Hopefully they will allow our (3) 7 footers to get in game shape before we hit conference play.
Purpose in playing cupcakes?
- Thread starter Boyd94
- Start date
They actually have nothing to do with seeding. Seeding is based on so much more than the cupcakes. RPI, SOS and your Quad Wins goes into seeding. The Conference and OOC games weigh more to the committee than cupcakes in November.
Losing to Kansas was not a bad loss. If you win it, that's definitely a Quad 1 Win, on the flip side if you lose to a bad Louisville team...that's a Quad 4 loss and those are the ones that hurt your seeding.
Cupcakes = everyone plays them in all sports, so it's nothing new. To the "cupcakes" it is a very good option for them because they benefit from it financially with hefty payouts. Plus it allows "The Big Boys" to get practice against someone other than themselves.
There's benefit to cupcakes. Every other big basketball school recognizes this and schedules them as well. Teams can experiment and play around more in these games. They can figure out what does and doesn't work.
The purpose isn't to have a test or figure out where you're team is at. It's to figure things out in a safe from loss environment.
Mid-Majors and low end power 5 teams can upset you if you come out there and mess around with different sets and rotations. And that DOES hurt your resume/seeding.
Now you can't have all cupcakes. But we have a very strong non-conference schedule even with the cupcakes. Kansas, UNC, Miami, Gonzaga. St. Joseph's is 93 in the Kenpom. Penn is 171, but they're 6 spots better than Louisville.
We got to have cupcakes otherwise we could have another 9-16 year or worse
It really doesn't. We've played cupcakes forever. All the other big programs play cupcakes. SOS isn't an issue for Kentucky. You only need a handful of good non-conference opponents.
Scheduling too many "good teams" will lead to more losses, and that will hurt the resume.
Wasnt Morgan State where Marvin "the Human Eraser" Webster played? If my memory serves me correctly. And Cal has to play these cupcakes to keep his winning percentage over .500%
WildcatfaninOhio
All-American
Anything else you folks want to complain about? I guess UK had too good of a showing on Tues in their loss or the bad games from Reeves/Wagner/Edwards threads went stale. Who knows, but there’s no problem with using November to play some easy games to get our typically new roster some real-game experience and experiment with things, while (hopefully) picking up some easy wins.
It’s also a way for Cal to help out some friends/acquaintances of him, letting them come to Rupp to play under the bright lights.
Yep. And our cupcakes are actually a little better than the past couple of years. Stonehill and TAMC are the two worst teams we will see. The rest are in the 100s I believe, where quality of competition vastly improves.
Stonehill will be no challenge of course, but folks act like MSU didn't just lose to freaking JMU at home. OkSt. lost to a 4-5 UCF in football. Cupcakes are changing. You better come to play.
Yep, Penn, UNCW, St. Joes and Penn are all in the 100-150 range. Which to me, is perfect. Schedule a few Stonehill types, then schedule some of these 150ish teams that will test us a bit, but shouldn't realistically have much of a chance to win, and then our few marquee games. This is exactly what this board wanted in recent years. We got it, and now it's not good enough.
You say that like were aren't playing Marshall next week (a mid major), Penn (a mid major), UNCW (a midmajor), St. Joe's (a midmajor), and Miami (P5), we then move into UNC and Ill St (a mid major). After this game Friday, we are playing heard of teams. The 5 of our next 6 are against mid-majors or P5s. The schedule this year is MUCH better than it has been. And that's a fact. I know that Miami game is a let down because it isn't Duke and it's not a sexy matchup. But that game will be challenging.
Moving goalposts. Look, I've given Cal as much deserved crap as anyone, and there's still reason to gripe at him and doubt him, but the schedule is vastly improved this year. It's just not even remotely debatable within any sense of reality.
We are literally about to do just that after Friday. I assume this game got scheduled knowing it would be after KU, and a potential war (which it was) so we scheduled an easier game to either bounce back from or not have to turn right round into heavy game prep after a road trip.
I agree. I just think some midrange competition would help us develop some team skills that we very much need that will be helpful in the SEC.
Looking from that perspective. Yeah, probably not a bad idea. That was a huge contest and we left the tank completely empty.
You are SOOO wrong, buddy. This is a perfect opportunity to pad DJ and Edwards' numbers so the CCC bois can tell everybody how wrong they were to criticize them and Cal for playing them 30 minutes and benching Shep.
Did you want Cal to lose even more OOC games than he has been lately?
I dislike them because they are boring.
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