John Calipari Teams Quotations

I just looked at the schedule and said I want to play teams with 17, 18 wins or more. I tried to do that last year, too. But I thought Austin Peay and East Tennessee State would be 18-win teams, and they didn't come close.

For us to get a first seed, it just doesn't happen. Well, it's never happened here before. It's hard. There are only four teams that get this. I'm really proud for the respect that the committee has shown toward us.

I said I don't care what conference they're from, they must be teams that are going to win 17 or more games. The bottom of our schedule was dragging us down. You can schedule teams with great names, but if they go 7-21, it kills you.

If you want to get teams in the NCAA Tournament, then you schedule wins. You play home games and you buy games, and then you all have winning records.

The best teams I've had had a little bit of a swagger,

That's what this league is all about. The first half, the building's electric. National TV. Two teams prepared to go hard.

When you're trying to build or change a culture, what do you do? I always say you take players from state championship teams because they only know one thing, winning.

They (East Carolina) came out and played like it was the Final Four. They could have easily won this game and we are lucky to be leaving here with a win. If ECU plays like that every night out, they will give a lot of teams trouble and make some noise in the conference. I take my hat off to Ricky and the team. We played as well as we could play.