Your Coach is tired. Sort of.

“It was a long month of recruiting and spending time with the family,” said Coach Calipari on Saturday night. “I know I should be tired, but I’m too excited to start coaching this young team to even realize it.”

“Camp Canada” kicked off on Sunday at the Joe Craft Center with a morning session as the Wildcats begin use of their allowed practice time leading up to a mid-August international trip to Windsor, Ontario for three games in three days (August 15-17).

With plans set to have two-a-day practices every other day and single practice sessions on the intervening days, the young Cats will get their first taste of elite level college basketball as Coach Calipari and the staff begin to assess, instruct and implement portions of the offense.

“We probably won’t go much more than 90 minutes in any one session, but we’re going to get a lot in,” Coach Cal said. “We’re going to try and learn about our players and what roles everyone will play. We’ve got to figure out the style that we’ll play.”

That style won’t necessarily be the same as Calipari’s first edition of the Wildcats and there is a message in that as well, according to Coach.

“I told the team they don’t need to live up to any other team or any other players,” Coach Cal said. “John Wall said it best about Brandon (Knight): ‘Just be yourself.’”

One thing Coach Calipari wouldn’t mind this edition of Wildcats resembling from the Elite 8, 35-3 team: brotherhood.

“Can they become a unit over this two week period,” he said. “Can we get them so that they are cheering for each other but still competing at the highest level. Last year’s team all respected one another, they played for each other.”

Coach Cal also mentioned he was hoping to bring back former Wildcat players – pros, ex-pros and others – to perhaps have them scrimmage against his young Cats. “Maybe get together a bunch of guys and let our team get used to playing TOGETHER against other competition,” he said.

Maybe more than anything, the practice time signifies the end of the rigorous July recruiting schedule that saw Coach Calipari criss-cross the nation and Europe. “You know my feelings on July. I hate July, I think they should do away with the whole month and make it a dead period,” he said. “But we all played the cardboard cut-out and did the presidential waves and evaluated as much talent as we could. Now, though, it’s time for basketball and that wakes me up!”

-RTL-