John Calipari had a message for those of you who think Memphis is going to go 16-0 in Conference USA this year: No way.

“Last year, I had a basketball team that had numbers — field goal percentage, field goal percentage defense, rebounding margin,” Calipari said. “And after we played Duke, UCLA and all those people, we went into the league and all those numbers got worse. Our shooting percentage went down, which means they guarded us better. Their shooting percentage went up, which means they played against us better.

“They know us better. It’s harder. To go in and say you’re going to win every road game, come on. We’re not winning every game this year. We’re not going to. Are we going to try to? Yes, we’re going to try to, but you don’t go through a league undefeated. You just don’t. There’s too many rivals, too much road stuff.”
Read the rest of this entry »