Looking back on the season so far, heading into the NCAA tournament, a few observations and wanted your input....
1. Coach Cal has made it well known he isn't really interested in filling out the entire available roster with available scholarship players. His line and reasoning is that "Kentucky isn't for everybody." Apparently he doesn't think that there's any need for potential insurance with possible injuries occurring throughout the season and having scholarship players to fill in the potential void.
This situation has come back to bite Kentucky repeatedly throughout his tenure. I wonder why this isn't something pointed out more by us here on the board to discuss. Maybe it's just me and I'm not understanding something. You tell me. Has his philosophy here of having a tight rotation and unwillingness to have a full contingent of scholarship players been a big reason why we struggle, especially when we get hit by the yearly inevitable injury bug? Your thoughts?
Surely there are players out there he can get instead of just having a "warm body" as I believe he's said before on the subject. Maybe not. This is another thing I'd like to hear your thoughts about.
2. Changing game and Cal can't change his methods ...
The Spread offenses throughout college basketball has led to a lot of problems for a reluctant to change coach Cal, in my opinion. They take advantage of our still shaky defense against a well coached team. Furthermore, Cal still runs his offensive sets that he learned from Larry Brown dating back to his days as an associate assistant at Kansas. Go back and look at the game film from the recent years!
Shooting pull up 2 point mid range jumpers doesn't work for his team the way it's constructed. If you want to play slow, your defense has to be good enough to hold the opponent to below 60-points. It's not. Kentucky lacks shooting and dynamic guard play this year. It's constructed to play an ugly, rugged, up-tempo style that turns defense into offense.
In addition, what often gets overlooked in Tshiebwe's dominance last season was the fact he had scorers and shooters surrounding him. That resulted in a less-crowded paint in which he could dominate one-on-one rebound battles. He's still having a solid year for Kentucky but the surrounding pieces just aren't working as well, and neither is the system working in his favor. And so, the opposing teams take advantage of using his defensive weaknesses, as well as the team's general defensive problems, and they use the spread offense effectively against us.
It's left this team with a serious confidence problem going into games, a serious matchup problem with specific teams, and has laid a blueprint out for other teams to follow in order to beat us.
And maybe I am flat out wrong in my assessment here. Maybe I've missed some key elements in how I am looking at the season and the team, and some of you that are more knowledgeable can point out what you see and where and how you see it.
Your thoughts?
1. Coach Cal has made it well known he isn't really interested in filling out the entire available roster with available scholarship players. His line and reasoning is that "Kentucky isn't for everybody." Apparently he doesn't think that there's any need for potential insurance with possible injuries occurring throughout the season and having scholarship players to fill in the potential void.
This situation has come back to bite Kentucky repeatedly throughout his tenure. I wonder why this isn't something pointed out more by us here on the board to discuss. Maybe it's just me and I'm not understanding something. You tell me. Has his philosophy here of having a tight rotation and unwillingness to have a full contingent of scholarship players been a big reason why we struggle, especially when we get hit by the yearly inevitable injury bug? Your thoughts?
Surely there are players out there he can get instead of just having a "warm body" as I believe he's said before on the subject. Maybe not. This is another thing I'd like to hear your thoughts about.
2. Changing game and Cal can't change his methods ...
The Spread offenses throughout college basketball has led to a lot of problems for a reluctant to change coach Cal, in my opinion. They take advantage of our still shaky defense against a well coached team. Furthermore, Cal still runs his offensive sets that he learned from Larry Brown dating back to his days as an associate assistant at Kansas. Go back and look at the game film from the recent years!
Shooting pull up 2 point mid range jumpers doesn't work for his team the way it's constructed. If you want to play slow, your defense has to be good enough to hold the opponent to below 60-points. It's not. Kentucky lacks shooting and dynamic guard play this year. It's constructed to play an ugly, rugged, up-tempo style that turns defense into offense.
In addition, what often gets overlooked in Tshiebwe's dominance last season was the fact he had scorers and shooters surrounding him. That resulted in a less-crowded paint in which he could dominate one-on-one rebound battles. He's still having a solid year for Kentucky but the surrounding pieces just aren't working as well, and neither is the system working in his favor. And so, the opposing teams take advantage of using his defensive weaknesses, as well as the team's general defensive problems, and they use the spread offense effectively against us.
It's left this team with a serious confidence problem going into games, a serious matchup problem with specific teams, and has laid a blueprint out for other teams to follow in order to beat us.
And maybe I am flat out wrong in my assessment here. Maybe I've missed some key elements in how I am looking at the season and the team, and some of you that are more knowledgeable can point out what you see and where and how you see it.
Your thoughts?
