He did. Because he wants to be here. Preparing him as if he's going to play.
* Says Tre Mitchell lost 11 pounds during the Florida game. Really hard to play in that humidity. You can lose 6-7 on a typical hot game like that, but gets dangerous when you lose that much.
* On improvement on OB plays... A lot of it is going thru Tre, so you have a real basketball player heading it up. Also doing some new stuff on them. When you have a bunch of guys who can all dribble, pass, and shoot, you can do different things.
* Mizzou will do some trapping they haven't seen yet, so have to be ready for that.
* Young caller asks Calipari why he doesn't start Reed Sheppard. Cal responds, "Richie isn't on the team anymore." Young caller, "No, I meant Reed Sheppard." Cal with a great joke that went right over his head. In fairness, Richie played about 3 lifetimes ago for him. 😆
* Caller wants to know how many FTs they shoot per day, and if the team can get to above 80% ... Cal says depends on who's shooting them. They do a drill every day where everyone has to get 10 in a row at least once. They have another drill where they try to get to 25. If they're doing a specific shooting drill with guards, sometimes the bigs will go over and just focus on FTs for a period. In the end, Cal says, if you have good FT shooters, you'll be a good FT shooting team." Ha.
* On Reed's late foul... Cal jokes he was telling them to put their hands in their socks, but that's what happens with young players. Then told a story about how they had a coach once in his playing career where they had to tape bricks to their hands because he didn't want them ever putting their hands down on defense. "You probably couldn't do that these days." Ha. Cal's on a roll tonight. Goes on to say it was just a reactive impulse from a competitive kid who gets his hands on a lot of balls.
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