Auburn is a very good team. Kentucky is not a bad team but has little room for error. A high number of turnovers and a poor shooting night from three sealed this one.
***** Official Auburn vs Kentucky Game Thread *****
- Thread starter bbncal02
- Start date
I am glad Cal is gone but this is just hard to watch. I have watched high school teams that are better than us.
Especially when our very good offensive efficiency all season long as been tied to NOT turning it over and shooting the 3 well.
This team has no chance if they don't shoot well. They don't rebound well enough or get to the line enough to compensate.
I WANT Pope to succeed for obvious reasons. Take out the most obvious, just because it means our Cats are winning. But also because I think he’s got so many qualities that would make the story awesome. The worry is, he doesn’t have “it”. Juice, moxy, arrogance…whatever you want to call it. Pitino and early Cal gave us the best runs in my lifetime. Those two dudes definitely have it. Pope is more Tubby w/o the benefit of Rick having built him a team for year one. He will be “ok”, but he ain’t gonna be special.
I don't know. I'm willing to at least give him time to recruit his players and form the team that best fits his style.
In all honesty this hasn't been a bad first season so far.
You see what I saw. At first I thought Pearl was making a mistake to play off Amari and let him have a view to pass.
But it was genius because it took us off our game and we didn’t adjust.
Maybe Pearl had a plan B if we had adjusted? But he didn’t have to go to it because we never changed what we were doing.
Then Bias talking their guard pressure forcing turnovers. Nonsense!
Most of our turnovers were unforced.
I don’t disagree at all. It hasn’t been bad at all. Quite surprising in a lot of ways (both good and bad). I’m just not going to walk around pretending warts haven’t been noticed. And there’s 9 yrs worth of okay-good results from his coaching. But nothing that gives him a free pass for shortcomings.
It has been about as expected despite some bad luck.
Top 20, 25ish seemed to be the preseason consensus here. That’s about where we fit in.
With better health, we’re in that 10-17th range.
I’m not surprised UK is a .500 SEC team. But I am perplexed why they looked more cohesive offensively in December/January than they do in February/March. It’s more than just injuries. Is it a mental issue or have teams simply adjusted to what we are doing? We looked disorganized against Oklahoma and it carried over to today.
Yeah, dUKe tried to do that, got burned early and then went away from it. Thought it was knee jerk then. I watch every second of every game, so I think I know us well. It’s EXACTLY how I’d defend us. Dork Amari, jam the zoom screens and play HEAVY help line on Carr, Oweh, and Chandler. Chase everyone else over screens and then step under on the three above and Butler. But honestly, if we’d initiate through Amari in the low I think we’re tougher to defend. The offense schemes are very similar to the zoom, it’s just obviously eliminates the DHO action. But we aren’t getting anything out of that anyway.
I think a large part of it is injuries tho. Butler really makes this team go and without having him and then with him back but not at full strength we are feeling the effects of this.
Beginning of year, we were one of the best teams at not turning it over on offense. In SEC play this has gone way down drastically.
If you look the close games we lost, we could easily be 22-7. Texas, Vandy, Ark are at least 3 we should have won.
I know we lost but I do think all the other injuries etc damn near torpedoed the year.
I'm really hoping we see these guys more ready to play than they were today. My bet they will be ready.
I know we lost but I do think all the other injuries etc damn near torpedoed the year.
I'm really hoping we see these guys more ready to play than they were today. My bet they will be ready.
Yeah you have to think at full health we probably win some of those games at least.
I try to stay optimistic but it’s hard. What kind of offense are they trying to run letting the bigs start the offense?? It’s nothing but stagnant offense.
Great post , we def need to do something new , teams have scouted us so heavily we are pushed out of our first and second options and getting pushed to go back door , but outside of OO we have zero finishers . Need to run a new set with AW in the paint and a PG at the PG spot
Yes, it is hard to watch at times but not nearly as hard to watch as Cal rolling out 5-star players who looked like 10-year-olds on the court because they were so poorly coached. Again, this is Pope's first season as coach and he doesn't have a single first round draft pick on the team. To be honest, there might not even be a second-round draft pick on this team.
You are correct about the recruiting. There is only so much a coach can do with this cast of characters
This game shows why we need the Nate Aments of the world too. We need to get that level of player sometime. Recruit dynamic guards and wings.
Even with the injuries this season has been way less frustrating then having the best team and constantly losing,
As soon as Noah and Perry step onto the court, teams go right at them because they just aren't fast enough to defend at this level. If they were making baskets, it would possibly balance out, but when they are not, it is a joke.
Which is why we need a zone of some sort to try and help them when they play. Something to hide their lack of quickness the best we can.
It would be good if we tried a version of switching defenses as a way of bringing a little confusion to their offense.
They’re still green.
Lets hope with experience and additional strength gains with age will make them more able defenders.
At the very least, they should be better offensive players in a year than they are now.
Experience and strength won't make them faster. Since they can't play defense, they darn well better get their offensive act together.
Surely the Strength and conditioning coach can help a few of these guys get faster and stronger. Lateral quickness would really help all these frosh.
I think they will.
I think they will.
Silver lining we on,y lost the second half 45-44. Shows we can compete still. Just little margin for error.
Do we have a strength and conditioning coach? Certainly doesn't show if we do.
You could take those lucky 3's completely away and we Barn still walks the dog on us
