Ok....So how good are we?

[ruppslegacy1]

After all my years watching UK and all of college ball I am at a loss....How good are we and will we be in November when we take the court against Duke? This team looks like they are ready for a March run in August. Dumbfounded right now while trying to temper expectations

 

[bigc45157]

We are at least pretty good.

 

[Wall2Boogie]

Nobody can answer that. A lot will change over the next 3 months. The one guarantee is they will be even better by that time, which is a scary thought for opponents

 

[mrdavisanddd]

Good enough that K's back will go out by halftime

 

[kyjeff1]

It's really tough to tell. I didn't expect the performances we've seen. I mean they played like veterans, veterans that have played together. They've played fast with few turnovers and smothered all three opponents defensively. I don't know how they are able to play so hard and sound with only 10 practices under their belts, but they have.
This is what you get when Cal has returning talent though. This is only the third time in 9 years he's had good talent return. This is how the other 98% lives.

 

[University-6]

 

[CALKAT]

I think Cal sums it up ...... I like my team

Like OP said “ hard to temper expectations “ ....... I’m sure we will
Hit a few road bumps along the way ......

This team will be a very tough out in March ....... They can win the six when it counts , the talent / desire sure are there

 

[drcats2013]

We’re good enough to go 3-0 against teams that have tons more experience playing together than us. We’re further along than we should be, and that’s a great sign. This team is the real deal. Here’s to hoping for an injury free season, and that we play our best basketball in March/April. If that happens, number 9 will be ours.

 

[docholiday51]

We are at least pretty good.

Yeah,let's wait till at least October before we go off the deep end,as the opening poster said I am at a loss as to what to think right now.

 

[Wildcats1st]

After all my years watching UK and all of college ball I am at a loss....How good are we and will we be in November when we take the court against Duke? This team looks like they are ready for a March run in August. Dumbfounded right now while trying to temper expectations

How many are “all your years”?

We are top 5 definitely imo. After that idk

 

[BBUK]

I want to see how this team reacts when Cal ramps up the defensive intensity training about the 4th or 5th game. With the way this team's energy is now I can't imagine how that will look at about the tenth or so game this season.

I ask a couple questions, will they have a scoring fall off like all Cal teams have had during that period?

Will they overcome the scoring drought by changing their tactics like they are now distributing the ball?

Heck, what a ride!

 

[GonzoCat90]

I don't care. I'm just enjoying them right now. It's fun.

 

[3kidsandme]

We are hands down the best team in the country. Duke Kansas villanova Tenn etc can watch are fat ass as we run to the ship. We can play every single style and put such pressure on the ball teams will have a hard time mucking it up.

 

[kycottontail]

Well we are very good against man to man defense...We probably wont see it when the season starts..I expect most teams will zone us...If we hit from deep its going to be a long season for everyone else

 

[docholiday51]

I want to see how this team reacts when Cal ramps up the defensive intensity training about the 4th or 5th game. With the way this team's energy is now I can't imagine how that will look at about the tenth or so game this season.

I ask a couple questions, will they have a scoring fall off like all Cal teams have had during that period?

Will they overcome the scoring drought by changing their tactics like they are now distributing the ball?

Heck, what a ride!

Hard to tell what they will do or where they go from here,early on I see this group somewhat the way I did the Monk,Fox,Bam group there are just more of them.This team has an MKG(Johnson) that the MF&B team didn't.

 

[EliteBlue]

Here's the thing.

People can say "that team is the equivalent of a good MAAC team" all they want. But...

It's been a couple years since seven consistently beat "good MAAC teams" by 30.

This is the 3rd game in a row where we have controlled from tip to end and put a foot on the throats of our opponent.

When was the last time we saw thayou over a stretch of any 3 games? 2015

 

[BBUK]

Hard to tell what they will do or where they go from here,early on I see this group somewhat the way I did the Monk,Fox,Bam group there are just more of them.This team has an MKG(Johnson) that the MF&B team didn't.

Good take but I see a hunger I haven't seen in a long while. Not sure of the talent level of this team but I never saw this type of hunger in the 2012 team. This team will bite you. The talent has yet to be seen but the potential....Dang!

 

[Jakarii]

Just never know. I remember watching Bam/Fox/Monk team early and thinking “no one can beat this team”. With that said no other team I can remember has had no drop off in talent from 1-9 like this team. The 2015 team had better individual talent and seemed to beat people by sheer size and individual talent and they had more high end talent but had drop offs and overlapping kids.

It’s the small things I like about this team so far

1. They don’t seem to take many bad shots, they go through the plays and make the extra pass almost all the time

2. They have more dogs on defense on the outside than they have ever had

3. Everyone seems to play with confidence outside of EJ (due to only playing in one game)

4. More shooters than they ever had since Cal has been there.


A key will be how they adjust to teams adjusting to them since teams will start to have tape of them. It’s easy to beat teams early with no scouting tape on them but gets harder as the season progress.

I think you won’t really find out about this team until KU (I think they punish Duke unless RJ plays like he did vs the u19 team and Zion plays like I think he will play). After the KU game you won’t find out what they are truly made of until conference road games

 

[Wildcats1st]

Here's the thing.

People can say "that team is the equivalent of a good MAAC team" all they want. But...

It's been a couple years since seven consistently beat "good MAAC teams" by 30.

This is the 3rd game in a row where we have controlled from tip to end and put a foot on the throats of our opponent.

When was the last time we saw thayou over a stretch of any 3 games? 2015

I think we still need to settle down a little bit. I mean Johnny david and brad actually looked like decent players in this game. That was a slow team we played today and all these teams maybe mid major quality. These aren’t complete teams either we are playing they have some scrubs out there. We go and blow the doors off duke like we did Ku in 2015 then get excited.

 

[Jakarii]

The year before last when that Fox team straight destroyed in the beginning of the year and looked unbeatable

Here's the thing.

People can say "that team is the equivalent of a good MAAC team" all they want. But...

It's been a couple years since seven consistently beat "good MAAC teams" by 30.

This is the 3rd game in a row where we have controlled from tip to end and put a foot on the throats of our opponent.

When was the last time we saw thayou over a stretch of any 3 games? 2015

 

[Xception]

I’m not going to say how good we are or can be but when thinking about other college teams this year, how many if any would have produced the same results in the Bahamas?

 

[irishcat1965]

At this point, no one knows how good UK will be. Yet I think it is safe to say this team will be a contender for the NCAA title when March rolls around.

 

[EliteBlue]

I think we still need to settle down a little bit. I mean Johnny david and brad actually looked like decent players in this game. That was a slow team we played today and all these teams maybe mid major quality. These aren’t complete teams either we are playing they have some scrubs out there. We go and blow the doors off duke like we did Ku in 2015 then get excited.

I by no means expect to blow the doors off Duke or KU. Those are elite teams.

But the fact that we haven't had a battle yet says a little something.

Mid majors have pushed us, even our solid teams, in recent years. To be playing this solid this early is promising.

 

[Jakarii]

Just never know. I do know that a couple other fan bases are saying the same thing about their teams after going undeafeated and beating each team by a good margin on their European trips. It’s just so hard to really know but it’s more exciting than losing or being a close game at this time of year

I’m not going to say how good we are or can be but when thinking about other college teams this year, how many if any would have produced the same results in the Bahamas?

 

[Wildcats1st]

I by no means expect to blow the doors off Duke or KU. Those are elite teams.

But the fact that we haven't had a battle yet says a little something.

Mid majors have pushed us, even our solid teams, in recent years. To be playing this solid this early is promising.

WEll 2015 we knew we had the squad when we shred a highly rated KU at the beginning. It’s encouraging we are a legit title contender but “how good can we be”? Let’s play some regular season at least

 

[MdWIldcat55]

The year before last when that Fox team straight destroyed in the beginning of the year and looked unbeatable

You are misremembering how dominant that team was early. Lost to a good-not-great UCLA team at Rupp in very early December, and was one of only two Cal teams to lose to Louisville. That team didn't really look like a contender until March.

This team looks better in August than that team looked in January.

 

[Smashcat]

We are very good. And EJ, who easily could be thought if as a lottery pick in February, isn’t even playing,

 

[ruppslegacy1]

How many are “all your years”?

We are top 5 definitely imo. After that idk

35 years

 

[EliteBlue]

The year before last when that Fox team straight destroyed in the beginning of the year and looked unbeatable

Fair.

And that team was a top 3 team at the end of the year. Everyone expected the winner of our regional (UCLA, UK, UNC) to win the championship.

We outplayed The eventual (**champion**), even though we loss by a bucket,with our 6-9 players seeing more minutes than they had all year due to foul trouble so ridiculous it was called out by the national media and 6 points being taken off the board on bad calls.

 

[Wildcats1st]

Fair.

And that team was a top 3 team at the end of the year. Everyone expected the winner of our regional (UCLA, UK, UNC) to win the championship.

We outplayed The eventual (**champion**), even though we loss by a bucket,with our 6-9 players seeing more minutes than they had all year due to foul trouble so ridiculous it was called out by the national media and 6 points being taken off the board on bad calls.

Man people were saying last season the winner of UK and Arizona in the second rd would take the title. It doesn’t matter “woulda” or “might have” the 2017 team had major flaws. Maybe the 5th best team based on our order of finishing

 

[kyjeff1]

Here's the thing.

People can say "that team is the equivalent of a good MAAC team" all they want. But...

It's been a couple years since seven consistently beat "good MAAC teams" by 30.

This is the 3rd game in a row where we have controlled from tip to end and put a foot on the throats of our opponent.

When was the last time we saw thayou over a stretch of any 3 games? 2015

Didn't our 2015 team lose one of these?

 

[Kyfan37]

Defensively, we will be really good. If you heard what Cal said when they had him mic'd up, who wants to play defense? These guys WANT to guard you. They will only get better. Offensively, I believe we will pick our spots to shoot the 3. I don't think we'll be jacking them up like past teams. We can score points in the paint. We will be an extremely efficient team by the end of the year. I'm pretty excited to see how the year plays out.

 

[kyjeff1]

Man people were saying last season the winner of UK and Arizona in the second rd would take the title. It doesn’t matter “woulda” or “might have” the 2017 team had major flaws. Maybe the 5th best team based on our order of finishing

What? Nobody said that, not one person. Go ahead and prove your point, but you just made up some junk and tried to pass it off as fact. Hilarious.

 

[Jkwo]

You are misremembering how dominant that team was early. Lost to a good-not-great UCLA team at Rupp in very early December, and was one of only two Cal teams to lose to Louisville. That team didn't really look like a contender until March.

This team looks better in August than that team looked in January.

No he's right. Talking about a couple games in (like this team), the Fox/Monk/Bam team was melting people. Remember they beat, I think Arizona State, by 40 or 50?

The difference between this and the Fox team is that this team has a bunch of experienced guys who have a no-nonsense call-you-out style, they play a much more brutal, physical style of play (reproducible game after game), and we have rim protectors, which are integral to Cal's top level teams.

Those guys were quick mega-athletes who just raced everybody down at first and then never showed the same intensity again until late conference play.

These guys are killers, and according to the coaching staff, moreso than any other Cal has had here.

They just beat up a bunch of physically developed Eastern European grown men.

Not worried about a drop off. At all. Cold shooting nights? Sure. But these guys do not have the same potential weak spots as '17.

 

[UKSanders]

Decent - I think this team is pretty decent.

 

[EliteBlue]

Man people were saying last season the winner of UK and Arizona in the second rd would take the title. It doesn’t matter “woulda” or “might have” the 2017 team had major flaws. Maybe the 5th best team based on our order of finishing

Not a single person said that.

Ppl thought we would lose to Buffalo.

After the bracket fell apart ppl believed we should make the final 4 and no further.

Given that Sister Jane or whoever and Kansas state stood in our way, it was an appropriate assumption. Nobody believed last years team was a top 5 team.

 

[bucsrule8872]

We have a good team. Should be a contender, maybe the favorite.

Its a single elimination tournament, so anything can happen, though.

 

[Blueisbest]

The teams we've beaten this week aren't elite by any stretch but they are not "chopped liver" either. A lot of our competition has been "grown ass men" and our guys have pretty much obliterated them. I'd say our team has the makings of a Damn Good Team and if they play like they did tonight, nobody is beating them.

 

[bballcat4]

After all my years watching UK and all of college ball I am at a loss....How good are we and will we be in November when we take the court against Duke? This team looks like they are ready for a March run in August. Dumbfounded right now while trying to temper expectations

I usually laugh at the “40-0” crowd and “the sky is falling” crowd. But, it’s hard not to be very optimistic after the first 3 games. It’s hard for me to figure out the talent level of our competition. I think the 2nd game had some grown men that tried to muscle us around and it didn’t happen. I think tonight’s team would beat many SEC teams and we needed another physical test. Past UK teams would’ve turned tonight into a “punk fest” with multiple technicals. Not only were we not bothered by their aggressive play, we were the aggressors. Our aggression wasn’t pushing, shoving and cheap shots. It just came from a confidence that “we’re better than you and we’re going to show you.”

I’m excited about the season and may have to purchase me some blue shaded glasses. I don’t plan on getting 40-0 tattooed on my leg, but that guy may just have to get the year changed ;- )

To answer your question, “How good are we?” Herro has an overall better game than I expected. Travis isn’t as dominant offensively as I expected. The 3 point guards are collectively better than I expected and set the tone defensively. Richards is better than I expected. The team is much better than I expected for August. I expected to win 3 games, but I thought most games would be sloppy.

 

[Bluegrass79]

this looks like a team that could lose 3 to 7. They are a tough out.