There's almost no way now To make this an elite or even great regular season. I've been saying for three years, Cal needs to put an elite team on the floor. Elite by my standards (judge as you wish by your standards) is either a (1) seed or a final four. You get two chances a year to prove you're a serious championship favorite. At Kentucky, the expectation should be one of those things every five years. We've never gone more than 8 years without a (1) seed until this stretch. After this year, it will be a decade. After this year, if we don't make the final four, it will be a decade on final fours as well. For me personally, this NCAA tournament is it. It's either final four or bust. For those of you that say that's not fair to make it all about one tournament, he's had 19 other chances. This is just the last one. Without a last weekend run this tournament, IMO, there's just no defense of Cal left as UKs basketball coach. Unless your definition of elite is different or you believe A program can be the gold standard without fielding an elite team for a decade.
It all comes down to the tournament now
- Thread starter Tubbyfan78
- Start date
Cal is stale and is making the whole UK bball program stale. It’s sad.
They aren’t making any type of run, idk why anybody would belive they are. I have watched the replays of both games this week because I’m dumb. But our defense is so bad because we have guys playing major mins who don’t understand basic defensive principles at all. They take unnecessary chances or don’t close out correctly. I’m being dead serious I think they lose Tuesday at vandy
We aren’t a lock for the tournament. I wish people would quit acting like we are.
There already isn’t any excuse for him. A Final Four run would be a nice parting gift.
I was looking at it again, they aren’t a lock but I think it ends up being like last year and they end up getting a 6 seed again maybe a 5
This team could legitimately be 20-11 heading into the SEC tournament and I doubt they stay there long. They may be staring at 9 or 10 seed. If they make the tournament.
If anyone wants to feel better go read JD Shelburn on “X”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a bigger pumper and a person that knows less about what he is watching. I gotta get off Twitter.
I hope we just make the tournament. It seems like with Cal we’ve struggled to get in some years and that’s embarrassing.
I'd honestly rather miss the tournament and jump start the Cal replacement process. The sooner this actually starts, the sooner we can get Kentucky basketball back.
Water won't clear up until you get the pig out of the creek.
He would love to have a final four so he could coast another 4 years.
If and its a Big IF, he gets in it may be the final four to get picked. We have a bunch of tough games left in the SEC and the SEC tourney.
They most certainly can make a run. The defensive woes are fixable. You can’t really fix offense if you can’t shoot or score to begin with. Also you can’t teach size. This may be a repeat of 2014. This team talent wise is better than that team.
Probably 5 more regular season losses.
Lose first game of SEC.
8/9 seed. Lose first game.
Unfortunately you are probably right. He can’t even comprehend how toxic the fan base will be with him if that occurs.
I will say that last night reminded me a bit of watching the 2014 team play Florida. A lot of stupid, youthful mistakes. By the end of the season, the teams were basically even.
Biggest problem I have with the comparison is that team kept getting better. This team started out by taking Kansas to the wire, beating UNC, and blowing out Miami. We are getting worse.
That team also had a lineup pretty well locked in. No time for “injuries.”
The defensive woes are fixable and that is the tragedy here. I’m not sure I see this team transitioning to an elite level defense by any means but certainly better and coupled with their offensive capabilities a threat to win every single game they play. But, that is not happening with cal, no matter how much we all wish it to be. This team needs multiple defensive sets to throw at our opponents but cal will not do that so we are stuck with what we have and it’s not going to get better. It’s getting worse by the game.
I won’t be rooting for us to lose necessarily, but in some ways I’m afraid at this point that making a tournament run would be fool’s gold that would only give Cal and the other powers that be false confidence that things are working. People underestimate just how random that format can be, and to be honest the tournament losses aren’t really why I’m done with Cal, it’s everything else. It’s hardly ever winning the SEC any more, the struggles against top 25 opponents, likely losing the all-time wins lead to Kansas again (our lead is down to 2 and shrinking), etc. Getting hot in the tournament this year won’t fix the culture he’s built that allows all of that.
Also had tough guys like Liggins/Harrellson/Miller to add to Knight/Jones/Lamb talent.
Liggins/Harrelson/Miller were ‘11, but point taken. ‘14 had Hawkins who was tough as nails off the bench. And they don’t come much tougher than Randle in the post.
My mistake--but '14 had a ton of size/defended. They were offensively awkward at times because they didn't know how to play. This team isn't tough enough to defend and athletic enough at key positions. Seeing Rob still go under screens on 3's--guys closing with their hands down--Reed getting lost and free lancing..it's painful to watch.
But you had shown you could beat elite teams too. This team? I mean I guess UNC could be considered "elite" but I question that as I think the ACC Sucks major D this year.
I don’t think UNC was playing that well when we got them. They have improved.
I think people are sleeping on Kansas. We went toe to toe with them. Again, they have continued to improve while we’ve gotten worse.
So I still think the best version of this team can hang with anyone, mostly because we are so dangerous offensively.
But to paraphrase Cal, you don’t have to stop them every time, but you have to stop them some. We can’t stop anyone, and are making no adjustments to improve. Way too easy to get ready for this team and see who can score 100 first.
