John Calipari releases statement on Kentucky’s 2020-21 schedule

It’s finally here.

On Friday, the 2020-21 Kentucky basketball schedule was unveiled, as the new season begins in less than three weeks.

As usual under John Calipari, Kentucky will play a loaded slate against likely NCAA Tournament teams, including Kansas, Texas, Richmond, Tennessee, UCLA, LSU and Florida among others.

Following the big reveal, Calipari released a statement on what should be one of the more challenging schedules in college basketball. Though it will be difficult, Calipari, like many of us, is just happy there’s going to be basketball this season, and he’s really excited about what his team can accomplish.

“With all that we’ve been through the last eight months, we are beyond grateful to return to competition and begin the 2020-21 season,” Calipari said in a press release. “We don’t know exactly how this is all going to play out with the virus, but the health and safety of our players and our staff is going to be at the forefront of everything we do.

“I want to commend our staff for being on top of the schedule. When it became clear to us that we were going to have to make adjustments, our staff was all over it. I am really pleased that we not only preserved most of our previous agreements but also kept the type of opponents on our schedule that are going to challenge our guys and help them grow.

“This schedule will serve as a great test for our young team. We will have to learn to fail fast. Things will be a bit different in how we do things to stay safe, but we are going to make this as normal of an experience for our players and our fans as we can, and I’m confident what we’ve put together will prepare us to make a run at the end of the season. Like everyone else, I can’t wait to return to competition.”

Let’s ball.