Tue Feb 09 2010
LEXINGTON – UK men’s basketball coach John Calipari has had more than a few players leave school before their eligibility was up, at both Massachusetts, and more notably, at his last stop, Memphis. And Calipari makes no apologies about it.
“If it were your son, and I kept your son (an extra year, so to speak) and he got hurt by staying (in college), how would you feel about me?” Calipari said recently. “Would you say, ‘Why did you have him stay when you knew he was going to be the 12th pick in the (NBA) draft? You told him you were going to improve his free throw shooting, for gosh sakes. You should have told him to go. Now he’s hurt and will never play again.’”
Calipari thought he was looking at such a player when he took the Kentucky job last spring and assessed the status of then sophomore forward Patrick Patterson. So Calipari had the kind of meeting with Patterson that he always has with his players after the end of a season.
“I’ll meet with my young men when the season is over and say, ‘Do you want to do what’s right for you and your family? Then you’ll put your name in the draft. If you want to do what’s right for ME and MY family, you’ll stay and we’ll win some games.’
“I met with Patrick, and I MADE him tell me the reasons he wanted to come back before I accepted him back,” Calipari recalled. “’You tell me why you want to come back, kid.’ And I was HOPING he’d give me good reasons, I want to tell you. And he told me he wanted to graduate in three years; he’d never played in an NCAA Tournament and he regretted that, and the third thing he said was, ‘I need to play in your style of game if I’m going to be a good pro. Because right now I’m playing under the basket, and I know I’m not good enough to do that at the next level.’
“Three pretty good, intelligent reasons, wouldn’t you say?” Calipari added. “So then I could tell him to come back. And he’s insured (against career ending injury). So he’s fine. Now let’s go have some fun.”
The fact that Calipari has assembled arguably one of the best collections of talent Kentucky fans may ever see wear blue and white has only affirmed to Patterson that he did the right thing.
“It makes it that much sweeter,” he said of his decision to return for a junior season, which – all parties agree – will be his last in Lexington. “To see everything we have in front of us this year, with all the players, great fans, great coaching staff and a chance for me to get a degree. It just makes everything that much sweeter.”
Patterson’s role under Calipari may not be THAT much different than it was under the previous coach, Billy Gillispie, though Calipari’s offensive system is radically different.
It’s a much more wide open, free to be yourself kind of game as opposed to Gillispie’s archaic plodding methods, where, if you didn’t succeed, it was always because you either weren’t tough enough or didn’t work hard enough. Which is, all together now, garbage, especially when it comes to someone who works at everything he does like Patterson.
“We’re playing him like a guard,” Calipari says of Patterson. “(But) He knows if the game is on the line, he’s going to be positioned underneath the rim. If we need a basket, he knows that. But he also knows he’s got to have a skill that he can play out on the floor, and he’s doing it.”
“I’m doing guard drills, perimeter drills ... not just post drills, trying to broaden my horizons with my ballhandling and my on-the-wing shooting,” Patterson said. “My jump shot is pretty much what has improved the most ... shooting the mid-range jumper. I’m also working on my quickness, and my defense and on my stamina and endurance.”
To the latter end, in particular, Patterson spent six weeks this summer in San Francisco at a camp that focused on strength and stamina, as well as basketball skills.
Patterson has always had a reputation as a hard worker, but he has apparently taken his work ethic to a new level this time around.
“You see how hard Pat works and even if you want to quit, you don’t, because he’s a leader,” says freshman center Daniel Orton. “You’re going to have to follow him, and the fact that he just plays so hard all the time and never stops. It’s something that makes you better, and you try to make him better every day.”
“Pat’s work ethic is unbelievable,” said another freshman big man, DeMarcus Cousins. “It’s like he never gets tired. Everybody on the team will be worn out and can barely walk, and then you’ll see Pat come in and get on the treadmill. I’ll ask him, ‘Aren’t you tired?’ And he’ll say, ‘No, I’m cool.’ He goes all day.”
“I’m really glad he decided to stay,” Orton added.
Calipari says Patterson “is even better than I thought.”
“Everything he does on the court amazes me,” Calipari said of Patterson. “He’ll be our leading rebounder, but he’ll also be a guy you say, ‘Wow, he’s doing things I did not see.’”
With nearly half the roster, six of the 13 players, newcomers, Patterson knows he will have to be more of a leader both on and off the court for this Wildcat bunch.
“I’m going to have to be even more of a leader than last year because we have so many newcomers,” Patterson said. “I have to do everything I can to help them in any way possible, whether it’s with plays, the coaching staff, on and off campus, anything on the court. I know I have to be an example and do my part and be the leader I know I can be.”
Patterson can’t wait for the Wildcats’ season opener Nov. 13 against Morehead State. That’s the first step in what should be a fascinating season for Kentucky.
Patterson is well aware of the fans’ lofty expectations for this particular team.
“I can see it in their eyes when they look at John Wall, or me or anybody else on this team, or Coach Calipari,” Patterson said. “We see in their eyes that they think this can be a special team. We know they expect a lot out of us, and we just want to get to work and hopefully win a national championship.”
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