Well that's really dumb, but everyone has the right to be stupid once in a while.
“I think today I’d take Louisville’s roster over Kentucky”
- Thread starter Smashcat
- Start date
We have a final four Point guard that is the defensive player of the year in Mountain West conf.
Cannot understand why people say we do not have a point guard. We have a back up in Kriisa that will not have to play 32 minutes a game this year.
2 guard we have several pieces as well.
Small forward several options.
Power forward 2 good choices.
Center 2 good choices.
This team is not full of names, halleluiah! It has the one name that is important, KENTUCKY. Pope will remind them of this fact every day. Our last coach could care less about winning at home, bet we do not have that with Pope. He knows what it means to win at Home, on the road, in tourney's, post season. He is out there every day trying to make the best decision for this up coming roster. He does not rest. He is not taking breaks. He is working. Once the roster is done, he will be working on next years class. Once the team gets to campus he will be 100% in on teaching his system. I bet you will not see Pope out of town and relying on his asst coaches to get the team ready. He will be hands on. He will know by end of summer school what he has, who he can rely on and will have a good start for fall practice. I hope we get one or two summer scrimmages. Maybe he can do what other teams have and do a scrimmage for a cause (maybe NIL for both teams) and sell tickets. I hope he does 2 blue white games like they did in the past (way back) one at memorial or Rupp and one either in mountains or western ky area. I am ready for football more than basketball right now but by the time we get practice reports I will be ready for basketball again. I will be going to the meet the team event next month, should be around fathers day, a gift to myself.
Cannot understand why people say we do not have a point guard. We have a back up in Kriisa that will not have to play 32 minutes a game this year.
2 guard we have several pieces as well.
Small forward several options.
Power forward 2 good choices.
Center 2 good choices.
This team is not full of names, halleluiah! It has the one name that is important, KENTUCKY. Pope will remind them of this fact every day. Our last coach could care less about winning at home, bet we do not have that with Pope. He knows what it means to win at Home, on the road, in tourney's, post season. He is out there every day trying to make the best decision for this up coming roster. He does not rest. He is not taking breaks. He is working. Once the roster is done, he will be working on next years class. Once the team gets to campus he will be 100% in on teaching his system. I bet you will not see Pope out of town and relying on his asst coaches to get the team ready. He will be hands on. He will know by end of summer school what he has, who he can rely on and will have a good start for fall practice. I hope we get one or two summer scrimmages. Maybe he can do what other teams have and do a scrimmage for a cause (maybe NIL for both teams) and sell tickets. I hope he does 2 blue white games like they did in the past (way back) one at memorial or Rupp and one either in mountains or western ky area. I am ready for football more than basketball right now but by the time we get practice reports I will be ready for basketball again. I will be going to the meet the team event next month, should be around fathers day, a gift to myself.
Don't blame the herb. Smoked everyday before high school and graduated top 5 in my class after giving up and not even trying my senior year, they are smoking crack that's been filtered through Crown Royal and line beard hair.
I thought it was Arkansas at first, who i’d at least consider. But Louisville? hell no. Louisville had better rosters under Payne. On paper we’re way ahead of them. We have starter level players and tons of experience. We have over 500 combined career starts on our roster and aren’t done.
Currently agree. My biggest knock was a 4/3 who could stretch and it looks we just addressed that. Now we need a “scoring guard.”
Those are vital items of a active economy. I for one can roll the perfect blunt and appreciate a decent dealer with his shit together.
We remain their Super Bowl, even in the off season before they have even seen their team play.
Yeah, the guy who makes most of the comments there is clearly a Lousiville fan. We all know how that goes. Louisville fans ALWAYS believe their players are better than everyone else, until they start losing a bunch of games and they can no longer make the same statements with a straight face.
It should be noted, even the Cards fan admits what he's really looking at is athleticism, not skill. So, what he's really saying is that he believes Louisville has better athletes. I don't know if I would even buy that, but that's much different than evaluating players comparing athleticism AND skill. We all know about that, don't we? Calipari always recruited athleticism over skill, and that's how you end up losing to West Virginia with John Wall, Eric Bledsoe, and Boogie Cousins on the roster. What did we lack? Skilled shooters. We had athleticism in spades. We lost.
It should be noted, even the Cards fan admits what he's really looking at is athleticism, not skill. So, what he's really saying is that he believes Louisville has better athletes. I don't know if I would even buy that, but that's much different than evaluating players comparing athleticism AND skill. We all know about that, don't we? Calipari always recruited athleticism over skill, and that's how you end up losing to West Virginia with John Wall, Eric Bledsoe, and Boogie Cousins on the roster. What did we lack? Skilled shooters. We had athleticism in spades. We lost.
I believe Oweh will be better than Edwards next year.
really interesting that Kelsey could put a competitive team together in a couple of months and Kenny Payne couldn't do it in 2 year.
I don't have any animosity toward Payne but failure at that most basic level as a coach doesn't inspire confidence in me as an assistant. Never understood the whole "bring Kenny back to Kentucky as an upgrade" mentality on here.
as for the discussion on our guard's
Marquis Teague - 10.2 points, 4.3 assists
Lamont Butler - 9.3point , 3.02 assists
Kerr Kriisa - 9.7 points, 4.7 assists
I don't have any animosity toward Payne but failure at that most basic level as a coach doesn't inspire confidence in me as an assistant. Never understood the whole "bring Kenny back to Kentucky as an upgrade" mentality on here.
as for the discussion on our guard's
Marquis Teague - 10.2 points, 4.3 assists
Lamont Butler - 9.3point , 3.02 assists
Kerr Kriisa - 9.7 points, 4.7 assists
May have been already mentioned here (late to the party), but he noted his reason for picking UL's roster over ours was because they are long and athletic. Where have we heard that before.
I concede he got better at the end of the season. And I’m not saying he was a bad player. In fact he was a very good freshman. But he was a good example of how a 5-star freshman can help a college team compete at the level of title contenders – as a role player.
I agree he didn’t have to carry them just that he was a big part of why they won again.
It makes sense if you look at KP as a teacher and not an organizer.
I don’t want to be mean….BUT Cam Spencer played SF. UCONN had a FIRST TEAM ALL-AMERICAN PG in Tristin Newton. He was the breakout player in 2013 that lead to the first title. So, yeah I’d say a first team All-American at PG is pretty elite.
Cam Spencer was listed as a guard and split time on the floor with Newton running point. They also played really well together.
The point is that neither was considered to be elite when the season kicked off, not even a second year Newton who was awarded an AA after the season, not before. The talent around them helped out a little as well.
Maybe we have a sleeper on the bench that can do the same.
If you want that roster then you can have it. no qualms at all.
I'll start off by saying that I appreciate your opinion, but I have to disagree on some things.
As for guard play, you've got Butler/Kriisa/Brea/Chandler/Perry vs. Hepburn/Johnson/Edwards/Smith. Overall, I'd go with UofL here. Hepburn vs. Butler, I'd go with Hepburn. Both are elite on ball defenders, but Hepburn is a better shooter, playmaker and rebounder. Krissa vs. Johnson, I'd go with Johnson. You may look at the stats and disagree, but I'd say look at the end of last season after Johnson came back from a shoulder injury that has plagued him since highschool. Over the final 8 games, he averaged 19ppg while shooting 50% from three, 4 assists, 4 rebounds and 1.5 steals . He probably has the most potential out of anyone on the UofL roster, in my opinion. I think Krissa is talented, but he can be pretty inconsistent and out of control at times. No denying his shooting and playmaking ability though. Edwards vs Brea, you have to go with Edwards. Edwards is a much more versatile player where Brea is mainly there to knock down threes, which he is one of the best in the nation at. I don't know much about Chandler and Perry, so I can't comment on their play. As for Reyne Smith, he's our sharpshooter. He shot 8 threes a game last season while hitting 40% from downtown.
Then you have the bigs in Williams/Carr/Garrison vs. Pryor/Waterman/Scott. I'd go with UK bigs here. They're clearly better defensively and Carr might be the best of the bunch. He'll impact both ends of the floor and be a matchup problem for a lot of teams. Scott is the x-factor here for UofL since no one really knows what to expect from him. He's an athletic kid with elite shot blocking ability and supposedly has NBA potential. I do like Pryor and Watermans versatility though with their ability to score in the post, hit from deep and take you off the dribble. Both are solid frontcourts in their own way.
Overall, both teams have good rosters from top to bottom. I think UofL needs to either add some depth inside or maybe a combo guard and then I think UK needs a goto scorer. Lanier seems like he would be the perfect addition.
Not sure they sucked as much as they were just poorly coached. Think Dilly made a recent comment regarding why his defense and team defense overall was as bad as it was and it was due to coaching and poor game planning. Basically said there was never a plan and all were kind of doing their own thing with not much direction given. Sounds about right with roll the ball out cal.
But, if UK beats UL yet again, remember he was just talking about his feelings in May.
You listen/watch to The Field of 68 a lot (and I do) you can get a take in your favor just about anytime.
They know how to get views and aren’t real firm in their takes.
They know how to get views and aren’t real firm in their takes.
I’ve seen a lot of people trying to compare Louisville’s roster to ours and then bring it back to concern about whether or not Butler can be elite at dribble penetration. The entire idea of needing a PG to be a dribble penetrator will be rendered unnecessary. Even calling the positions point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward and center is far from accurate in the modern zoom action pace and space system we will be using. The “1” needs to be capable of getting the ball across halfcourt. Aside from that any position will be capable of initiating the “action” which doesn’t begin with dribble penetration. It begins with a capable playmaker, of any position, reading the offense while the rest of the offense is made of screeners and readers. The readers will determine how to react to screen action based on how the defense reacts to the screen action. Pope may frequently choose to use Amari Williams to initiate this. He’s a good passer and will be the least skilled offensive scorer in most lineups. Williams, in this case, will be distributing to a capable scorer no matter who one of the other four players is. This seems to be a common theme for Pope’s offense. Off ball action will be more important than what players do with the ball for the most part.
Imagine our last couple of teams under a coach...Pope or anyone with a competent offense...and we are talking about an entirely different result the last few seasons.
There's nothing wrong with having some top level recruits in the mix with seasoned transfers. They just have to be the right fit and play in a system or under a coach who has a damn clue.
There's nothing wrong with having some top level recruits in the mix with seasoned transfers. They just have to be the right fit and play in a system or under a coach who has a damn clue.
Kentucky is better from top to bottom, with better depth. However in terms of sheer talent, it might be more of a toss-up at the moment.
What does this even mean? So you don't want elite talent/guard play because we had it last year and got upset? This makes absolutely no sense. Anything can happen in the NCAAT with one game sealing your fate. These ridiculous statements are hilarious. We need below average guard play this year because we lost in the tournament last year with elite guard play.
You had me going Smashcat with that title… I thought, surely Smashcat cannot think that!!! LOL
😂
AlohaCat
I said our guard play we had for this coming year was fine and that we had a coach who knows how to best utilize a roster. Coaching matters in college, if you can’t decipher what my actual post means you got bigger problems in life ahead. Good luck to ya!!!
As much as matchups are important the style of play is the thing that will separate us from some teams IMO. When you play this fast and are used to shooting a lot of 3's every game it will not be easy for some teams to adjust to that IMO. Our bench will be deep with so many veterans and the need to play a lot of people with the fast pace. It will interesting seeing half the team being proven veterans in an offense like this and how teams will be able to handle it. The teams with short benches will especially be vulnerable.
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I might take this seriously if, at the very least, you had included two players that would be likely starters on BOTH teams in Otega Oweh for UK and J'Vonne Hadley for UL.
Likewise, you didn't mention Traore or Rooths for UL or Almonor or Noah for UK. Also, we are pretty deep in the running for Lanier or Robinson, while UL is still recruiting Anselem from UGA.
We also have a guard who lead a #1 seed team in Arizona.
First off, I can tell you just skimmed through my post and ignored most of what I said lol. I didn't compare any forwards who I don't think will play the 5. I also mentioned you all potentially getting Lanier and how he would be a perfect fit and how UofL needs to add depth inside.
You might notice that I was replying to somone who only mentioned a handful of players. I listed guards and then bigs who can play the 5 spot. I didn't compare the 3 and 4 spots and so I left out guys like Hadley and Oweh who I expect will primarily play the 3. I do see both of these guys playing the 2 on occassion and probably even the 4, at least for Hadley.
Again, both teams are solid and I'm actually excited about UofL basketball for the first time in a long time. If you all get Lanier, that would be a HUGE addition.
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