John Calipari

LEXINGTON - From what Kentucky coach John Calipari has seen, Auburn coach Tony Barbee has his Tigers playing harder than UK¿has been. That's why Calipari knows Saturday night's game against Barbee, who played and coached under him at Massachusetts, will be a difficult matchup for the Wildcats. “I love this team. We have so much upside. We are going to be in dogfights,” Calipari said after Tuesday's win over Tennessee. “We have to go to Auburn, Auburn is playing as well as anybody in our league right now, on the road, they are retiring numbers, it's Jersey Day, Cup Day and Bat Day in Auburn.

LEXINGTON - After three games freshman forward Alex Poythress is shooting 70 percent from the field and averaging a team-high 16.7 points per game along with 6.7 rebounds. Yet Kentucky coach John Calipari has been far from pleased with his overall play. Calipari says he can't “get Alex right now to buy into” how hard he has to play every possession. “He drove baseline and tried to one hand it,” said Calipari after Friday's win over Lafayette. “They block it, and he jogs back.

As soon as Kentucky beat Florida on Sunday, Bill Sacco sent a short text message - “first step down” - to Kentucky coach John Calipari . “They have the conference championship now, so that's over,” said Sacco, Calipari's former high school coach in Pennsylvania. “A national championship for him would be nice, and this looks like the group of kids that could do it. I do not want to put any pressure on them, but they could do it and it looks to me like they want to do it for him.” Kentucky is now 30-1 after Sunday's win at Florida and goes into Southeastern Conference Tournament play Friday in New Orleans ranked No. 1 in the nation.

LEXINGTON — Vanderbilt already has an 81-77 win over Kentucky this year and sophomore guard John Jenkins had a career-high 32 points in the victory. However, Kentucky coach John Calipari had a stiff warning for his players about tonight’s game here against Vanderbilt. “They’re playing better than they did when we were there. They’re a better team. Hopefully we’re a better team,” said Calipari. “But we played well there.” Kentucky didn’t win at Vanderbilt, though, because of three late turnovers and two shots DeAndre Liggins misses after the Commodores switched to a zone defense and dared him to shoot outside.

Even though he'll have a week to prepare for Saturday's Final Four showdown with No. 1 Kentucky, Louisville coach Rick Pitino wishes he had more time. “To prepare for Kentucky,¿I wish we had three weeks,” Pitino said Monday on a Final Four coaches' teleconference. “To play them it's not just a matter of preparing your defense to stop them, but you have to prepare your offense. They are equally good on defense. To get a young team to play that well at the defensive end all year is just a great job by their coaching staff.” Kentucky has been made an earlly 9 1/2 point favorite over the Cardinals, a team the Wildcats beat 69-62 on Dec. 31 in Rupp Arena.

LEXINGTON - Kentucky coach John Calipari has made it clear that he's not happy with NCAA rules that limit how much food a college athlete is allowed to receive. A story in The New York Times by Steve Eder detailed that NCAA regulations limit colleges to one formal “training meal” per day for their scholarship athletes. A few snacks - nuts, fruit and bagels - may also be provided, as well as some nutritional supplements like energy bars. Calipari posted at www.coachcal.com that all his players had lost weight during the first semester and that “part of the reason they've been so exhausted in practice and in games is their energy levels have been low” due to some of the players not eating enough.

HOUSTON — Perhaps no one understood more what the journey to the Final Four meant to Kentucky coach this year more than Bob Marcum, the former athletics director at Massachusetts when Calipari coached there. For the last two seasons, Marcum has been at every NCAA Tournament game the Cats have played. He always sits in the first row behind the Kentucky bench and has free access to everything the Cats do on the road because of his friendship with Calipari. “I just think it is unbelievable what this season meant to him. He knows how much work has been put in on this team, but he believed in them for a long, long time,” said Marcum.

Kentucky coach John Calipari said he gave freshman Archie Goodwin  "the information, what was out there, what we were told" before Goodwin put his name into the NBA draft. "We sat down and talked to him and he came back and said he wanted to put his name in the draft and we said, 'Great, let's go for it,'" Calipari said Wednesday. "I'm not going to sit here and give you everything I said or my opinion because I don't think, it's fair but they get everything they need and whatever decision they make - I've been on the phone right now with probably five or six NBA teams about Archie.

Does John Calipari have to win a national championship to keep University of Kentucky fans happy? If you listen to some national media members, or even some in Kentucky, the answer is yes. But why? Calipari has a 98-14 record in three years at Kentucky going into Friday's NCAA Tournament South Regional semifinal matchup with Indiana. His first team went to the Elite Eight and was upset by West Virginia. Calipari somehow revitalized the Kentucky program from the depths of the Billy Gillispie debacle immediately by bringing in a recruiting class headed by John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins.

LEXINGTON - If there's one thing Kentucky coach John Calipari knows he won't do this week, it's feed the UK-Louisville rivalry hype. “Our fans may be. Our fans feed everything. Let me just say this. Our fans eat everything. They are piranhas. If you have an agenda, and you write a story that is agenda-driven, they will take out everything you have written and prove it wrong and then look at your background and look at what you've done,” Calipari said Tuesday. “If you are going to attack Kentucky, just be right.