These Cats are fiercely competitive but also very close

The 2023-24 season of the Kentucky Wildcats will kick off (un)officially this Friday with an exhibition against Georgetown (Ky.) College. It will be the team's first game action since their trip to Canada back in July for their GLOBL Jam Tournament.

John Calipari gave a practice update on Wednesday about the current state of his team — and it’s a good one. Cal said that the Wildcats had one of their best practices of the season so far, with the team getting chippy during practice, but said he could hear them laughing and ‘cutting up’ in the locker room after.

“The biggest thing is, do you have good people with good hearts that are willing to share? And we do,” said Cal. “They are all competitive as heck when we practice. It gets chippy. But after it’s over, like the other day, we had one of our best practices, and it was chippy.

“Then, as I walked off to go through the locker room to my office, I could hear them in the locker room absolutely — I don’t know what they were doing, but they were screaming and yelling and laughing and throwing in. That’s what you want from your team. That yeah, we are on the court competing, but let’s have fun together.”

It’s encouraging to hear that the team has a fire lit underneath them after last season, in which the team seemed like they had zero fight at some moments.

But as Calipari said, this team has some dawgs and dudes on it, and Kentucky fans wouldn’t want it any other way.