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Kentucky coach John Calipari talks to the media after his team’s 69-63 win at Vanderbilt.

Before Friday’s practice, John Calipari talked about breakfast in bed for his birthday, Vanderbilt, John Jenkins possibly going “12-for-12″ from three, and the apparent plot by some UK fans to disrupt Vanderbilt’s GameDay.

A three-spot from the just-completed John Calipari media opportunity:

1. Happy Birthday: The UK head coach turns 53 today, but he joked that two of his years had been vacated so he is actually 51. He said as is Calipari family tradition he received breakfast in bed this morning. That was about it for the birthday banter.

2. Vandy’s GameDay day: Told about a supposed UK fan movement to spoil Vanderbilt’s appearance on GameDay on Saturday morning, Calipari said he was hearing of this for the first time. After hemming and hawing a bit, he said, “If our fans are ruining their day, don’t do it. If that’s Vandy’s day, don’t do it.”

3. The late show: Calipari describes most every game “as a hard game,” but he may mean it a little more this time. One of the more difficult things may be the fact that this is a 9 p.m. away game on a Saturday. Cal said the team will visit Memorial tonight just to get a look around, then it will go together to a movie. There will be a short meeting afterward in Calipari’s room. He said he will let them sleep until 10 or so in the morning. The team will eat, have a shoot-around, have the pre-game meal (without the head coach) and then it’ll be gametime.

(H-L photo)

Check out the Herald-Leader fans gallery from the UK-Florida game.

Big Blue Links for Thursday:

• Players stepping up as Cats are clicking, writes Aaron Smith of Kernel.
• Kidd-Gilchrist a virtuoso again, writes Matt May of Cats Pause.
• MKG excelling in all areas, writes Jordan Schultz of Huffington Post.
• Davis making case to be nation’s No. 1, says Jake Curtis of Chronicle.
• This is Calipari’s best team, says my notes column.
• After flattening Florida, UK looks for challenge, writes Jerry Tipton of H-L.
• Basketball stats to get ready for Vandy, from Herald-Leader.
• Kidd-Gilchrist gives Davis a soothing feeling, says Sun’s Keith Taylor.
• Teague now knows UK is “my” team, writes Larry Vaught of A-M.
• Teague keeps improving, writes Jon Hale of KyForward.

Kentucky coach John Calipari talks to the media after his team’s 78-58 win over Florida.

Notables and quotables from John Calipari’s media opp this afternoon, with the video clips after the jump:

- Even with Kentucky playing Florida and Vanderbilt this week, the UK coach said he is just worried about his team’s improvement. “We’ve just got to keep getting better,” he said. Given the way the Cats have played of late, there was some discussion today about a team peaking too early.

Cal said he does believe in that notion. He said that when a team gets off to a great start, he can think, “No way they can sustain this, there’s just too much road between now and the end of the season.”

- Florida leads the nation in made three-point shots per game. The Gators are making an average of 10.5 per game. “They’re going to take 30 however you guard it,” Calipari said, adding the line he has said before about the opponent makes 20, then it’s been a good start, time to move on to the next game. The most threes Florida has made in a game this season is 15 (of 27) against UAB.

Another Cal quote on threes: “You cannot stop a team from shooting threes.”

Continue reading ‘Notes, quotes and Calipari video from UK media opp’

Audio from today’s SEC basketball teleconference:

• Florida’s Billy Donovan talks about Tuesday’s game at Kentucky.
• Kentucky’s John Calipari talks about this week’s games against Florida and Vanderbilt.

Post-game videos from Columbia after Kentucky’s 86-52 win over South Carolina.

Kentucky coach John Calipari, plus players Terrence Jones and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist

South Carolina coach Darrin Horn

Before Friday’s practice, Kentucky coach John Calipari talked to the media about Saturday’s game at South Carolina.

Post-game video from the two head coaches after Kentucky’s 69-44 win over Tennessee on Tuesday night.

UT coach Cuonzo Martin talked about how Kentucky set the tone early. He also referred to UK center Anthony Davis as a player who “comes along once-in-a-lifetime.”

When told of Martin’s comments, Kentucky’s John Calipari said he had already had one of those players — Marcus Camby at UMass — and he hoped to have a couple of more in his careers.

Click the continue line to watch the videos.

Continue reading ‘Videos: John Calipari and Counzo Martin post-game’