Our team had a post presence. PJ Washington. When you start 4-5 freshmen and your top 8 players are freshmen and sophomores, there are going to be good weeks and bad weeks. As for Bamba, I am glad Calipari didn’t get him. Circumstantial evidence suggests Bamba’s recruitment was not straightforward. This is a very vulnerable time for programs that recruit guys like Bamba. UK basketball is bigger than any 1 player or any 1 season. It’s time for our fans to appreciate what we have here.
That's 2 different subjects. We blew the Kansas State game. For 2 days, I have been rebutting loser posters here who are trying to blame this ugly loss on the referees. It wasn’t the referees. That’s nonsense. When you commit 15 turnovers and score only 16 field goals in a Sweet Sixteen game, you are generally going to lose the game. But if you are saying Calipari isn’t a good basketball coach, or that he doesn’t deserve a big contract, then you are not a student of college basketball. Calipari is 1 of the top college basketball coaches and innovators of this era. Now, granted, this obviously wasn’t 1 of his best teams. But the season was played without Baker, and most of it without Vanderbilt. Still, the improvement from November to March was very clear. None of this gives childish fans an excuse to throw our coach under the bus without getting pushback from more mature fans who know better.
If you understood the game of basketball, you would know that Washington was this team’s post player. Why does the truth bother you?
I despise the phrase "throwing someone under the bus", but Cal needs to Coach better.
The referees called 30 fouls against Kansas State. By the time this game was actually decided in the final minutes, 3 disqualified Kansas State players were sitting on their bench with 5 fouls. When we had the lead late in the game, we made bad decisions with the basketball. Our players committed 15 turnovers while scoring only 16 field goals. This loss was on our players. Sometimes freshmen play like freshmen. We blew the game in the finals minutes, which has been characteristic for this team in case anyone missed the season.
LOL! This was not 1 of Calipari’s best seasons. No argument there. But let’s be totally honest. Our top 8 players were freshmen and sophomores. The improvement from November to March was obvious. Baker missed the whole season, and Vanderbilt missed most of it. But we reached the Sweet Sixteen anyway. Still, some of our fans cry like babies about our team, and treat our coach like he is disposable trash. It’s pathetic. Are these people so young that they can’t remember what came before Calipari? Honestly, some of our fans are so spolied that they don’t know how lucky we are. 99% of the schools in this country would give anything to have our coach and our basketball program.
It’s not like he wasn’t trying to bring Bamba aboard. Fans act like Cal can point at a player and he commits on the spot. The reality is that recruiting is difficult and even harder when some fans spend much of the season spitting on Cal and specific players,
Let me start by saying I love having coach cal here. I wouldn’t want anyone else. I’m not one of these “I wish he would leave” nonsense posters, but he isn’t above criticism either. No doubt the players stunk on Thursday night & we might not have won regardless of the coach, but he got out coached that night. To Bruce freakin’ Weber no less. Trapping @ the end when we haven’t trapped all game giving them a wide open winning layup was a horrendous decision. They hadn’t even been able to score on our regular defense, & letting sga walk the ball up the court killed us. I’m no fan of unc (I loathe them), but they always dictate the pace of the game. They never play slow. It is possible to speed up the game & for some reason cal sux @ making his players do this.
That is certainly not my intent, but he is the man that recruited and designed this team, not the players and not the fans. Whatever the team looks like is all on Cal. We are always young, because that is how Cal wants it,period. Can not blame that on the fans. What we do get tired of is Cal saying after every game," we are young, it takes time". We all know that! We all also know this is how you choose to construct the team. So whatever heat Cal is getting is of his own making.
And here is where Cal's ego and/or arrogance hurts him. Instead of him dictating pace of play, he thinks he can play the other teams style and beat them, works a lot of the time, but times like Thursday, we are sent home and should not be.
Yep, in fact if 5 guys leave, we only have 3 coming in, we could be short in more ways than one.
I completely agree with this! Cal is great, but we already heard this year how they’re all freshmen & he should’ve called a timeout @ the end of the game. He did it again, & said the exact same thing on the postgame. Like the pace of play thing. I just wish he would learn from mistakes.
Unlike you, I can’t read Calipari’s mind or definitively interpret all of his prior comments. But I do understand the fraud of taking Calipari’s comment made about bigs at another time under other circumstances and using it to criticize Calipari after an emotional loss. Washington was our post player in the NCAAT. He may not be the post player you and the other complainer want, but he is the post player we had left after the freshman Richards underachieved and Vanderbilt was hurt.
Perspective is a complicated thing, isn’t it? Lest you can’t remember now because of the fog of disappointment, Calipari is also the man who recruited and designed a national championship team, 4 Final Four teams, and 6 Elite Eight teams at UK. But those things didn’t happen this week, so let’s just forget about them.
Oh I’m fully aware of him directing everything on him. It doesn’t matter to me. A coach should be able to tell his players to play faster or sit, & a coach can tell his players to call a timeout. This crap of everything being up to them is a joke
