Calipari had to make sure his players were conditioned, and Cousins didn’t love that idea.
Throughout the first two decades of the 21st century, the Kentucky Wildcats had some of college basketball’s best teams.
From Anthony Davis in 2012 to the DeMarcus Cousins-John Wall duo a few seasons prior, the John Calipari-led Cats had exploded as a powerhouse in the recruiting ranks.
However, Cousins, who turned into one of the world’s most dominant big men, almost had his time at Kentucky cut short. He was not a fan of the sprints that Coach Calipari made the team do, and Wall took a trip to memory lane and spoke on them during a recent episode of The OGs podcast.
“We got 20 suicides, 20 minutes. As a guard, we had 28, 30 seconds to finish. The bigs had 38. We in the first seven to eight, his (Cousins) feet burning, he throws his shoes, he goes to sit in the corner. He’s sitting like, ‘I ain’t doing this no more.’ (John Calipari) goes up to him, ‘If you would have finished, I would have gave y’all tomorrow off.’ You know he lying. Then he like, ‘If you can’t finish this, you’ll play now, five, 10, 15 minutes, but you’ll never start for me,’” Wall said.\
“So the rest of that day, he put him at half court and said, ‘If you get in trouble and don’t do anything, you sit at half court while the rest of the team runs.’ So we looking at him like, ‘Man, we wanna fight him.’ But who fighting Boogie, unless we all jumping him, we ain’t fighting him one-on-one. So the next day he finally finished them. His feet were on fire. He called his mom. He like, ‘Man, I’m thinking about transferring. I wanna go back home.’ And I said, ‘I ain’t leaving, Imma figure this out.’”
Wall and Cousins, two of the top three recruits in their class, both left after their freshman season. Both of them averaged over 15 points per game as freshmen. The team ended 2nd in the AP Poll with a 35-3, losing in the East Regional Final in the NCAA Tournament.
While they didn’t win it all, the team was very successful in ushering in a new era of Kentucky basketball, and it’s one that no one who is a part of BBN will ever forget.