Field of 68 Twitter/X Poll - Dominate It
- Thread starter 502 Wildcat
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I'd actually take the Arkansas players if Pope was the coach. They have more talent. We have the better coach.
Davis and Fland are going to be one of the best backcourts in the nation. Z has more potential than any of our current bigs.
Karter Knox and Oweh are a push.
Right now, they have at least four NBA players in their starting five. How many do we have?
Davis and Fland are going to be one of the best backcourts in the nation. Z has more potential than any of our current bigs.
Karter Knox and Oweh are a push.
Right now, they have at least four NBA players in their starting five. How many do we have?
Doesn’t really matter, because Cal is the coach, and DJ Wagner is going to start we all know it.
They have no shooting, either.
That was basically our team next season and I was dreading it.
I’d take our group of experienced, talented players in a heartbeat.
Oweh btw was a double figure scorer and 38% 3-point shooter (low volume) in the Big 12. He’s not a push with Knox at this point.
The Arkansas roster is better unless we add some studs. Of course Cal can't do shit with them though.
Oweh is an 11 ppg scorer on a mediocre OU team.
Knox could manage the same numbers if he played on a crappy team next year, too.
Oweh is better defensively, but I'm not sure I'd be placing bets on him being the overall better player next season. He's a glorified role player, just like Knox will be.
Also, Davis shot 41% from three on 140 attempts last season. Fland shot 37% from three on 228 attempts. Doesn't that count as "good" outside shooting?
I just don’t see it. Aidoo and Davis are nice pieces, I also like Fland…otherwise, meh. I’ll take our proven vets that are system fits.
So is the poll about which system is better, or which roster is more talented, or which team we'd choose to win?
Better system? Kentucky.
Better roster? Arkansas.
Which team, at present, would I choose to win? Push.
Looks like people are being seduced by paper potential and are forgetting Calipari is their coach. Who is going to draw up the plays on their staff? Brad?
Cats by 10, which will be how many points we score on inbound plays alone.
Cats by 10, which will be how many points we score on inbound plays alone.
🫡 I have 17 accounts on my X app for this reason. Say no more.
Davis is a good shooter. Fland - we’ll see. He’s got much better shots on his HS team than he will under Cal.
Oweh would rip Karter’s head off and dunk it. You have fun with him, give me a proven Oweh all day long.
Fair.
The poll is starting 5, technically.
You favor NBA talent. I favor a combination of talent, personnel fit, and system fit. I think that all matters.
If the poll was “which 5 will be more successful in the NBA down the road” I’d be inclined to agree with you most likely, though outside of Fland their starting 5 is not a slam dunk there either.
And then he'll be back for more Cal after Cal says "dude, if we just bulk you up with Ellen's cookies, and have these guys all run it back....".
Even if Oweh is better, Cal has better players at most of the other positions.
We don't even have one primary scorer. Cal already has two.
That said, Cal is gutter trash with system and tactics, so Pope will still likely compete with what he has, but we desperately need a proven scorer at this point. Anyone arguing otherwise has forgotten the reality of how unforgiving March can be when you don't have a guy who can score at the end of a shot clock.
Define “proven scorer” that you think will be the savior please because we have multiple 40%+ 3 point assassins and guys that have made huge last second shots last March.
Guys who are competent enough to score 16 to 20/game against defenses designed to stop them. Fland is that guy. So is Davis.
Brea cannot create off the bounce. Butler is not a scorer at all. He's a lockdown defender. Oweh is a role player. KK is not a scorer. All of them are role players. None of them even have the remotest look of being a go-to scorer at this point.
Which of those guys do you feel confident with the ball in their hands when UK is down 2 with 25 second left in a tournament game?
Oh so your thinking the old school gotta beat your guy off the dribble or we lose in the first round, again…..again type scenario. Well there are highlights of players here doing just that.
I guess you don’t want to bring up Butler in the final four last second shot at the buzzer for the win do ya? In case you forgot the final four is an event that Cal usually attends yearly after the season his over.
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Pope has never relied on a proven scorer. He uses a system to get people shots. Will it be enough? I hope so.
Davis’s numbers will dip slightly seeing better teams night in and night out but he’s 100% a player. Fland may be a good shooter or he may not, hard to translate them to college right away. I could see him being anywhere from a 30%-38% shooter in college honestly.
As far as the question, I’ll take the older players and better coach. Arkansas will win a lot and be hyped up but we all know how it will end. They basically have our team from last year minus the best 2 players. They added 2 great college players so I would say 8-10 losses for them.
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I agree we need 2 go to guys, but I trust Butler. He already proved he can get to a NC so nothing more to prove to me. He may be like Epps. Not flashy but a key cog in the machine. Looking good for Lanier, he could be that scorer we are missing.
Just something to think about in reference to having “the better coach”, Cal’s season last year, would be the best season Pope’s ever had. No disrespect intended, but Cal is a HOF coach, a championship coach, a multiple final four level coach, He took Umass, to an Elite 8 and Final 4, took Memphis to three Elite 8’s and a runner up finish, obviously won a title and multiple Final Fours at UK. I mean that’s just a really bold statement, regardless if he wore out his welcome.
Cal never designed a defense to stop anyone. So all our shooters should be fine.
Drugs or some other cognitive impairment?
Ok, put up the pictures of UK's starters this past season beside Oakland's starters. Who wins? Right. UK had the horses. Oakland won. Do the same with St Peter's circa 2022. How about last year's UK team versus 23-24 Texas A&M, which beat UK twice? The same thing. By these comparisons, UK should have been a Final Four team the last 3 years, but we didn't get out of the first weekend, not even out of the first game 2 out of 3 years.
Yes, on paper, Arkansas has several NBA potentials and UK under Pope doesn't have the same thing. I'd say we have maybe 2 guys who will end up in the NBA eventually and several others who will play professionally somewhere but don't have the talent and measurables to make an NBA team. I think we may see a couple more guys added to the roster with NBA potential before this off-season is done. But does it matter all that much? I'll say this- Calipari MUST have elite talent to have any chance to be any good. If his guys can't make plays one on one and stop guys one on one, his teams lose. Period. Meanwhile, Pope has shown he can beat teams with a roster full of guys with less talent on paper.
We don't know for sure how good this coming season will be for UK. The day Pope was announced, I seriously questioned how good we would be. I was even unsure if UK would make the NCAA-T his first season. I feel much better about all of that today than I did then. I'm looking forward to seeing what Pope and his staff can do with this roster. I suspect they will do better than many think and much better than the "paper" says. I think this group will be very good defensively. Can they score? Pope's teams have had to be creative to score over the last several years, but they've found a way. I'm excited to see what the approach will be with this group.
Because for the next 5 years he probably will. I hate to say that but the main point is that he was never going to do it here. Think about the roster he had coming here next year. He wouldn’t have gone after Aidoo because he had Somto JQ Z Ugo. Davis probably wouldn’t have come here because of DJ Fland.
My issue is that he’s doing At Arkansas what the fans have been begging him to do here. It seems like he was trying to win with freshmen because his ego was too big to let him admit he needed to change.
