Hello HOB. I’m on the road tonight returning home from a funeral out of town. I’ll be listening to Cal’s weekly radio show but won’t have the summarized notes until later tonight. Just a heads up…
* Cal says it was good for the team to win a game in a tough place to play while not having their A game. They had to find a way to win. This team needed that.
* lineup of Wagner, Reeves, Sheppard, Mitchell, Onyenso was really dialed in at both ends of the floor late in the Arkansas game. That may be the main group right now then the game is on the line.
* Noted that Jordan Burks was outstanding at practice today. (he kinda seems like odd man out right now, so Cal may be trying to boost his spirits)
* Said they have had a lot of open guys in the offense that they aren’t finding lately, guys that they were finding routinely a couple of weeks ago. Said he made a point to stop practice and underscore when they were finding them today. “That’s what you should look like.”
* Cal said freshman G Rob Dillingham returned to practice today after his weekend illness and looked pretty good. Added nobody wants to play more than that kid, but if you saw him during shootaround, you could tell he wasn’t well.
* says we have a couple of games where we look as good as anyone in the country and a couple of games where we looked like we could lose to anybody. But if you’re paying attention to what’s going in in college basketball, everyone’s in that same boat. The team’s ceiling remains as high as you can get, but to get there they have to start taking positive strides forward every game, and that’s going to be a real challenge with the schedule they have coming up.
* Reeves is their best perimeter defender, which is a crazy turnaround from last year. Said they used to just try to put him on the worst perimeter guy and hope he’d be OK. Now he’s stronger, more physical, more confident.
* Ugo was the difference in that game, Cal says flatly. Thinks Burks can have a similar breakthrough.
* Reed looked like a deer in headlights at SC. Cal had never seen him like that since he got to UK. Started poorly vs ARK but difference was he took his coach’s advice, looked him in the eyes at halftime, and said “Coach, I’ve got this. I’m fine.”
* Cal would like to see his guys get off social media for the rest of the year. It’s too big a focus now for young people. Big difference between now and just back to when Tyler Ulis played.
* Caller says team just looks different when Reed is on the floor. Cal steers it toward a “but what about Ugo?” Ha. Classic Cal there. Good try, caller. But says that he still loves the energy boost Reed and Rob gives them coming in together.
* there were 6-7 more 3s to be had at Arkansas. Shows the team video of how they were available with an extra skip pass.
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