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Horrible Story with Cal and Hopkins

Funny it didn’t say anything about pressure from fans or message boards. If there’s one thing CCC is great at it’s taking confidence away from players. Players thrive and come here and struggle. Then other players struggle here and then leave and thrive.
Time for a change.
 
I still want to find a way to love Cal again and not throw him away as a coach but Holy f*** the man needs an intervention.
Same but it’s not happening. Now we’ve gone from narcissistic to control freak. Wow.

But it’s the fans damaging recruiting right? It’s the fans damaging the program. RIIIGHT?!?

This explains all the transfers etc. the confidence destroying questions.

Look. I admire a tough coach. But this goes beyond that. You can still be tough and not be an anal perfectionist that everyone hates.
 
How many times did we hear Cal say "I have to play Bryce more"?

Just like he has said (fill in the player) dozens of times...............and then never does

Players hear that over and over and then realize he wasn't serious.

He is a joke.
He is a joke.

A liar. A cheat. A sleazy used-car salesman on a basketball court. A guy who is not good at coaching basketball. It is incredible how so many fans still lack the discernment to see this.
 
While we have had a product below our standards lately, especially 2 of the last 3 years. We were a top 6 team the 1 year Bryce is complaining about. He would have a better case about his UK experience if he was on the 9-16 team or this year.
That got beat by St Peters. And his comment aligns pretty much with things we’ve seen. Also while that happened Grady played on two hurt feet and Sharpe was allowed to warm the bench. There’s no good defense of Cal here.
 
BS…Hopkins had plenty of chances. He really had only one decent game. Usually he was a turnover waiting to happen. He wanted to be a volume shooter

His team lost tonight as he hit 3-14 shots

Don’t need that poisonous attitude on our team. Had he stayed, he could have been a decent player on our team this year. He left thinking he had been mishandled. I say BS. I do not like Prima Donna players
Cal brigade member #1
 
What does team success have to do with his personal experience. By all accounts he did not play well at all last year and everyone on this board clamored about him all preseason long on how he was going to be a stud. I never saw in a single game last year what all the hoopla was about except perhaps the LSU game where he had a breakout only to never really play again. This is a personal account of his own struggles from last year and attributes to what has changed to improve his game.
Brigade member #2
 
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Coaching is about getting the best out of the pieces you have. The days of being able to scream at a player until the player got so mad that he would learn a skill are over. You can’t try to break a person and fit them into your mold anymore. I don’t think people, especially kids, should have ever been treated that way, but for the most part, until the last couple of decades that’s how things worked.

There is no more glaring example of how the “scream until they act right” strategy doesn’t work than Olivier Sarr. That kid could play a little. However, there was no reality where he could be a back to the basket, hold his ground and get physical points and rebounds kind of ball player.
 
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Makes CAL look like a punk. Take the high road. You’re at UK not MEMPHIS.

However, Cal will NEVER see it and NEVER learn from it. Straight from the horse’s mouth will NEVER impact him. REALLY too old to learn a lesson from a former player.
He does have too quick a hook on some players.
FIFY.
 
people have been saying for years that the bench guys get no leash with Cal, they make one mistake they are gone
It seems like Cal looks for reasons to bench certain players, but also looks for reasons to play others. Sometimes it makes sense, but in the second half of his tenure, the ones that don't make sense, are becoming more of a regular thing.

It used to be "I can't hide you", now it's "I don't want to take his heart".

Cal is a shell of himself.
 
This explains why other teams seem so loose and UK seems to always be up tight. It explains why players on UK usually play worse when games become most important. Why shooters can't make shoots in big games. But we already knew this. Just watch Cal on the side lines during a game trying to instruct every play they make.
 
Just a reminder for everybody, Oscar and Reeves came here from other teams as did a few more of our team.
 
Looks veeeery bad. Cal is a douche.
I think it says more about the kid. He sounds like sour grapes that he couldn’t be the volume shooter he wanted to be at UK. Had hope for him, but his lack of ability as a freshman kept him on the bench or at the 3. He was never going to beat out Brooks at the 4
 
I think it says more about the kid. He sounds like sour grapes that he couldn’t be the volume shooter he wanted to be at UK. Had hope for him, but his lack of ability as a freshman kept him on the bench or at the 3. He was never going to beat out Brooks at the 4you th
I didn’t hear a lick of sours grapes. Yes UKnos not for everyone. But when your coach say “forcing me to play him more” and then doesn’t give you the time of day, what does that say?

Again, there’s no way Cal looks good here.
 
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I didn’t hear a lick of sours grapes. Yes UKnos not for everyone. But when your coach say “forcing me to play him more” and then doesn’t give you the time of day, what does that say?

Again, there’s no way Cal looks good here.
It’s not about Cal. Hopkins was never the superstar he thought he was. He played one decent game against LSU and fizzled in the rest of the games he played. Very inconsistent.

Our fans saw the one game results and started thinking he was our next great player. He wasn’t here and probably isn’t going to be at Providence. Shot 3-14 tonight in a losing effort against Xavier.

That is not the status of “The Man”
 
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I have said it for the last 3 years, Cal DESTROYS the 4 star players confidence by holding them to a HIGHER standard than he does his One-and-Done's or the kids that he doesn't want to hurt their "parents". I guess Bryce's "parents" were just CHOPPED LIVER!!!

Just think where we would be with Hopkins on this team doing what he has done at Providence!!!


NO EXCUSE for this Cal!!!
The original example of this was Darius Miller. When Darius came in he was a top 40 guy and a Ky kid but others in his group we’re ranked higher than him and he got lost and had a short leash his first 3 years and you could see he’d lost confidence.

Then his senior year even, though he came off the bench, you could tell he said to himself this is my last go round so the hell with it I’m balling out when I get in - and he did and we finally saw the type of player he really was. But it took 3 years.
 
Don't ask a player to do things he can't do. Put him in position in the games to take advantage of the things he can do.
This reminds me of what happened with Skal. He scored in double digits in 4 of his 6 first games (all wins, from 11/13/15 - 11/27/15 — we were ranked #1 by 11/27) and was getting rebounds and blocks in each game, stats here: http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/Statistics/Players/Labissiere_Skalgbg.html

On 11/14/15, he scored 26 points vs NJIT, making 10 of 12 shots, all 6 free throws, 2 blocks and 5 rebounds. Glowing article here:
https://amp.kentucky.com/sports/college/mens-basketball/article45092322.html
Yet Cal’s reaction didn’t sit well with me.
Here’s some quotes, “UK Coach John Calipari said he's still trying to settle on what kind of player Labissiere can be. ‘I've got to figure him out,’ Calipari said. ‘I haven't done a really good job.’
Labissiere is different from former UK big man stars of recent vintage. Not Karl-Anthony Towns. Not Anthony Davis. ‘You want to play him like Shaq,’ Calipari said, meaning a low-post anchor like Shaquille O'Neal. ‘He's not Shaq. He's never going to be Shaq.’”

On 11/25/15, Skal scored 16 points vs Boston, 7 rebounds and 3 blocks. Again, Cal’s post-game comments could have been more encouraging. A quote, “Skal did some good stuff," Calipari said. "He is coming but he still has things he has to do."

Skal scored 17 the next game on 11/27. But after those first two weeks of the season, Skal slumped and only scored in double digits 6 more times over the remaining 30 games.

I always thought his confidence was affected after playing well during those first 6 games. I recall how the coach’s post-game comments left fans puzzled.
 
I have said it for the last 3 years, Cal DESTROYS the 4 star players confidence by holding them to a HIGHER standard than he does his One-and-Done's or the kids that he doesn't want to hurt their "parents". I guess Bryce's "parents" were just CHOPPED LIVER!!!

Just think where we would be with Hopkins on this team doing what he has done at Providence!!!


NO EXCUSE for this Cal!!!
He destroys a good shooter's confidence, and I wonder if Reed Shepherd will let him destroy his as well......
 
He actually gets quite a bit of freedom in Ed Cooley's offense. Might not be "whatever" he wants, but he's a lot more free to make a play. They even run offense for him. Would that have been the case here? Maybe, maybe not. There? The answer is a resounding, yes.
Kentucky runs an offense around a player who can not shoot outside 5 ft from the basket. A complete disgrace. I like Oscar but he should be be on the backside crashing the glass. He is not Karl Malone setting the high screen. This team is doomed as long as he does. Coaching malpractice. Hopkins would have been a better option but still not a great one.
 
The original example of this was Darius Miller. When Darius came in he was a top 40 guy and a Ky kid but others in his group we’re ranked higher than him and he got lost and had a short leash his first 3 years and you could see he’d lost confidence.

Then his senior year even, though he came off the bench, you could tell he said to himself this is my last go round so the hell with it I’m balling out when I get in - and he did and we finally saw the type of player he really was. But it took 3 years.
Cal recruited the right players and Darius got to be part of a national championship team. Darius was a good contributor. Got better every year and had a nice career in the NBA. He didn’t do it by himself. Had good coaching
 
I have been posting for years that Cal mentally destroys his players confidence. The longer players play in Cal's torcher chamber the worse they perform. UK has become the place where great shooters come to die. Cal would rather lose games than allow his players to use the skills that got them to their current level. Cal is an absolute control freak. However, I am sure that the defenders of the "great mouth of the south" don't believe a word of the story.
 
Cal recruited the right players and Darius got to be part of a national championship team. Darius was a good contributor. Got better every year and had a nice career in the NBA. He didn’t do it by himself. Had good coaching
Let us know when you finish your revisionist history dream. Lol. He recruited the right player as he frequently does. He just doesn't know what to do with them once he gets them. He is like a dog chasing a car. Once the car stops and the dog approaches the car, he doesn't know what to do with it, so he takes a whiz on it. That is exactly what Cal does to many of his players. There isn't a coach in the history of the game to do so little with so much as Cal has done. During the KU game it was stated that Cal had 21 more first round NBA picks in the league than KU. It sounds great until you consider how little he has done with those first round picks.
 
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