LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY - MARCH 03: John Calipari the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats gives ... [+]
John Calipari says he feels good about his players living in a bubble at Kentucky but that the program would shut down for 14 days as recommended by the NCAA if someone on his team tests positive for COVID-19.
“You’d have no choice. We don’t run this, the virus runs us,” Calipari said during a Zoom call Monday in response to my question on the subject.
If that happens during the season, it could mean postponing several games.
“After the 25th [of November when the season starts], I don’t know how this thing’s going to play out,” he said. “And I will tell you, if one of our guys is positive and is traced, we’re out 14 days.”
Calipari said the school already did contact tracing involving “some of our guys” and “none of them ended up having it.”
The NCAA recommends that all Tier-1 individuals, including players, quarantine for 14 days after a positive test. Already during the preseason, Marquette and Villanova have had to pause activities for 14 days due to positive tests.
Villanova coach Jay Wright said last week he believes it’s “50/50” whether his team will be able to play a full 25-game schedule due to the virus.
Calipari said he feels fine during the preseason because his players are in bubble on campus, but he’s not certain how things will go once the season starts Nov. 25. Kentucky opens the season with a four-team multi-team event at Rupp Arena before traveling for games against Kansas in Orlando and Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
“Let me start by telling you, we’re in a bubble,” Calipari said. “The bubble being our lodge, single room and their own bath. Cook, chef in the building. They eat there. They walk across the parking lot, in the practice facility, which there’s no one even in the offices of the building yet. So they’re in there by themselves. Other parts of the building have some other teams, but we never cross paths. We never see each other. We’re in a bubble.
“I’m feeling very comfortable to the 25th of November. We’re also wearing chips that they’re doing in football. And what we’re finding out is, unless you’re playing against somebody a lot, you’re not going to be in his space more than 15 minutes, six feet. And as coaches, managers, we’re not near the players five minutes in a practice, three minutes in a practice....If the players stay in the bubble they should be fine. We go home, managers, coaches, but when we come back we got masks on and we’re not close to them. So they’re good until the 25th.”
Calipari said if a player tests positive, Kentucky would “have to make conditioning available to them....They should be able to condition, if they have no symptoms, away from our team.”
He said no one should have to quarantine and isolate for 14 days without any contact even if they test positive.
“Hardened criminals are not thrown in jail to where they can’t come out of a room for 14 days, they’re just not,” he said. “We have to figure that part of it out for all these players.”
Alabama football coach Nick Saban and Florida coach Dan Mullen have tested positive for the virus, but Calipari said he’s not overly worried about getting it because he has no “underlying” conditions.”
“It is spiking,” he said of the virus. “Is it going to continue to spike? If people don't wear masks and act like this is nothing, yeah, it's going to.”
Calipari said his staff purposely scheduled “backup games” to their non-conference schedule in case an opponent cannot play due to the virus.
“In our schedule, we also have backups in case another team gets sick,” he said. “We have some backups in case something like that happens.
“In our conference, if someone gets sick it will be a makeup game [in the SEC]....We’re counting on the league office to have Plan A, B, C, D and E, and maybe F.”
As for the Louisville game set for Dec. 26, there has been some back and forth between Calipari and Louisville coach Chris Mack, who argued maybe they shouldn’t play the game this year because there won’t be fans and that would be a disadvantage to Louisville.
Calipari said he and Mack have talked but indicated he hadn’t watched Mack’s latest video on the matter.
“If we have to play on I-95, I’m ready, let’s play,” he said of Louisville.
Overall, he said college teams that treat the virus with respect and take proper mitigation efforts will succeed the way teams in the NBA bubble did.
“Every team is going through this,” he said. “How do we become the best as players and staff at handling this?....We are learning to be the absolute best at handling this environment.”
RECRUITING HASN’T BEEN NEGATIVELY IMPACTED BY PANDEMIC
Calipari said recruiting hasn’t been negatively impacted by the pandemic, and that he actually feels “fresher” and better prepared to coach because he hasn’t had to travel during the fall for recruiting.
“Other than to go to New Jersey [to the Jersey Shore], I haven’t traveled,” he said. “So when you’re looking and saying, ‘Oh, he looks fresh. I would’ve been traveling four days a week, maybe five, coming back to school [official] visits where I’m going all weekend, entertaining, having families, having practices, and then they leave and I go back on the road three days and I’m in five cities. And I’m in five homes, giving our in-home recruiting.
“I haven’t done any of that. I’ve done some Zoom stuff, that’s what I’m doing. So I’m fresher, I feel way better coaching and now I’m saying we should do it like this all the time. Why are we doing that other stuff.
“I feel better. My belief, we’re all going to get the guys we would’ve got anyway.”
Kentucky on Thursday landed Class of 2022 guard Skyy Clark and then on Monday landed Class of 2021 power forward Bryce Hopkins.
In the Class of 2021, Kentucky remains involved for combo guard Hunter Sallis, shooting guards Jaden Hardy and Brandin Podziemski, and big men Moussa Diabate and Daimion Collins, among others.
