It was, as Coach Calipari tells it, a first in his head coaching career.

 I put my feet up on the desk, leaned back in my chair and,” he pauses, I was out.”

This happened Wednesday morning and it was another indication that Camp Cal is taking its toll not only on the players but also on the coaches.

“I already knew it before that, which was why we only went for 45 minutes in the morning,” Coach says. “We shot free throws and walked through some stuff we had to go over.

“But this is exactly what we want to be doing,” he says. “I want to get them to that point of exhaustion – not to where they are completely spent. But where they get to that point where they think they can’t go any further, and they do. And it feels great when they do.

“You want to butt them up to the point where they are pushing themselves to the edge, yet feeling really good about what they accomplished,” Coach Cal says. “They don’t need to go beyond that. But they can see how far they can push themselves – there’s no class to go to , they have time to recover.”

While Wednesday rated as a good day according to Coach, he was a bit wistful when noting that Thursday is “like our last day” of Camp Cal. The day will start with individual workouts in the 11 o’clock hour and a practice later in the afternoon. Friday will be a light day because it’s a day before a game and the schedule then dictates that two or three-a-days won’t be feasible.

Beyond the on-court instruction, Coach Calipari has incorporated off-court lessons as well. He said he talked with the team about John Wall being the main image on the Southeast region cover of Sports Illustrated.

“I wanted John to know how much harder things will be for him now, with everyone gunning for the ‘guy who was on the cover of SI,’” Coach says. “And I wanted his teammates to know that they need to have his back now more than ever. They all understood it and he gets it, so we’ll be fine. But I felt I had to address it.”

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