{"id":85380,"date":"2025-03-12T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/john-calipari-defends-controversial-sec-tournament-take-should-be-a-lot-of-guys-not-caring\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T22:00:00","slug":"john-calipari-defends-controversial-sec-tournament-take-should-be-a-lot-of-guys-not-caring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/john-calipari-defends-controversial-sec-tournament-take-should-be-a-lot-of-guys-not-caring\/","title":{"rendered":"John Calipari defends controversial SEC Tournament take: \u201cShould be a lot of guys not caring.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Calipari <\/a><\/strong>has never been a fan of the SEC Tournament and is not afraid to double, triple and quadruple down on that take \u2014 he does it every year at this point. Remember his words after Kentucky\u2019s road win at Tennessee to wrap up the regular season a year ago?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cYou know the only tournament that matters to me. After this weekend,\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>tournament,\u201d he said. <\/a><\/p>\n

As Arkansas prepared for its first trip to Nashville with Coach Cal leading the charge, like clockwork, he stuck to the script. Unsurprisingly, the quote went viral in the basketball world with passionate haters \u2014 many supporting his former team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care about the conference tournament,\u201d Calipari\u00a0said<\/a> going into the 2025 SEC Tournament. \u201cWhich is why we won it so many times because I could care less. The tournament that matters is the NCAA Tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came his debut with the Razorbacks, his new team squeaking by No. 16 seed South Carolina 72-68 to open the event in Nashville. Leading by as many as 20 in the second half, it got down to two in the final minute before Arkansas closed out the win.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Calipari was asked about his thoughts on the SEC Tournament and why <\/em>he couldn\u2019t care less about it. His response? Well, his resume speaks for itself, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot quite. Every tournament we go in, we\u2019re doing it for one reason: We want to win games to build up our seed. Now, along the way, for a guy that does not care about conference tournaments \u2014 I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s 15 or 16 (I\u2019ve won) \u2014 if you don\u2019t care, the kids don\u2019t care, no one cares. Then I\u2019m a magician. How about maybe you\u2019re taking the pressure off the kids? This is just another thing for us to get better and improve ourselves. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen along the way, you know what, you\u2019re reaching for stars, you grab a moon, all of a sudden you\u2019re standing there with the trophy. So yeah, it matters. We got to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The topic clearly struck a nerve with Coach Cal, who asked the Kentucky-based reporter if he would ask the same question to Florida coach Todd Golden \u2014 who lost Micah Handlogten in the SEC Tournament championship a year ago \u2014 about his motivation to win and the risk vs. reward of this event.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, there was another coach in this league that said, \u2018I\u2019m not sure I really want this tournament because last year we got a guy hurt in it. I\u2019m not sure how I feel,’\u201d Calipari said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to ask him that same question, aren\u2019t you? His team was one of the best teams in this league. He\u2019s saying, \u2018We got a chance to win a national title.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThis league has been a meat grinder. Is it going to be any different here? No. We want to win every game we play. But I don\u2019t need the kids, \u2018Got to do this.\u2019 You don\u2019t. You don\u2019t. There\u2019s the next tournament. Then you win it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

His rant continued, highlighting the postseason success over the course of his Hall of Fame career and explaining that others should follow his lead. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be nice to win it again. I don\u2019t know exactly how many of those we\u2019ve won. How many?\u201d he said. \u201cSomebody told me 87 tournament games. For a guy that doesn\u2019t care (smiling). I think it is. I don\u2019t know. You\u2019ll have to look. They tried to tell me yesterday. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s about almost an 80 percent win (rate). For a guy that doesn\u2019t care, should be a lot of guys not caring.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure Big Blue Nation won\u2019t have anything to say about that.<\/p>\n

The post John Calipari defends controversial SEC Tournament take: \u201cShould be a lot of guys not caring.\u201d<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Calipari has never been a fan of the SEC Tournament and is not afraid…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}