By ADAM ZAGORIA
Four days after saying he expected freshman forward Cam’Ron Fletcher back with his team, Kentucky coach John Calipari said Monday that Fletcher “is back now.”
“We did a call with his mother, his high school coach and me, and Cam, and I told him what the expectations were,” Calipari said Monday on the SEC conference call. “And I’ll just go over one. I told him, ‘You may not play a minute this year. How are you going to deal with that? What if you don’t play?
“And I wanted everyone to hear that so that we understood this is for the long haul, this is to get you to change. And there were a couple other things that I said to him, that I absolutely expected that if you wanted to be a part of it, this is how it would be. And he was great.
“I think the kid feels bad, but he needed to have a wake-up call and we had the conversation, he came in and hugged me and he said, ‘Coach, I’m going to be a different guy.’
“Perfect. I’m not doing it to prove a point.”
Last week, Calipari Tweeted that he asked Fletcher to “step away from the team.”
After losing Saturday to Louisville, Kentucky is currently 1-6, its worst start since 1926-27. Fletcher is averaging 2.2 points and 2.2 rebounds in 8.7 minutes through six games.
The 6-foot-6 forward from St. Louis chose Kentucky over Michigan State, Missouri, North Carolina, and Alabama in August 2019.
Fletcher was seen in tears on the Kentucky bench in the final minutes of their 75-63 loss to North Carolina.
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