from 2005: Starless Kentucky still good

[mktmaker]

Well...it's a quiet time in college basketball...so...

I was teaching a six-year old how to cultivate seeds. I looked for my diagrams of my former seed beds and ran across many articles about NCAA seeds.

I found this article from USA Today interesting. Following are some "highlights" :

Posted 2/14/2005 10:34 PM
By Tom Weir, USA TODAY

LEXINGTON, Ky. — In a late-winter ritual that has become almost mundane, Kentucky's men's basketball team has positioned itself for a third consecutive No. 1 seeding in the NCAA tournament.

The numbers are impressive, even by Kentucky standards. At 19-2, No. 3 Kentucky has extended its three-season roll to 78-11, a record that leads the nation for most victories, fewest losses and best winning percentage.

In a league that has sent six teams to each of the last six NCAA tournaments, the Wildcats have won 45 of their last 48 Southeastern Conference games, the SEC's most overwhelming string of hoops dominance in the last half-century.





The Wildcats get a chance to atone tonight at South Carolina in an ESPN game. Viewers will see a Kentucky team remarkably devoid of star power — from a program that has had 89 players drafted by the NBA and put an NBA-high 13 former Wildcats on opening-night rosters this season.

No one from last season's 27-5 team was drafted by the NBA, and this year only senior forward Chuck Hayes has a chance — albeit an iffy one — to hear his name called on draft day.






A key for those bench players was accepting that Kentucky had its best recruiting class in Smith's eight seasons in Lexington, with McDonald's High School All Americans Rajon Rondo at point guard, 6-10 starting center Randolph Morris and reserve guard Joe Crawford.

The gem among the three is Rondo. The lightning-quick defender averaged 27.6 points as a junior at Louisville's Eastern High before averaging 21 points and 12 assists his senior year at Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.), which also sent Ron Mercer to Kentucky.

Rondo's notable shortcoming is the lack of an outside jump shot. The joke in Lexington is that Kentucky's coaches won't teach him one, to keep him from jumping to the NBA.

Rondo needed just 20 games to break Kentucky's freshman record for steals; his 2.5 steals a game rank second in the SEC and are the highest average ever for the Wildcats. He has had at least one steal in every game. Rondo also is the first freshman Smith has entrusted to start at point guard in his 14 seasons as a Division I coach.

https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/mensbasketball/sec/2005-02-14-starless-kentucky_x.htm

 

[DCFseattle]

You should erase that link you put in that post.

 

[mktmaker]

You should erase that link you put in that post.

DCF, thanks for the heads up.

 

[MdWIldcat55]

Thanks for posting. Would love to have seen that team pull out the Elite Eight game with Michigan State so Chuck could experience the Final Four.

The sportswriter's conceit of it being a 'starless' team was a bit stretched. Four NBA players on that team, Hayes, Rondo, Azibiuke, Morris, and another McD AA in Joe Crawford. Rondo was a 4-time NBA all star, so he certainly qualified as a star in college.

 

[Ben101er]

How could that be, since that darn Tubby can't coach a lick?

 

[mj2k10]

Honest assessment of that team: They were good, but a little lucky, and they illustrated the problem with Tubby almost as much as the next 2 years.

The comments about the SEC in that article were part of the early-to-mid 2000's trend of the SEC looking pretty similar to how the Big 12 looks recently. The RPI loved the conference, the conference would get a lot of bids and high seeds, and then all the SEC teams would flop in the tournament. In other words, I don't think the conference was as strong as it looked on paper, and those UK teams from 02-03 through 04-05 benefited.

UK played 3 marquee OOC games that year and lost 2 of them, the one against UNC (the future champ) not really close (and they lost to Kansas at home when Kansas was missing its best player). That UK team was able to beat inferior opponents on a consistent basis, won a lot of close games, but didn't really have the talent to compete for a title. They had some luck in the tournament in that they got to play a 6 seed in the Sweet 16, and they obviously, given how close the game was, could have won against Michigan State, but it would have taken a miracle to win 2 more after that.

And that was about as good as it was going to get with Tubby, because it describes pretty much every good team he had after 98, with the exception of 02-03 (and really, that team didn't beat anyone that year who ended up being a title factor).

 

[DCFseattle]

DCF, thanks for the heads up.

You're welcome

 

[d2atTech]

Thanks for posting. Would love to have seen that team pull out the Elite Eight game with Michigan State so Chuck could experience the Final Four.

The sportswriter's conceit of it being a 'starless' team was a bit stretched. Four NBA players on that team, Hayes, Rondo, Azibiuke, Morris, and another McD AA in Joe Crawford. Rondo was a 4-time NBA all star, so he certainly qualified as a star in college.

Chuck Hayes is my second favorite cat of all time!

 

[stoneycat_20]

How could that be, since that darn Tubby can't coach a lick?

His coaching was hit and miss..His recruiting was as bad as it could get his last few years..It was Tubby said F Kentucky and the next coach..Let's see you win with 1-3* players...I'm out of here..

 

[JohnnyGentle]

who did tubby bring in next year, off the back of that success?

rekalin sims
jared carter
adam williams

 

[jlock7614]

If tubby had surrounded himself with better assistants who could recruit then the end of his time here would be a lot different. Had a buddy who played high school basketball and became a manager under Tubby tell me that Rigot was literally incompetent and had to be correct several times throughout practice. Tubby was a good in game coach, just hated and still does hate recruiting.

 

[~Keyser Soze~]

We would've went to the Final Four that year if Higgins didn't take Rondo out in first 3 minutes of the MSU game. *DO NOT CALL HIM*

 

[JohnnyGentle]

christ that charge call

used to hate billy packer. but he wasn't afraid to second guess coaches and rip the officials. much better than raftery kissing pitino's ass and defending indefensible calls. hope his lifetime of alcoholism catches up to him soon, the f--king irish prick

 

[MegaBlue05]

who did tubby bring in next year, off the back of that success?

rekalin sims
jared carter
adam williams

That class finished him off. Most likely the worst non-probabtion class in school history.

The 2003 class with Woo, Shag, Perry and Thomas did him in when they had to be depended on as starters/primary role players as upperclassmen. They were hidden by better players the first two years and exposed big time their last two years. Rondo probably had 25 would-be assists that'd hit Sheray or Bobby in the hands and go out of bounds. The last two Tubby teams were hard to watch.

I loved the 2005 team. It's crazy in hindsight to know that would be our last nationally competitive team until 2010.

 

[mktmaker]

It became a discouraging era.

I remember that the last couple of Tubby years, I would look at those pre-season basketball magazines at the grocery stores.

Some didn't even have us in the Top 25! And there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

(Unbeknownst to us, there was a bright light, but it didn't arrive until Spring 2009.)

 

[JohnnyGentle]

Rondo probably had 25 would-be assists that'd hit Sheray or Bobby in the hands and go out of bounds. The last two Tubby teams were hard to watch.

seeing rondo tethered to such subpar talent, specifically, was indeed hard to watch

not sure if the way the hayes/daniels/fitch core came together so well made tubby even less interested in recruiting than he was before, or if it's just a coincidence. but it seems like overachieving without elite players ultimately hastened his downfall