John Calipari’s appearance on the weekly Southeastern Conference teleconference this week was short and sweet, but there were a couple of other UK-related notes and quotes of interest from the other coaches.

UK plays a pair of rematch games this week, Tuesday at home against Tennessee and Saturday on the road at South Carolina. Kentucky beat both teams in their first meeting.

Coach Cal

Calipari noted that UK has played both of this week’s opponents already. He said “Tennessee had us beat in Knoxville,” and when they got done with the game against South Carolina, former UK coach Joe B. Hall came up to him and said, “Hey, those guys are athletic, long. That’s a good team.” Having played Kentucky once already, Calipari thinks they won’t fear the Cats. He also noted that the last time they went to South Carolina as the No. 1 team, they got beat in 2010.

John Calipari is 46-7 as the nation's top-ranked coach. (photo by Chad Hobson)

Coach Cal had this to say about Ryan Harrow’s development as he sits out a year due to NCAA transfer rules: “He’s doing fine. It’s hard because he’s sitting out. You’re almost an afterthought, especially when you’re going through a season and you’re playing on this team at Kentucky. But he’s getting better because of who he plays against every day. He’s starting to get physically stronger, which he’s going to have to do. And he’s got a great feel. He gives us a little different look at point guard than Marquis Teague. Kind of a combination of a Marquis and a Brandon (Knight) because he shoots it a little bit better than Marquis. He’s not quite as physical as Marquis but he shoots it like that.”

LSU head coach Trent Johnson

Kentucky fans have been pretty upset about Malcolm White’s intentional takedown of Anthony Davis in Saturday’s game, which he was eventually ejected from. LSU coach Trent Johnson said he is taking additional disciplinary action with White, although he would not disclose what the punishment would be and said it would be handled internally. Johnson said he also reached out to Coach Cal to apologize for the foul. “(Calipari) knows how I coach my teams,” Johnson said. “He knows we’re not about that. It was very disturbing. Obviously, it’s one thing to be physical but it’s another thing to be stupid and that was just a stupid play on his part.”

Michael Kidd-Gilchrist only scored one point against Johnson’s Tigers, but he was very impressed with the freshman forward nonetheless. “Guys like him don’t get enough credit because they impact the game without scoring,” Johnson said. “You ask any coach in the country, all of them would die to have one or two (players) like that.”

Johnson’s team was the victim of Terrence Jones’ 27-point afternoon. Johnson said “if Terrence is going to show up and play like that, they need to crown (Kentucky) right now.”

Tennessee head coach Cuonzo Martin

Martin said he watched a little bit of the Kentucky-LSU game and saw an improved Wildcat team from the one that was in Knoxville, Tenn., a couple of weeks ago. “They’re rolling,” Martin said. “They do a great job of playing well together. The one thing about those guys is they stick to the script. They tweak here and there when they feel like they have an advantage on the offensive side of the ball, but other than that it’s just business as usual.”

Jones’ performance at LSU was just another reminder to Martin that Kentucky has so many options at its disposal. “As talented as he is, they have so many parts and so many pieces so it’s hard to identify just one guy,” Martin said. “You just have to do a very good job of playing team defense and keeping them off the glass because they have so many weapons. If you slow him down, somebody else steps up.”

Martin mentioned Kidd-Gilchrist’s motor when asked about what makes him such a great player. “Very talented,” Martin said. “I saw him quite a bit on the AAU circuit. The one thing is he played hard. It seems like that’s a skill nowadays when a guy plays hard because you don’t see it as much, but he plays extremely hard. He plays with a passion and excitement. He’s smiling out there. He’s a very talented player. From an offensive standpoint he’s a key because he’s at that size where he can go inside, go outside, and it’s tough for traditional guards to keep him off the glass because he’s so big and physical and he’s used to playing around the rim.”

Former UK target Jarnell Stokes made his collegiate debut in the first Kentucky-Tennessee game. He made quite the splash, scoring nine points and grabbing four rebounds in just 17 minutes. He’s since worked his way into the starting lineup, averaging 10.6 points and 8.0 rebounds. Martin said he’s more integrated into the offense but is still months behind everyone else. “I think he’s doing a really good job of asserting himself, coming and watching film, working on his game, staying after practice, getting shots up and just really trying to learn things, but he’s also learning them on the fly,” Martin said.