LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The assumption was that Calipari did it on purpose. His ejection from Saturday's victory at Arkansas unfolded so strangely, with the coach simply pursuing referees further onto the court, and without histrionics, that it was an easy assumption to make.
Not so, said Calipari, speaking with Tom Leach on his weekly radio show. It won't surprise those who watched the game to learn that the ejection was not the result of a calculation by Calipari, but at confusion on the officiating.
"Everybody tries to give me way more credit than I deserve," Calipari told Leach. "That I did it on purpose. No, I didn't. I have to explain it, and I did it a couple of different times -- to the team after. I wanted the technical. There were three, four, five things that happened in a row, that there comes a point where you say unacceptable. I didn't like the way the game was going. I had to put Ashton (Hagans) back in the game with four fouls with 11 minutes to go. We had talked about zone and different things that we would be able to use, which we probably should've gone to earlier. The staff did a great job."
So Calipari, indeed, got a technical foul 8:19 left for arguing about an illegal screen called against E.J. Montgomery. Calipari saw two officials signal technical, and assumed he'd been ejected at that point.
"Both officials called a technical," he said. "Their coach thought I was gone. I thought I was gone. So, if I'm gone, I'm not just going to walk off the court, you're going to get a little extra in before you walk off the court. And that's what I did. And when he said, 'You're outta here?' I said, 'What are you going to throw me out of here twice?' Then they said, if they both call it for the same reason it's only one technical. I never heard of that. I've done this, I mean, 38 years. I've never heard of that. Two guys call a technical, that's two technical, I thought you were gone."
Whatever the case, Kentucky's players settled themselves down and regrouped. Among the key adjustments by assistant coaches Tony Barbee, Kenny Payne and John Robic were to go zone defensively, to insert Keion Brooks to give the Wildcats a bigger lineup, and to get the offense to create better spacing.
Kentucky went on to win 73-66 in a difficult place to win, especially under the circumstances.
"What I want to tell you, it played out good," Calipari said. "The staff, unbelievable. They kept everybody poised. But the biggest thing . . . how many times to I talk about the team needs to be empowered? It's got to be a player-driven team; it cannot be a coach-driven team. It can for a while. That (the ejection) was not by design, but we became a player-driven team at that moment. They told me in timeouts, guys were talking, calming each other down. I've never seen my team talk as much on defense. I'm watching, and I'm like, guys, this is now a player-driven team."
No. 15-ranked Kentucky will look to continue that momentum when Georgia visits Rupp Arena on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
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