Calipari looks ahead to 2015-2016

It's going to take John Calipari some time to get past it. Maybe he never will.

But while the Kentucky basketball coach readily admits it "hurts" to have come up short of an undefeated, national championship season -- "We had a chance to be one of those iconic teams," he said -- he's moving past it.

And he likes the direction he's moving.

The Wildcats will look vastly different in 2015-16 -- seven players from a 38-1 team that lost to Wisconsin in the Final Four declared for the draft, representing 85 percent of UK's points -- but Calipari has high hopes for the new-look Cats.

"I'm excited about just learning more about them, seeing how good this team could be, because I think this team could be crazy if it all comes together when we get here and we have the team that I think we'll have," Calipari said at a news conference Thursday. "It would be again like, 'OK, what could we do? Where could we go?'"

Calipari's optimism focuses on a formula that's proven successful in the past. Kentucky will return some key players from this season's team and add a host of talented newcomers.

Returnees Tyler Ulis, Marcus Lee and Alex Poythress -- who missed most of the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament -- provide a veteran core, and backups Dominique Hawkins and Derek Willis could step into bigger roles.

UK adds at least four players: freshmen Skal Labissiere, Isaiah Briscoe and Charles Matthews and junior-college transfer Mychal Mulder and could add a fifth if Canadian guard Jamal Murray opts to reclassify to the Class of 2015 and chooses Kentucky.

With our without Murray, it's a roster that Calipari said provides versatility. He envisions a team that might run multiple pick-and-rolls, he said, or could focus more on playmaking out of the dribble-drive offense he employed at Memphis but has used sparingly at Kentucky.

"I think we have a little bit of everything, and again, there's no one like anyone else on the team," Calipari said. "There's no two guys that are, like, similar. Every guy is different and has their own thing, and now it's exciting, because we're still gonna be good."

That diversity of skill sets could benefit UK most in the backcourt, where Calipari said point guards Ulis and Briscoe "can be on the floor together."

"(Briscoe) is more physical, creates great angles, finishes around the goal," Calipari said. "(Ulis) is just a pit bull, bothersome, play-making, can score it if he needs to. They both lead in different ways."

Labissiere gives Kentucky the latest in a string of big men projected as high first-round NBA Draft picks. Like Anthony Davis, he grew up a guard before a growth spurt moved him into the frontcourt. And like Davis and Karl-Anthony Towns, Calipari said, Labissiere's challenge will be to "establish yourself" in the paint before expanding his game.

Still, Kentucky has question marks. Chief among them might be Poythress' health. Calipari said the senior forward has sent him videos of box jumps that are part of his recovery process, and that he's running "at a slow pace right now."

Assuming he's healthy, Poythress could provide an anchor inside at power forward -- particularly likely if Murray picks Kentucky -- or shift out to the perimeter.

"Obviously you guys remember down in the Bahamas where he was in that (power forward) slot and he was ridiculous," Calipari said. "So we'll see. If that's where he's at his best, then that's where we'll play him."

And though Lee has played significant minutes in big games in his career, he's a relative unknow. Calipari reiterated on Thursday that he thinks Lee is ready for a leap forward on the court.

"It wasn't as though he wasn't ready last year," Calipari said. "The problem was that he was playing behind the No. 1 pick in the draft (in Towns) and the No. 4, 5, 6 pick in the draft (in Willie Cauley-Stein) and behind Dakari (Johnson), that's going in the 20s. I mean, he was ready, but they were more ready."

Kentucky also is looking for Hawkins and Willis to play at a level they've yet to demonstrate.

"(Willis) and Dom are on like a 'normal' college path," Calipari said. "I mean, first couple years you don't play a whole lot, you're trying to bust through your third year and you're trying to make sure your senior year you're fulfilling your own dreams. But they're on a normal path. It just, for some reason here, doesn't seem normal. But it is normal."

Mulder is another of Kentucky's unknowns, a late-spring target who shot 46.3 percent from three-point range last season at Vincinnes University.

"Can really shoot," Calipari said. "Terrific athletically. If we want to press more -- this may be a team that I press more with, maybe go back to some of the presses that I used at Memphis. But until I get him here I don't know all that."

Calipari knows very little, in fact, about his 2015-16 team. But he suspects that with college basketball lacking great teams in the upcoming season, Kentucky will have the pieces it needs to contend.

"And then it becomes what this team will think when they look at each other and they're playing against each other," Calipari said. "Like last year, they started saying, 'Oh, my gosh.' That's where it all started, where they started thinking, like, 'This could be crazy.' And at the end of the day it was."