And two of those teams went to the final four or title game.
Corey Evans says Wiseman to Memphis (low confidence level pick)
- Thread starter Smashcat
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And two of those teams went to the final four or title game.
That was before the rule changes .. college b-ball has changed and since then both 9+ loss teams have lost in the 2nd round and sweet 16
So the new rules made PJ shoot horrible from the free throw line last year?
PJ is a bad free throw shooter... we lost in the sweet 16 because we just weren’t that good of a team
If he shoots his avg we would’ve won and he was playing with a broken pinky.
If average happens Virginia is our opponent and we lose anyways
Last years team caused cal to promise to never recruit bad shooters again...
Hold on I have to re-read everything. This conversation goes straw man in a hurry.
OMG. We are done. Come on man. We are UK we will get ours. I’m just relaxing because I know Cal will eat first no matter who we get. It will all become clearer in the next few weeks. I don’t like Seattle but I like their ball players. Memphis is a poop city with poop fans but I like their ball players. WV is so beautiful but Huggy is their but I still love their ball players. Stewart I love but may not make the best decision. Carey well we all know he’s great not sure he loves MS as much as the Crystal Ball thinks and same with Stewart. Puke, no worry, they go home sad because they lose their first game and then lose out in the elite 8. Ok now I have to get my butt back to Eastern State before I’m missed.
So. Getting the number 1 or number 2 recruiting class each year is not good enough.
I think we’re doing just fine, it’s not always about the ranking. Look at SGA. A four-star who turned into a lottery pick.
Not to mention we have the number one team preseason and odds-on favorite to win the national title this year. Again, I think we’re doing just fine.
No, I read it as clear as can be. It was a dumb post, so own it.
Wasn't responding to you was I? Good Lord, the reading comprehension in this thread is abysmal.
Why bring politics into this?
My argument wasn’t hard to understand but makes sense you wouldn’t get it
![[laughing]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/classic/laugh.r191677.gif "Laughing [laughing]")
Remind me again how many top 5 players UK got before Coach Cal was here? And how have we performed historically without them? Okay, I’m good. Nothing to see here......
Again, no, it's an untested claim. Those aren't facts. Saying that you'll live forever because you haven't died yet isn't a fact.
Thing is UNC shouldn’t have even been in the Elite 8. Higgins screwed Arkansas first then screwed us
Just listened to Evan Daniel's post USA minicamp podcast. He still has Wiseman to UK and said he'd received no recent information to think otherwise.
HA HA, you ask so much from so many. It is the thing to extrapolate information...
Not that I even liked the tone of your post but no harm no foul.
Only recruiting analyst I pay attention to. Until he changes his Crystal Ball pick, UK is in good shape.
Right cuz every time I brought up valid point you would just make another negative excuse but nice try bro
A portion of the message board still lives in a world where UK has no obstacles.
As you noted, landing top 5 guys has been a recent problem. We're batting 1 for 12 on our last 12 offers to top 5 players, and if we strike out this year on Stewart, Carey, Wiseman, and McDaniels, that number moves to 1/16, with the one guy being Skal, as you noted.
Some don't want to even discuss this subject. For the small-minded, it makes you disloyal as a fan, which is absurd but should be expected from such an assorted social network community.
Depending on the strength of the class, getting the 7,8,9 rank guys will did not suffer, and is not a big loss. It is the classes that are top heavy is when it hurts if you whiff on a top 5 guy. Some classes you can throw a blanket over the top 10 guys, some, the top 5 then there is a huge drop off. So it depends on the class strength if we got hurt by it in the past. Also, it depends on team needs. If all guys in the top are guard oriented and we need bigs, it would not be a big deal, same for the opposite, if bigs are top 5 and we need guards and wings.
Who's changing the tune? I still believe UK's system is predicated on landing top of the order freshmen. The sample size supports this. You can attempt to use this season as a new norm, but it stands as an anomaly, a point of emphasis that will be supported by the reality of UK losing at least 70% of its roster at season's end. So an anomaly surrounded by the norm doesn't create a new norm.
We've had this discussion before, but UK's best seasons from beginning to end under Cal have been seasons that featured at least one top 5 RSCI players (2010, 2012, 2015) or at least three guys in the next tier (2017). That also assumes that the second tier isn't historically low as was the case in '12 when UK landed Poythress and Goodwin to fill that equation. Those guys are light year's below a Bam/Fox/Monk comparison when it comes to real talent.
UK's worst seasons (2013, 2016, 2018) lacked either top 5 players (Noel in '13 would have changed things, undoubtedly) or multiple guys in that second tier.
But what did those ‘10, ‘12 & ‘15 teams also have? They had soph, junior and seniors on the team. You need more than just top 5 guys, you need a mix of good solid returners and talented freshman.
Can’t just rely on top 5 talent to carry you.
Not if it’s young top 5 talent. Where was the top 5 talent on the recent Nova and UNCheat national championship teams?
Sorry that’s what I meant was Freshman top 5 talent and those 2 teams were heavy on the juniors and seniors.
First, there have been years with top 5 talent that didn't result in a title, title game or even a final four.
Of course, that's because the best team won't always win it. I don't think every team needs the top of the landscape to win titles, but at UK during Cal's tenure, without returning players or top 5ish (legitimate) players, it ain't happening without them.
There are a lot of coincidences in life that people can try to connect, but in the end, they are just coincidences.
Yea, I just can't accept that. We are going on a decade, I think it's fair to say it's not a coincidence. I think it's a fact that the record is what it is.
It's just like the we have never won a championship without a player from Kentucky on the roster. Yea, that's true, but is it really a requirement?
Not the same thing.
Secondly, even the "Top 5" is an opinion of someone or someones. It isn't a black and white curriculum. It's people's opinion. If the top 5 consisted of 5 players in the mold of Skal, and 6-10 were in the mold of Knight, MKG, and AD, would you still believe that you had to have a "Skal" on the roster to go to the Final Four?
Well, there never has been a top 5 class consisting of 5 Skal's. What if the moon were made of cheese?
The top 5 is just a way of saying we aren't getting the highest sought out players who are more likely to have an impact as a freshman during the 10 months he's on campus.
When we LOSE our entire roster, and do not fill the void where AD was standing, or a 3rd/4th year senior would be standing, and instead bring in a fringe second rounder and expert him to be enough.....hello?
If the argument wasn't changed it's easy to understand. Today we have balance, scores, shooters, upperclassman, returning NBA talent, and top 8-20 freshman. You don't need AD when you do this. When you dont, you need him. I dont understand why this is hard.
Ok you got me. Because Cal hasn't retired yet I guess 4 freshman fringe second rounders and a sophomore Poythress could win the title in the next decade at some point.
The facts as of the last decade are it won't work. It's not a knock on Cal to admit he needs dominant NBA ready talent if hes not going to have upperclassman or returning second round talent / and balance. Why some or you won't just admit that, I dont know. It is a fact that as of this moment, that's reality.
There's nothing to admit, because the opposing argument is arbitrary and constantly changing.
Cal couldn't win it with freshmen leading the way until he did. Now he needs top 5 player, unless we get number 7 and 8 and they're better than usual and no one gets hurt and Higgins doesn't ref and it doesn't rain that day and the wooly-worms are yellow.
It's also removing the claim from context, which is the entire reason the argument happened in the first place. Folks were panicking about recruiting and saying that because our recruiting was "down," that we couldn't be elite/title contenders. And then we got a lot of folks back, and the goal posts moved.
But I mean, if your claim is we need really good players with varying degrees of experience relative to their talent and readiness to win a title, sure. But that's not what the discussion was about in the first place. It was the definite restrictions and standards you guys made up and tried to claim were facts.
I think the problem a lot of us (some of us) have is the fixation on “top 5.”
I completely agree that we need elite talent with this model, or pretty good returning talent. I will argue to the end of time that we had elite talent in ‘17, with or without the top 5 designation.
People want to talk “proof” and try to make a Stats problem out of it, and it is pretty silly. Buzzer beaters bailed us out in ‘11 and ‘14, and bit us in ‘17. If you want to talk Stats, look at the luck factor, because that’s the only difference in how those seasons finished up.
We have missed out on most of the can’t miss, game-changing prospects the past few years. No disputing that, and I think we all now realize that there were a lot of shady underlying reasons for that.
I will also agree that our likelihood of being dominant decreases when we lack the AD/KAT level game-changer. I don’t think that assessment requires any math.
I think where we actually differ is that I’m ok with being one of the handful of best teams, with a decent shot at a title. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy dominance. But I enjoy a top 4-5 type team just as much.
I think you are still living under a thought process that Cal should be Wooden/UCLA level dominant. And I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I understand how frustrating that must be. It’s certainly your prerogative to set the bar as high as you want. Just don’t be surprised when you get some pushback.
