UK Basketball: Harrow knows Calipari's criticism is meant to help him

Question: Does he ever mean it more mentally than physically?
Harrow: “He talks about my mental, too. Just staying upbeat and telling guys to ... and keep cheering them on and stuff like that.”

Question: Is that just part of being a point guard for Calipari and did you see that with Marquis Teague last year?
Harrow: “Yes. Just what he wants his point guard to do. He wants his point guard to run the team. He just wants to sit back and have his point guard do it, but he has to help us out.”

Question: Do you see a point this year where he could just sit back and let you run the team?
Harrow: “I hope so but I still have some work to do.”

Question: Why did you spend more time on the bench the second half? Any message to you?
Harrow: “Just energy and I had gotten three fouls, so they had to sit me down.”

Question: Have you ever had a coach tell you to ‘touch’ your teammates more?
Harrow: “No. That’s Steve Nash (of the Los Angeles Lakers). He watched him and just how he just goes up to players and touches them. One game he touched them over 100 times. I don’t know. Just like, ‘Good job.’”

Question: With your personality will that be hard for you to do?
Harrow: “No, it’s just you don’t think about going up and just by a little touch meaning something. If Steve Nash can do it, I can do it.”

Question: Do you know what Calipari meant last week when he said all the players had to love being around men more?
Harrow: “I have no clue. I didn’t even know he said that. I don’t know what that means.”

Question: Do you consider guard Jarrod Polson a tough guy?
Harrow: “Yes. He goes in there and plays hard and plays with energy and gets tough rebounds. That’s what Coach likes. He is always telling me to watch what Jarrod does and try to implement that into my game. Coach tells him to be tough against me in practice because that is what everybody in the conference will try to do to me and play me physical.”

Question: Did you notice that South Carolina coach Frank Martin just sat down the last 10 minutes because he said when his team quits playing, he quits coaching?
Harrow: “I watched the whole game. I have seen him go off on people and I noticed that he was real chill. I don’t know what was going on. He is just sitting down. I was like, ‘He has really calmed down from when I saw him before.’ I thought the guys were trying to play hard. We just had a really good night tonight.”

Question: Do you ever envision a scenario where Calipari would sit down for 10 minutes in any game?
Harrow: “No. Even if we don’t do anything wrong, if a bad call or something happens he is going to jump right out of that seat and let somebody hear it.”

Question: Has he told the team he is going to quit coaching intensity and effort?
Harrow: “Yeah. He tells us that all the time. But I think it is just in him to let people know when they don’t give enough energy.”

Question: What about facing Auburn for a second time Saturday?
Harrow: “We just have to do the same thing we did the first game. We are going to prepare Thursday and Friday for them and just come out and be ready to play because we know they are going to try and get revenge on us.”