Stats go out the window when the ball is tossed up in the air.
Every bookie in Vegas is licking his chops at the prospect of doing business with stubborn old "I know better than the damn stats" guys like you.
I will say what I have said in the past, despite all the success, if Cal was any other place than UK, most of you would be saying how horrible of a coach he is to not be able to win it with the players he has recruited and coached.
Uh. This has been the best initial 6 year run at any school in history except maybe Roy at UNC, and we all know what was happening there. Anybody who makes that argument is an idiot. And he's unable to win it all? That's news to me.
Bill Self is constantly knocked on this board and he has exactly the same amount of titles that Cal does. Who did Self Beat again?
I can name 5 mid majors he didn't beat, while Cal has only lost to 1 seeds, 2 seeds, and national champs in the tourney at UK.
And Cal getting beat in the finals in the last seconds by Self's one seed 2008 KU team, one of the statistically best teams of all time, is some big point of embarrassment, while you don't find it relevant to mention Cal being undefeated against him at UK, while consistently manhandling Self's top 10 squads, including getting a revenge championship win?
Furthermore, Self has 1 title and he gets mild derision on this board.
Izzo has one title and he's worshipped on this board.
Brad Stevens has zero titles and he's worshipped on this board.
Has it occurred to you that more context than just title numbers is required to figure out why Self is given a hard time? Cal has the best talent over the past 6 years and the first or second best results. Self had the 3rd best talent (after Cal and K) and his results in that time are on the low end of the top 10.
Calipari has shown thus far, then when the lights shine the brightest, he doesn't. He outcoaches himself and so far only one time did he manage to not coach a team out of a championship but he even gave that one a good run.
Sorry but I hold a coach to high standards as a coach holds his players to high standards. I demand the very best they got and then if they get beat, then tip your hat to the other team/coach, etc. If we are getting the very best that Cal has as a coach (not a recruiter), then you guys are right, it will take some luck for us to win more. .
The only coach in CBB history to meet your standards is John Wooden.
Roy had a team just as good as our '15 in '97 and he didn't even make the final four.
Coach K had a team just as good as our '15 in '99 and he lost in the championship.
Rick Pitino had the overall number 1 seed in '09 and didn't make the final four.
Donovan and Roy have both missed the tournament with five or more 5 stars on the roster.
Boeheim and Jay Wright and Mark Few miss the Final Four with top seeds like it's their job.
Shaka and Marshall are impressive, but their runs still aren't as good as Cal's was at UMASS with two players on his entire roster that held offers from a single high major.
And then 15/2, 14/3 for K, Morehead State for Rick, five mid major losses for Self, all of these coming very recently..
I could go on and on forever.
You're holding Cal to a different standard than other coaches because you have personal reasons to dislike him that existed before the hire.
He's at worst the second best coach in the country.
He's got UK performing at a level that we've only seen twice in history (Rupp and Rick at their peaks).
And you didn't say anything to deal with the rest of my first post.
100% of it still stands.
It's one thing to say that Cal has made mistakes. Nobody would ever begrudge you that comment.
But when you run around saying "Cal's not a very good coach - he just recruits so well that the players save him from getting beat", and then complain that you can't even give feedback about Cal without getting bashed, you're being intellectually dishonest.
That's not the feedback that you give to someone for your team who you want to see improve and succeed.
That's taunting language for someone that you hope will fail.
That's a prejudice established before the man stepped on campus - a perspective blurred by dislike - wishful thinking about the man because you want to see someone else on the throne.
The problem is that that perspective doesn't conform to reality. In saying that Cal is a sub-par coach, you are revealing that you're ignorant - from a historical perspective (UMASS and other coaches in UK history), from a stats perspective (consecutive independent probabilities), and from a common sense perspective (he'd be one of the biggest frauds in history if he went to 4/6 Final Fours with a title, had Jay Bilas and Seth Greenberg praising his Xs and Os, was voted one of the top Xs and Os coaches in the country by his fellow D1 coaches, etc).
The simplest solution to these conflicting notions is not that all those coaches and Jay Bilas are wrong. It's that a certain someone is irrational and severely biased but too simple to know it.
