and I have what I feel is a legitimate question. How in the world did WCS make first team AA? I have a great deal of respect for Willie and what he accomplished while at UK....but WOW! Bash me all you want, but Willie only played hard when Willie wanted to. Willie only showed up when Willie wanted to and that is not deserving of AA status. And his offensive game was pretty close to zero. He played good against lesser competition and mostly disappeared against better players. IMHO, Towns was twice as valuable to our team as WCS. I think the hardest Willie played all year was when he chased the Notre Dame player the length of the floor and altered his last second shot. I hope Willie kills it in the League, but if he does I will be one of the most surprised people on the planet. I just don't think WCS has the intestinal fortitude to make it big at the next level.
For whatever insane reason I just watched a rerun of the Wisconsin game
- Thread starter louisvilleblue
- Start date
Hey could you maybe have a random negative thought related to this game and start a thread about it every day for the next 17 years? I've come to count on it.
I've watched it three times now, no reason to fear it. It's true Willie disappeared that game, but if you watch any of the first team all Americans in their worst game, you'd say, how is that guy all America? Second point, it's ironic you mention Lyles. Willie disappeared - but you know what's worse than being invisible? Making bad plays. Lyles was really bad the last two games, and I've watched each of them multiple times. Nervous, bothered by physical D, whatever. Cal said he was the X factor, the difference between us being very good and scary good. So, we were only very good, which is yet one more explanation as to why we lost to another very good team.....
Their is a lot of guys who let big games go to their head and choke. I admit I did that as well playing. You get caught up in the pressure of it thinking about it. Instead of just going with the flow your just thinking of where your at.
I'm sure playing in the FF will take it's toll on someone.
We only had just a handful of guys play well. Both the twins, Ulis and Kat, that's it. And Ulis was out of the game for a long time. This was WCS first FF and he was hit or miss all season any way, Booker only played really well during the middle of the season and did not finish strong at all. Lyles was playing better and better as the year went along but he got caught up in the moment.
It is what it is, I do think if we had Poy we would have won handily as he had experience and had a calming influence on the wings and he was just plain out beasting it last season in the tourney. Cal would have been putting minutes in Poy's lap instead of Lyles or Booker.
I'm sure playing in the FF will take it's toll on someone.
We only had just a handful of guys play well. Both the twins, Ulis and Kat, that's it. And Ulis was out of the game for a long time. This was WCS first FF and he was hit or miss all season any way, Booker only played really well during the middle of the season and did not finish strong at all. Lyles was playing better and better as the year went along but he got caught up in the moment.
It is what it is, I do think if we had Poy we would have won handily as he had experience and had a calming influence on the wings and he was just plain out beasting it last season in the tourney. Cal would have been putting minutes in Poy's lap instead of Lyles or Booker.
I'm going to rent Tora Tora Tora so I can watch the Germans bomb Pearl again.
- Denial
- Anger <------You are here
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
Maybe, his play had something to do with Wisconsin. Also, WCS really had limited offensive skills in half court. It is hard to fully understand why the team went away from an uptempo offense where they were best but that cost Notre Dame at the end of their game, and then us in the next game.
I suspect it will be awhile before I'll get around to watching that one again. Willie sort of made a habit late in the season of not showing up for games, or large portions of them. Cal pointed it out a number of times in post-game interviews. I think Willie will last awhile in the NBA, but never as a regular starter or star. His athleticism and defensive abilities will do that for him provided he realizes he's a pro now. That means going to work. Every day.
Guys who do that need not make themselves look silly by creating nicknames......Prove you're worthy of a nickname first
I think Willie would rather be better known for his off-beat persona than his game
everybody but the OP has done tremdous in this thread , i want everyone to take 5 , have a smoke and we will meet back here to discuss. Good job people ! LMAO . Trucats , especially you - amazing work !
When you watched the game again did the officiating get any better, or did they still miss the shot clock violation, the out of bounds, the 2 late offensive fouls on us, waive off the 2 Andrew Harrison and 1's, and give Wisconsin a couple of suspect and 1's?
Last 4.5 minutes of that game were the worst in my life time (50 years) of watching UK basketball. Totally inept coaching and execution from all involved. I have no desire to ever see it again.
This is how it went for me:
1A. Bargaining 1B. Denial 1C. Depression
4. Anger <<====== I'm right here
5. Acceptance
Not sure I'll ever reach the acceptance phase.
Statistically the single best offense in at least 14 years.....not sure why it's so hard to believe we lost. They were good, and they'd been chomping to play this game for a year. In that context, you're going to have to play well in all phases to prevail. We didn't. We didn't play poorly (well, not as a team, a couple of guys had bad games), we just didn't play well enough to beat a really good team that played a good game....This wasn't the '96 Bulls against the '73 Sixers.......
The thing that burned my ass was after the trashing Chris Webber gave Willie , I defended Willie on several sports sites . Then Willie comes out and makes Webber look like a genius. I'm left saying, WHERE's your heart Willie !
I could care less about Chris Webber, and neither should you.
He's bitter he'll always be seen as the player who called the time out and screwed his team over.
He's bitter he'll always be seen as the player who called the time out and screwed his team over.
Won't ever watch it. Won't watch either of the UConn games, either. Or the first West Virginia game. I'll watch the 1983 Dream Game up until the point where we led 23-10 and the Georgetown game up until the point where we led 29-17. Took me 20 years just to watch that much of those two games.
But I've seen the 2014 win over Louisville at least 10 times.
But I've seen the 2014 win over Louisville at least 10 times.
I wondered several times this last season what the big deal was about Lyles, did he ever take a game over. Seemed to be lax on defense AND rebounding. You are right, many times Willie took games off, not just minutes.
I think Willie is a great person and all and am glad he came to UK but truly believe he's the most overrated player we've had at UK in a long time.
The reason we lost was rebounding. This team was generally not in good rebounding position. That typically happens when you try to block ever shot. Against a team like Wisconsin that was not the way to go.
Willie played awful in the game. Floated around the 3 point line way too much instead of being in some semblance of a rebounding position.
Lol, what does Webber have to be bitter about? He was a great college player who became a very good NBA player, and made over $200 million in the process. He may be a lot of things, bitter isn't one of them. And his assessment of WCSs game was totally validated by what happened in Indy.
I think what we as fans have to come to terms with is, while this team was great and had depth, it had a couple of issues that kept it from being the greatest of all time. The problem with the depth is that we weren't 2 deep at every position like it seemed. We had 2 PG, 2 SG, 3 PF, 3 C. In order to make it work, we had to play some people out of position, and namely critical positions. Playing Alex at the 3 didn't hurt us, as he had the ability to guard a good SF, and had the athleticism to play the position. But Lyles was really out of his element trying to play the position. We started a C at PF in order to get him on the floor. The problem is he didn't possess enough offense to make a good team respect him, and outside of putbacks, lobs, and runouts, he wasn't scoring or providing anything on the offensive end. Most of this was covered up against most teams, but the good teams were bound to expose it. Slowing the game down as Wisconsin did, eliminates offense from a couple of players, and drastically reduced UK's advantage. The other issue, was that we didn't have a player that we could just pitch the ball to and say go get us a basket. Cal's best teams have had that. People will say Towns was that player, but there is a reason that centers aren't those players, they need help as they have to get in position and then have someone get them the ball. Having said all of that, if Poythress doesn't get hurt, this team goes undefeated, wins a title, and goes down as one of the greatest teams ever assembled.
Agree
Also...it helps to explain my main point that the line between an ecstatic fanbase and meltdown is almost paper thin. Several things including Poy injury could have changed the outcome. Focusing on coach bashing as the single cause is ridiculous.
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