It was the 94-95 season, so it was 20 years ago. I agree that it doesn't seem that long ago, but it was.
Is Duke out-working everyone else, or is it something else?
- Thread starter Cat Ballou
- Start date
It was the 94-95 season, so it was 20 years ago. I agree that it doesn't seem that long ago, but it was.
With the exception of the UConn game, those wins came against a pillow soft early season schedule. Duke finished with 13 wins that year and 18 losses. Duke went 2-14 in conference. Any coach who's worth a grain of salt understands what his team is really capable of. K knew the ACC would slaughter his team and it did. He threw his assistants to the wolves and took the easy road out. Do you think there's any real way he has back surgery that season if his roster features two or three NBA lottery picks?
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Wow y'all are completely obsessed with Duke. It's honestly hilarious.
And I just have to laugh at the guy who started this thread, acting like no other schools in the entire country know about Frank Jackson or Trae Young. Good lord.... y'all take stupid to another level.
And I just have to laugh at the guy who started this thread, acting like no other schools in the entire country know about Frank Jackson or Trae Young. Good lord.... y'all take stupid to another level.
This coming from a Duke fan who spends his leisure time positing on a Kentucky board? Did you learn the meaning of irony while at Duke or do you represent the 98% of Duke fans who never attended Duke and merely jumped on the bandwagon after they went to 7 Final Fours in a nine year span?
Word for word right out of the UNC playbook. I would think you'd have more originality. K wouldn't abandon his team without cause, as that military creed that he oft references means too much to him. He's coached far less talent than that 1995 team. (Which remains the only tournament miss for Duke in the last 31 years.) Also he came back and coached a team with even LESS talent a year later. (No Parks, Trajan Langdon out for season with knee) and while it wasn't a great season by any measure. Duke did win the Great Alaska Shootout beating a ranked Iowa and ranked Indiana team in back to back games. Thumped defending Champ UCLA by 19 and returned to the NCAA Tournament despite a team full of injured players.
All of which might be true, but still doesn't change the relatively gutless maneuver of ex post facto dumping the 94-95 record on Pete Gaudet (who, if my memory serves, was making something like $18,000 because of some silly NCAA rule about assistant coaches).
Krzyzewski is a great coach, but just like every other great coach in the history of the sport, he's not the flawless paragon of rectitude that so many Duke fans (and national media members who buy into the Duke PR machine) make him out to be.
Definitely putting in the work. Let's see:
1) K is as good as it gets, like it or not.
2) K's connection with Team USA. Great pipeline of young players (Okafor, Jones)
3) His assistants can flat out recruit (better than ours now that Antigua is gone) and sell the program. Hell, they played there so the passion they posses is transparent.
4) Duke has great academics.
5) They put guys in the pros (Irving, Okafor, Parker)
If I were at top player, I would definitely consider Duke and I'm a diehard UK fan. Only a close minded fool would think differently.
1) K is as good as it gets, like it or not.
2) K's connection with Team USA. Great pipeline of young players (Okafor, Jones)
3) His assistants can flat out recruit (better than ours now that Antigua is gone) and sell the program. Hell, they played there so the passion they posses is transparent.
4) Duke has great academics.
5) They put guys in the pros (Irving, Okafor, Parker)
If I were at top player, I would definitely consider Duke and I'm a diehard UK fan. Only a close minded fool would think differently.
Duke has so many advantages right now it's not funny.
Team USA has helped them a great deal.
They are infallible in the eyes of the media and the media has a preposterous amount of influence. I'm sure Duke gets negative recruited against as do we, but they don't have to deal with media members piling on as well as Coach Cal and UK do. It's probably a lot easier for recruits to believe the bs that rival coaches are spouting when they see the stuff in the "news" too.
Coach K has built a strong argument as the GOAT. I don't like Duke or him but he's got 5 titles, 12 final fours and 2 gold medals. If that were Calipari's resume we would be asking ourselves how the heck any kid would ever turn down playing for him.
Also as others have mentioned, Jeff Capel is a former high major coach that actually did well before being fired for NCAA violations. Having a guy like that on staff is a huge advantage. I think if Pastner is eventually let go at Memphis there's a chance Cal could add him to his staff and we would benefit from it in a similar way even though Pastner has not done particularly well at Memphis. The trade off is that he's a way better recruiter than Capel.
As much as I hate it, he's earned the Team USA thing. The only thing that I think is wrong about the process is that Calipari IMO is the best candidate to replace him as coach of team USA when K decides to call it quits and he's likely not going to even be considered for it because a large contingent of rival coaches and media members will be and probably already have been very proactive in campaigning against giving the job to Calipari out of fear and disdain.
I will say all the worry about Duke and K's "inevitable" dominance over the next few years is a little premature. I think we're still going to be right there with them. It's probably at it's peak right now and our next few recruiting classes are setting up to rival what they'll bring in.
Team USA has helped them a great deal.
They are infallible in the eyes of the media and the media has a preposterous amount of influence. I'm sure Duke gets negative recruited against as do we, but they don't have to deal with media members piling on as well as Coach Cal and UK do. It's probably a lot easier for recruits to believe the bs that rival coaches are spouting when they see the stuff in the "news" too.
Coach K has built a strong argument as the GOAT. I don't like Duke or him but he's got 5 titles, 12 final fours and 2 gold medals. If that were Calipari's resume we would be asking ourselves how the heck any kid would ever turn down playing for him.
Also as others have mentioned, Jeff Capel is a former high major coach that actually did well before being fired for NCAA violations. Having a guy like that on staff is a huge advantage. I think if Pastner is eventually let go at Memphis there's a chance Cal could add him to his staff and we would benefit from it in a similar way even though Pastner has not done particularly well at Memphis. The trade off is that he's a way better recruiter than Capel.
As much as I hate it, he's earned the Team USA thing. The only thing that I think is wrong about the process is that Calipari IMO is the best candidate to replace him as coach of team USA when K decides to call it quits and he's likely not going to even be considered for it because a large contingent of rival coaches and media members will be and probably already have been very proactive in campaigning against giving the job to Calipari out of fear and disdain.
I will say all the worry about Duke and K's "inevitable" dominance over the next few years is a little premature. I think we're still going to be right there with them. It's probably at it's peak right now and our next few recruiting classes are setting up to rival what they'll bring in.
Duke had four players who averaged between 12 and 16 points/game in 95-96. They won 18 games. They played a tougher strength of schedule in 95-96 than they did in 94-95. How you can quantitatively say that Duke had a lesser team in 96? Cherokee Parks, a career NBA journey man who saw career highs of 7.1ppg in his best NBA season, is not really the type of player to cite when talking about a vacuum left by an elite player's departure. Duke's offense/defense was ranked 61st/159th in 1995. Their offense/defense was ranked 85th/112th in 1996. I'm not sure how that makes for an argument that the 96 team was overwhelmingly inferior to the 95 team.
Also, I know it's hard to imagine your presumptive hero coach as anything less than the college basketball equivalent of Gandhi, but I think the first step to approaching the potential pitfalls of hero worship is acknowledging that every human is self-serving to some degree. Even someone like Coach K, whose military history really is as faulty in solidifying your point that he's above reproach as it would be citing General David Petraeus's service to his country as somehow negating his inability to keep his pants on.
That is to say, it's not really relevant to this discussion about whether he would abandon his team. It should also be noted that while he's had worse teams in his career, all of those teams came before he was handed the title of "college basketball's greatest coach" during his epic late 80s/early 90s run. He didn't go for back surgery in a season that featured a returning core of Grant Hill and company or one that featured an incoming Corey Maggette. He chose a season that featured his lowest amount of talent since before the movie The Breakfast Club hit the box office. Does it mean K was deliberately abandoning his least talented team in a decade? Not necessarily, but the picture you paint certainly doesn't exonerate him either. Until Duke fans formulate a better counter-argument, the discussion should continue.
It was, at the very least, suspicious timing. I'd hope you could at least acknowledge that much.
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Well the only new player was Domzalski with losses of Parks/Langdon/Meeks so I'm not sure how it was a more talented team a year later.
Story today about UK offering Gary Trent, Jr. Well, we're about a month behind Duke on this one - and they're already laying groundwork for a Trent/Wendell Carter package.
We've offered Carter, but seem to have already conceded him to Duke. In recent article, Carter said he heard from Duke every day and UK only occassionally.
I think to some extent what we are seeing is a difference in recruiting strategy. Duke zeroes in hard on their targets and offers them early. UK has kind of slow-played guys and offered them late.
In the big picture, I'm not worried about UK's recruiting. We are going to get ours. It's the rest of college basketball that needs to be worried. College basketball could very well evolve into the Duke vs. UK show. If I was a UNC fan for example, I would be absolutely sick. That program is poised to tank big time.
To some extent as well, Duke has been lucky that so many kids lately that are such consummate Dukies have been so good. Tatum, Jabari Parker, Tyus Jones, etc.
UK will be fine. Duke may get a Trae Young in 2017, but I can see UK pulling in a guy like Trevon Duval. Duke may get Tatum, Jackson, Giles this year, but if we can get 3 of Alkins, Bridges, Fultz, Simmons, and a decent big, we'll be very good, and I will like our class almost as much as Duke's.
We've offered Carter, but seem to have already conceded him to Duke. In recent article, Carter said he heard from Duke every day and UK only occassionally.
I think to some extent what we are seeing is a difference in recruiting strategy. Duke zeroes in hard on their targets and offers them early. UK has kind of slow-played guys and offered them late.
In the big picture, I'm not worried about UK's recruiting. We are going to get ours. It's the rest of college basketball that needs to be worried. College basketball could very well evolve into the Duke vs. UK show. If I was a UNC fan for example, I would be absolutely sick. That program is poised to tank big time.
To some extent as well, Duke has been lucky that so many kids lately that are such consummate Dukies have been so good. Tatum, Jabari Parker, Tyus Jones, etc.
UK will be fine. Duke may get a Trae Young in 2017, but I can see UK pulling in a guy like Trevon Duval. Duke may get Tatum, Jackson, Giles this year, but if we can get 3 of Alkins, Bridges, Fultz, Simmons, and a decent big, we'll be very good, and I will like our class almost as much as Duke's.
Is it really BS? Or is it it just a difference in...wait for it...marketing?
Our coach is actively marketing this program as nothing more than a lay over to the NBA. A place where a player can simply prepare himself for the league withou havingt all that pesky stress that comes from trying to win a NC bringing them down. A just do you, get paid and hopefully we win, but whatever...millions, marketing strategy. While Coach K and Duke have taken the "high road", offering a more traditional college BB experience and the squeaky clean persona that comes with it. Which means a lot.
It's this persona that got both Parker and Okafor, neither of which were #1 picks, ad deals before they played a game in the league. You did notice that, right? I did and I'm sure future stars and the people who influence their college decision did too. So ask yourself this: Why Parker and Okafor? Are they better people than KAT? More talented than Wiggins? As UK fans, we can say that's BS, but is it really? Or is it just marketing?
I wouldn't worry about it though, our coach is a master marketer, he'll get this thing turned around. If not, he can just go pro.
Jeff Capel, Jon Schyer, and Nate James are all solid on the recruiting trail. Kenny Payne is a beast but I've said probably a hundred times over a hundred threads Cal is a great closer, KP and O got us in the door sold the program and made it easy for Cal to seal it. Robic isn't doing anything, and if we are to trust the past then Barbee isn't going to do anything either. Cal wasn't getting super elite kids at Memphis outside of Derrick Rose or guys from Memphis until Orlando showed up in 08. Hopefully Barbee can do better at UK though we just have to hope for the best
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anon_q409idbs5m40a
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Lot of truth in this. One of the main reasons for Duke's recent success is the problems at UNC. Kids that would've gone to UNC are now going to Duke due to the uncertainty on what's going to happen to the program.
A few things.
First, Ks back injury was a brute, as was his general condition. Things were a mess for him. I know you guys, being Kentucky fans, wouldn't know this because you likely wouldn't pay much attention to the deeper story, but he was in bad, bad shape. He was overwhelmed, life was falling apart, wife was giving him the ultimatum... It was BAD. He was ready to leave coaching, being physically destroyed and mentally a mess... He had a bit of a meltdown. Here is an article that gives a brief look at it.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college/mens-basketball/article9252488.html
It wasn't some faked "OMG I don't want to lose a basketball game!" ploy, and anyone who paid attention to the story, and to K himself, would know that.
As for that team, it started the season 9-2, with two wins against ranked opponents. It wasn't until the next game that he left. Things then fell apart, not so unsurprisingly. The team was ranked as high as sixth in the nation. So it is a little stupid to say "Oh it was a crappy team." It wasn't, although things fell apart.
As for the win loss record; no one in history has really sufficiently explained to me why it is SO bad that who coached the games had the wins and losses attached to his name. It is the most bizarre stance I've ever seen. In my world, the coach who coaches a game is the one whose record gets wins and losses, since they... You know... Coached the game. But UNC fans in particular seem to be convinced that that is crazy; coaches who are at home should get the wins and losses, and coaches who coach a game shouldn't. I've never figured out why.
And in a final note... Cherokee Parks was GOOD as a senior. Again, it seems there are a lot of young folks here who might not know, and others, being fans of Kentucky, might not have paid attention, but as a senior Parks averaged 19 and 9 while shooting 37 percent from three. He was GOOD. There is a reason he has played in the league for a ton of years.
And yeah, the 95-96 team that K came back to was the worst I've ever seen. Taymon Domzalski and Carmen Wallace each got 20 minutes a game. Tony Moore played 24 minutes a game, FFS. That is lunacy.
So yeah. It is very UNC-esque to froth at the mouth about K going out that year, and to make all the traditional accompanying arguments.
First, Ks back injury was a brute, as was his general condition. Things were a mess for him. I know you guys, being Kentucky fans, wouldn't know this because you likely wouldn't pay much attention to the deeper story, but he was in bad, bad shape. He was overwhelmed, life was falling apart, wife was giving him the ultimatum... It was BAD. He was ready to leave coaching, being physically destroyed and mentally a mess... He had a bit of a meltdown. Here is an article that gives a brief look at it.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college/mens-basketball/article9252488.html
It wasn't some faked "OMG I don't want to lose a basketball game!" ploy, and anyone who paid attention to the story, and to K himself, would know that.
As for that team, it started the season 9-2, with two wins against ranked opponents. It wasn't until the next game that he left. Things then fell apart, not so unsurprisingly. The team was ranked as high as sixth in the nation. So it is a little stupid to say "Oh it was a crappy team." It wasn't, although things fell apart.
As for the win loss record; no one in history has really sufficiently explained to me why it is SO bad that who coached the games had the wins and losses attached to his name. It is the most bizarre stance I've ever seen. In my world, the coach who coaches a game is the one whose record gets wins and losses, since they... You know... Coached the game. But UNC fans in particular seem to be convinced that that is crazy; coaches who are at home should get the wins and losses, and coaches who coach a game shouldn't. I've never figured out why.
And in a final note... Cherokee Parks was GOOD as a senior. Again, it seems there are a lot of young folks here who might not know, and others, being fans of Kentucky, might not have paid attention, but as a senior Parks averaged 19 and 9 while shooting 37 percent from three. He was GOOD. There is a reason he has played in the league for a ton of years.
And yeah, the 95-96 team that K came back to was the worst I've ever seen. Taymon Domzalski and Carmen Wallace each got 20 minutes a game. Tony Moore played 24 minutes a game, FFS. That is lunacy.
So yeah. It is very UNC-esque to froth at the mouth about K going out that year, and to make all the traditional accompanying arguments.
It's a competitive sport. Kentucky and Duke have the 2 best coaches in college basketball. You can't be serious saying Krzyzewski outworks Calipari. Calipari is the hardest working coach in college basketball, and has been the most dominant recruiter since arriving in Lexington in 2009. Rivals class rankings. Duke 2009 #8, 2010 #10, 2011 #2, 2012 unranked, 2013 #5, 2014 #1, 2015 #1. Kentucky 2009 #1, 2010 #1, 2011 #1, 2012 #1, 2013 #1, 2014 #2, 2015 #3. If you are worried about the trend in 2014-16, well, I'm not. There are about 60 Big 5 conference teams plus others such as UConn, Wichita State, Butler, Northern Iowa that can factor in the Sweet Sixteen in any given year. It takes more than great classes to win the NC. I do not believe the Jason Tatum commitment guarantees anything for Duke, even if Giles joins him. Duke is an excellent school, and Krzyzewski is a great coach who will have successes. But I still love what Calipari is doing in Lexington. Picking up Jamal Murray last month was a master recruiting stroke. Kentucky's 2016 class is off to a great start with Wynyard already committed, Simmons close to committing, a great shot at Monk, and most of the rest of the top 20 looking seriously at Kentucky. I would not trade places with Duke or any other school.
Please. You post a lot of interesting stuff, but you embarrassed yourself with this 1.
With Coach K's record against UK, his recent recruiting success, along with having thousands of Kentucky fans paranoid, it's reasonable to believe that he owns Kentucky. In Coach K's last three title runs, a matchup with Kentucky seemed inevitable, until Kentucky lost a game they shouldn't, then Duke proceeds to beat that team (USC, WV, and Wisc). With all of the Duke obsession, I figured that I would join in as well, since, we are talking about the Greatest coach of all-time (and I mean it too).
Coach K is boss and no one is denying that. I live in NC as a UK fan and I hate UNC and Duke more than UL. Their recent success has made living here hard. Scary part is, the man isn't aging and he's only getting better recruiting one and dones. He's the best coach out there and now he's recruiting on Cals level
Coach K owns UK? Yeah....or not. Now does he own the teams that have beat UK in the NCAA Tourney? Yeah...that makes more sense.
![[cheers]](https://ct.yimg.com/mr/uploads/891/5628.gif "Cheers [cheers]")
#1. Many fans would be elated if K took a break or even retired. That's a sign of respect for the man.
#2. I personally feel it was ironic and funny how his lone back surgery season coincided with his worst team since his first Duke teams (and yes, up until that point, it was his worst team since the early 80s). You may not agree and see the irony or humor there, but many folks do. I happen to be one of them. Do I think K was faking an injury? No, but I also feel had e encountered the same symptoms during the 98-99 season, he probably would have waited until after the season for the surgery. Maybe I'm wrong there, but I don't think so.
Look, these Coach K apologists are forgetting that the 94-95 season happened before the 95-96 season, rendering their appeal toward his objectivity in his timing baseless. There was no way to know that the 96 team would be worse at the time when K stepped down. The reality facing K in 1995 was back pain and a team with no chance at a Final Four. He did the math and took the logical break from the game. I can't say I blame him, but I'm also not going to act naïve by asserting he would have taken a break had he faced similar back pain in 1992 or 2001. I find the humor, in part, from those who would never even dream of such a possibility, even if it was the logical move for K.
#3. Your opinion doesn't dictate or encompass the full scope of reality. Neither does mine. Life goes on, but I do hope I've explained my position in a clearer way.
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Remember when I wrote this nugget of truth? http://kentucky.forums.rivals.com/threads/official-coach-k-is-goat-thread.90828/
So what's with your obviously creepy infatuation with Duke and Coach K? Ask him on a date if you like him so much, just don't tell the rest of us about it. Very simple, tool.
Another troll exposed. Sorry, if you are that much a Duke fan and have a UK handle then I call it being a troll. If you are not a troll you need to change your handle and root for your coach. No issues with you doing that but I cannot see a UK fan that is that much in love with another teams coach no matter who he is. jmo
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I'm embarrassed to have someone like you as a Lakers and UK fan....if you really are the latter.
OP, are you facing something sad in your life right now?
I mean, I get it, man. Life can be rough. But why take it out on your fellow fans?
I mean, I get it, man. Life can be rough. But why take it out on your fellow fans?
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You really fooled me.....got one over on me man. Geez you got it together. Good luck to you...
Isn't it clear to you all that he's a poser. He's clearly a duke fan with a UK handle. We've seen this time and time before, usually it is UNC fans.
