John Calipari did everything short of move Kentucky's practices this week to the fields at the Nutter Training Facility.
After the Wildcats returned to Lexington losers of three of their last four regular-season games, Coach Cal removed all restrictions on physical play. Defenders were instructed to body teammates on drives and Calipari even joked he broke out helmets and pads.
At the time, he didn't know it would be LSU awaiting the Cats in the Southeastern Conference Tournament quarterfinal. It only worked out well that it ended up that way.
“We did a lot of body-to-body contact, and all of our drills that we did, not just one or two, but everything from the beginning of practice to the end was all bodying each other like on drives or trapping in the post,” Willie Cauley-Stein said. “We knew if we had to play LSU that it was going to be a battle in the post.”
Walter Cornett, of Glendale, Kentucky, is the owner and operator of Walter's Wildcat World. He founded WildcatWorld.com in 1998 making it one of the oldest Kentucky basketball fan sites in operation today.