Injuries are why we lost to Arkansas

[CrimsonCats]

Some will try hard to adopt a “no excuses” motto, and that’s probably how the coaches should approach things to a degree since it’s their job to compete with whatever they have available.

As fans though, we can be honest that the injuries definitely played a part. Teams don’t have unlimited depth, and essentially missing 3 rotation players (Carr tried to go, but clearly can’t give much right now) including both our true point guards is definitely a challenge. That forces us to give guys like Chandler and Perry minutes they probably aren’t ready for just to avoid playing our starting guards 40 minutes, and makes it more difficult to survive an off night from any of our frontline players who are still healthy like we got from both Oweh and Brea last night.

The Tennessee win was great, but it required us getting a good game from pretty much everyone as well as Tennessee quite frankly missing a bunch of shots they’re normally capable of hitting at a higher rate. I’m afraid we’re in for a lot of uphill battles right now since the reports on our injured players make it sound like none of them are likely to get back to 100% before the end of the season if they return at all.

 

[yes_takeaside]

Butler out hurt of course.

Arkansas is way more athletic and that was the biggest issue

For the Cats to overcome that they had to make shots. Brea missed 3 threes where he was completely wide open. They missed a bunch of FTs and some of the turnovers were totally unforced.

The UK players were not able to be emotionally invested in the hoopla around the game like the former Cats playing for the Hogs.

Hope UK gets them in the SEC tourney

 

[TOMCATS1990]

Dude, we agree on a lot of things, but this ain't one of them. Arkansas played out of their minds last night. They could have beaten any team in the country playing like that. You put a healthy Butler on the floor and DJ isn't doing jack crap.

I will say that Amari should have been the offensive focus more, but we are beat up and it doesn't look good going forward.

Hey we don’t have to agree on everything and Pope screwed up by not switching D’s and making CAL have to Coach. He played right into the Hogs hands going man to man the entire game minus one possession.

 

[Tim0808]

Don’t you guys get it. We were severely undermanned. The guys that we had on the court gave it their best.

A healthy team and we blow them out. Time to move on and get healthy for our Final Four run.

whatever makes you sleep better at night

 

[Jakarii]

Arkansas has a more talented roster

Arkansas played harder

Cal out coached Pope last night

Those are the 3 main reasons.

I will also add I was surprised to see that Arkansas got a slight benefit from the officials. The refs weren't horrible, but it seemed the got more fouls called from similar contact on each end. I thought being the home team and having Cal as the opposing coach we would get a favorable whistle

There’s also the fact Arkansas was missing its best player in Fland (the way Wagner played in the second half is how Fland usually plays for a full game). Arkansas is better than their record because as y’all know, Cal teams take time to adjust before they become good. Will likely take a year since he went to w worse school out of the blue so he’s playing catch up without the power of the UK brand. A lot like Colorado in Primes first year, this is the year to get him. OAD top five potential talents in 6’4 pg Acuff and 6’5 monk like scoring machine in. MT added eith year three Wagner, year three bigz, year two Knox and Billy plus a high level two transfers will be the final piece to make the SEC a juggernaut (UK part of it) which will make it a blood bath in conference.

 

[UKBrassowTipIN]

Don’t you guys get it. We were severely undermanned. The guys that we had on the court gave it their best.

A healthy team and we blow them out. Time to move on and get healthy for our Final Four run.

Boogie Fland says hi

 

[ala_kat2]

I disagree. Even with all of our players back at full strength i think the way Arkansas played last night they would still win. They shot their asses off lol. We hit several threes too but they will not match that performance again this year. Also after watching Arkansas they are the epitome of a team that is our kryptonite. We are a finesse team who really doesn’t like contact or playing smoothering defense. Arkansas thrives on both. Factor in a career shooting night from the whole team and you get what you had last night.

You may be correct, but I think with a healthy Butker and Carr we would have still outscired them. And Butlef would have held Wagner down and created some turnovers.

 

[the nail at the foul line]

One game.

As Churchill said, "we shall fight them bitches".

 

[Blue_2_the_bone]

Arkansas isn’t a trash team. lol. They’re a good team that’s played like trash, kind of like Baylor this season. Players wise, Arkansas had guys with something to prove and they fed off the boos & smack talk from all season. We have 1 guy who might have felt like he had something to prove and he didn’t even check into the game. None of our guys had anything to do with Cal or the events of his final years. It was a game to them. The motivation was the fan base. We’ve pounded our chest all year about who we’ve beat and how bad Arkansas is. Now we’re stuck with egg on our face.

 

[cats#1again]

Injuries are part of the game, we lost because triple C out coached Pope…..

Yea because the coach makes 15 3's lol
That has nothing to do with coaching
Do you think Cal didn't want the shots to go in in all the games?

 

[cats#1again]

Fland, their best or second best player is out due to injury as well.

It's the reason they are playing better too

 

[crestcat]

It's the reason they are playing better too

Addition by subtraction

 

[blackcat714]

Injuries are part of the game, we lost because triple C out coached Pope…..

Pope was schooled by the clown still cannot believe it.

 

[Hopmix]

Injuries are part of the game, we lost because triple C out coached Pope…..

Not really. We didn’t have a guard that could stop the ball. We didn’t close out on shooters but that wasn’t the scouting report. They are a horribly shooting team that shot well. The defense is atrocious. Can’t deny that. But we don’t have a point guard. Like what the **** do you guys think is gonna happen? Injuries are part of the game but we have our starting and back up PG injured. You think mark pope wants to play Colin Chandler?

 

[TOMCATS1990]

Not really. We didn’t have a guard that could stop the ball. We didn’t close out on shooters but that wasn’t the scouting report. They are a horribly shooting team that shot well. The defense is atrocious. Can’t deny that. But we don’t have a point guard. Like what the **** do you guys think is gonna happen? Injuries are part of the game but we have our starting and back up PG injured. You think mark pope wants to play Colin Chandler?

1-3-1
2-3
3-2
Box-1
Triangle-2
Full court press
3-4 court press
Half court press

Nah let’s play man to man let them drive to the hoop and score or kick it out for open 3’s. You have got to make adjustments on the fly. You could see early on Arkansas was knocking down shots.

 

[The_Answer1313]

Of course that didn't help.

Then again this team was more short handed the game before and was able to win on the road against a top 10 team.

Who knows how long Butler will be out for. They are going to have to find ways to win without him.

 

[UKBB4Ever]

It was a combo of things. The thing that has bothered me the most all year is that we do not hustle and play hard enough. That is unforgivable. I love pope but come on man. I hope we don’t have this issue in the years to come. I mean, arky just wanted it more. Unbelievable

I’m very bummed about the injuries because I don’t think those guys are coming back. Just reading the tea leaves, it doesn’t seem good. That being said, I’m afraid we may have peaked.

We do play hard. There is no lazy play from any UK player.

They don’t always play smart. They don’t always play well.

They are doing the best they can while learning a completely new system.

Sometimes maybe Pope over coaches instead of letting things play out. But he’s still learning these guys too.

There’s a reason these guys are all still in college at age 23.

They just don’t have other worldly talent.

We have a whole team of role players.

We need at least one alpha.

But it’s going to be next season.

 

[G-PIP]

Boogie Fland says hi

And his Ark. teammates said "Thank you, Boggie. You forced Cal to play a lineup that fits much better together. It had to be you or DJ. Sorry it was you, but. . . ."

 

[Cats192]

Boogie Fland says hi

The Boogie Fland thing doesn't affect them like Butler affects us. Because their backup guards are actually healthy.

Boogie missing games has let DJ play on ball. It lets Davis get the ball in his hands more. They're not necessarily better off because Fland got hurt. But they have enough overlapping pieces that it doesn't kill what they already were.

We don't have a single actual PG that is healthy.

 

[BBNinSC]

Arkansas got the best of us last night and that makes them 2-6 in conference. They will lose 5 of their next 6 games. They still have Cal for a coach and a shit fanbase, so celebrate to your hog’s ass content for now because come tomorrow you’re still Arkansas.

 

[Cats192]

We're down 2 starters. Our top 2 PG's are out.

You can't draw any hard conclusions about this team right now. We're not very good without a. PG. Most teams aren't.

Arkansas is a terrible 3 point shooting team. They made 3's all night. People keep criticizing Pope for not switching to a zone. They shot over 50% from 3. I think Pope's strategy coming in was to make them beat us from 3. They absolutely did it. Going zone wasn't going to hurt them.

 

[Blue Bigfoot]

Boogie Fland says hi

They have no drop off with Fland out.
We are playing, Perry, Chandler, and Noah to back fill our guys being out.
If you can't see the huge drop off in talent there, I don't know what to tell you.
They are slowly getting better, but they are a long way away from being legitimate D1 level players.
Once again, the game last night wasn't a coaching issue.

 

[Cats192]

They have no drop off with Fland out.
We are playing, Perry, Chandler, and Noah to back fill our guys being out.
If you can't see the huge drop off in talent there, I don't know what to tell you.
They are slowly getting better, but they are a long way away from being legitimate D1 level players.
Once again, the game last night wasn't a coaching issue.

This.

They have DJ Wagner who is used to running PG for Cal.
Our backup is Kriisa. He's out.
So we're having to use Chandler and Perry at times.

It's not the same.

 

[BC_Wader]

This.

They have DJ Wagner who is used to running PG for Cal.
Our backup is Kriisa. He's out.
So we're having to use Chandler and Perry at times.

It's not the same.

Careful now. Someone on here thinks Butler is not an elite defender. Someone doesn't know basketball but is caught up in post counts.

 

[crawfords corner]

Andrew Carr has averaged 29.2 minutes per game over his 137 game career. He played 15 minutes yesterday

Kriisa missed his 12th game yesterday

Butler, the starting PG, missed his 2nd game in a row yesterday, and 4th of the season


This happened to Otega Oweh just 4 days ago and was clearly still feeling it yesterday.


Kentucky is clearly playing undermanned and missing a defensive stopper like Butler and his ability to control both ends of the court is clearly a huge disadvantage for Kentucky.


Pope isn't being "outcoached". That's dumb ****ery at the highest level. Most nights Kentucky is the least talented team on the floor. Unsurprisingly, people saying UK is being outcoached aren't capable of knowing wtf they are talking about. They can't even see the disparity.

 

[the nail at the foul line]

Addition by subtraction

So you will understand my earlier comment.

 

[bucsrule8872]

This game is emotional.

They were fired up and the booing threw gas on the fire!

I seriously doubt the Hogs will play that well again all season.

 

[Wildcatballer23]

Injuries are part of the game, we lost because triple C out coached Pope…..

Wrong. His team shot out of their butt's and got lucky. They hit like double their normal shots to win theor superbowl. It was predictable, which is why I won some damn good money last night. It happens, grow a pair kid

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

Don’t you guys get it. We were severely undermanned. The guys that we had on the court gave it their best.

A healthy team and we blow them out. Time to move on and get healthy for our Final Four run.

I think there is more truth to this than it feels. I don’t think a Final Four run is likely. We have too many injuries that are either season threatening or lingering. Butler was truly the head of the snake for us and once he started getting hobbled that was it for our ceiling. We could have made do with Kriisa, but he seems to be out for the season also. We are now playing our starting SF at point. He can create matchup issues with his size and does as good a job as can be expected, but our offense without Butler becomes a high-turnover mess and we are now slow at the point of attack defensively. We already had defensive issues and now they are glaring. I don’t think there is anything wrong with acknowledging that a Final Four run is a bit of an unfair expectation for this team given our roster issues. If Pope makes it to the Sweet 16 with this team, I’ll be very happy and I still think he has done an outstanding job this year.

 

[crawfords corner]

I think there is more truth to this than it feels. I don’t think a Final Four run is likely. We have too many injuries that are either season threatening or lingering. Butler was truly the head of the snake for us and once he started getting hobbled that was it for our ceiling. We could have made do with Kriisa, but he seems to be out for the season also. We are now playing our starting SF at point. He can create matchup issues with his size and does as good a job as can be expected, but our offense without Butler becomes a high-turnover mess and we are now slow at the point of attack defensively. We already had defensive issues and now they are glaring. I don’t think there is anything wrong with acknowledging that a Final Four run is a bit of an unfair expectation for this team given our roster issues. If Pope makes it to the Sweet 16 with this team, I’ll be very happy and I still think he has done an outstanding job this year.

Im not laughing at anything you said. Im laughing because its your first post Ive read and the name and picture got me. Just wanted to point that out.

 

[Bluesnky]

This game is emotional.

They were fired up and the booing threw gas on the fire!

I seriously doubt the Hogs will play that well again all season.

If they play a team with no point guard, allowing DJ Wagner to play defense like Tyler Ulis, they’ll have a chance every game.