Recruit more shooters/basketball players, fewer athletes.
- Thread starter Robcatt24
- Start date
There is another fact all you" Ulis-Booker over the twins at the end of the Wisconsin game champions "conveniently forget, without the twins playing as well as they did the game is not even close. They were the 2nd and 3rd leading scorers in the game behind Towns. Those 3 were basically the only players to show up ready to play. WCS? Abysmal game. Booker and Ulis? Abused defensively. Lyle's? 2 freaking rebounds. Dakari? Travel. Shot gets blocked. Lee? Grabs a rebound cleanly with 2 hands with no one around and fumbles it out of bounds. Yeah, let's keep blaming the kids who took more underserved shit from this entitled fan base than anyone I've ever scene, and yet willed the team to the 2014 title game and saved our asses numerous times in 2015 and took an undefeated team to a final four.
You know what lost us that game? Our terrible defensive rebounding. You know what else? Ulis and Booker got to come in and play with no pressure. You would not think so damn highly of them right now if they had to come in and carry an all freshmen team on their backs straight out of high school like the twins. I guarantee you that. And could you imagine the absolute shit storm if Cal had pulled the twins, 2 of the top 5 most clutch players ever at UK, for Ulis and Booker and we still lost? People would have been even more insane and irrational if that had happened.
Yoshukai, this is not all directed at you either.
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Oh no no no.......... Cal made a mistake not playing Booker and Ulis in the wisconsin game down the stretch. The twins needed a rest bad...... worst case scenario you get the twins a 1 minute break ...... best case scenario Booker and Ulis have the game running well and you can play them another minute or two to give the twins even more of a break.
Worst case scenario, Booker and Ulis get even more abused on defense like they had the whole game, besides having mediocre offensive games against Wisconsin as well, and we lose by even more. Then we have people being utterly shocked that not only had we put the 2nd and 3rd leading scorers on the bench but we had also pulled 2 of the most clutch wildcats in our storied history from an extremely close game.
I guess we should put you in charge of analyzing and recruiting basketball talent to the BBN? I'm sure you know how to assemble a team better than Cal does. Give me a frigging break.
My replies are not about arguing the different strategies, it was simply to say that coaching decisions are not as easy as most make them out to be, and that the only right decisions are the ones that get you the win, regardless of the reasoning behind it. The problem is at the moment of the decision, you can't see into the future to know which decision works, and which one doesn't. Personally, I would have put Ulis in for Lyles that last 4 minutes, but there is no guarantee that would have got us the win either. Ulis did play in that last little bit before the game was out of reach, with not much different results. And let's be honest, Cal is 8-2 in 1 possession games in the NCAA tournament, which indicates that he probably makes the right decision most of the time. And of the 2 losses, none of them were to a lower seed. That also indicates that he doesn't choke most of the time, as some people would suggest. Especially considering that 6 of the 8 wins were against teams who were perceived to be better than UK, at least in terms of seeds. Two of the 4 final fours that he has made were as a 4 seed and an 8 seed, in brackets that didn't break down.
would agree that one aspect of the Cal recruiting/development that could use some tweaking is this idea of the "athlete"...
we have all the athleticism with "potential" in the world...we don't necessarily have the best basketball players...
...you need shooter, a true post presence with a skill down low, a scorer, a physical and aggressive "work horse" who throws elbows and people around, a lock down defender, a shot blocker, a true floor general, etc...the more of those things you have, the better you will be...
now this year we have the floor general and elite scorer...Ulis and Murray...but we really don't have anything after that, just a bunch of big long athletes...those two have to have 25 pt nights for us to be in a position to win...
some times long, lean and athletic just isn't enough...as evidenced by AP, Lee, and Skal...
thank god Payne talked Cal into Ulis...if we didn't have him but rather another big and long "athletic" guard...we'd be in a real bad way...
we have all the athleticism with "potential" in the world...we don't necessarily have the best basketball players...
...you need shooter, a true post presence with a skill down low, a scorer, a physical and aggressive "work horse" who throws elbows and people around, a lock down defender, a shot blocker, a true floor general, etc...the more of those things you have, the better you will be...
now this year we have the floor general and elite scorer...Ulis and Murray...but we really don't have anything after that, just a bunch of big long athletes...those two have to have 25 pt nights for us to be in a position to win...
some times long, lean and athletic just isn't enough...as evidenced by AP, Lee, and Skal...
thank god Payne talked Cal into Ulis...if we didn't have him but rather another big and long "athletic" guard...we'd be in a real bad way...
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Lacking one skill does not mean a player is not skilled. What do you not understand here?
I agree with everything you're saying here. It's very easy to be a monday morning quarterback after every game. Candidly it's very frustrating for me to see the major NBA success that: John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson Eric Bledose have enjoyed and now this year: Karl Towns, Devin Booker, Trey Lyles are all really doing well and WCS has been a solid if not spectacular player for Kings. And not think we should have one more title from those two juggernaut teams we had. One and done tournaments are wacky and I applaud Cal for getting to the Final Four in 2011 and 2014 when we didn't have superior teams and needed to beat great teams to get there. Obviously there isn't anybody else I would want to coach the team but we have had 3 great chances at at title and 4 chances overall at a title in this run and only have 1 and sometimes that frustration leaks out. I'm just honestly not sure if that frustration is fair or not?
On the surface, the frustration is fair. It doesn't add up, 4 final fours and only one title to show for it. You get that with just the law of averages, but we are supposed to have superior talent. It's the deeper view that keeps me grounded. Only one coach has won more titles, but it seems that UK always ends up in a pretty tough bracket, and it seems that their bracket never breaks down. It isn't true that you have to play your best basketball for 6 straight games to win it all, you just have to be better than the teams you face on that given night. I tend to blame luck as much as Cal for that. Two of those 4 final fours, Cal made it with an injury to a key player, but made it harder to win either time. All the talent in the world won't be enough if the guys have an off night, hence the reason Duke is as likely to go home in the opening weekend as they are to win a championship.
What happens if UK doesn't miss 20+ 3 point attempts before making one in 2010? That's not really Cal's fault, West Virginia was determined to put 5 guys in the paint and take the ball out of Wall's hands. Not much you can do but hope they start falling. That was the type of game you could have gotten away with in the first couple of rounds, but not against another top 5 team. What if Kanter is eligible? Does that change the 2011 run? Maybe. What if Willie doesn't get hurt? Does UK win in 2014? Cal thinks so, though I'm not so sure. What if Poy doesn't get hurt last year? Would we have finally witnessed perfection? I tend to think so, as UK went from being the best defensive team in the last 20 years to being just the best last year. The whole picture suggest that UK is more vulnerable to luck than bad coaching. Does Cal make mistakes? Probably, but even with all the talent he has gathered, luck plays as much a part as anything else. The only time luck has fallen the cats way lately was when UNC lost their point guard in 2012, and thus we didn't have to play them for the title.
Geez, you have too much time on your hands. And yes, you left a few out. Even running drills in practice during the pre season is not enough to change years of bad habits and bad mechanics. It may help but it's not going to fully fix the issue. During the season, there just isn't enough practice time to focus on such issues when a lot of your practice time is spent on game planning. Yeah, you can work on them but you need time to fix issues like changing someone shot. You need thousands and thousands of repetitions and you just don't have enough time to do that during someone's freshman year. Sorry if you disagree, it's not personal. I really did mean to make you upset.
LMAO at anybody trying to put Briscoe in the same category as either Wall or Rondo simply on account of being shooting underachievers. That is hilariously moronic.
Who I was responding to, their entire argument was that you can't be "very talented" if you can't shoot, which is obviously ridiculous.
It was a question. I answered it. Never did I imply Briscoe was "not skilled." You are the one who lacks understanding. Fail reading comprehension much?
No. Try comprehending. It was not an argument. It was a presentation of an idea. That which may exist within the minds of many that the ability to shoot the basketball is of such crucial importance to players of particular assignments that those who lack it would not be worthy of the description very talented. Where the emphasis would be applied to the word "very." Within that idea was never the notion that such players could not be talented otherwise.
But if you want to be one of those people who say that a "shooting" guard or off wing who can't effing shoot is "very" talented by all means be my guest.
So again, you're saying Rondo and Wall aren't "very talented". Seems like the one who needs help with comprehension is you.
Your failure in at reading comprehension is astounding. The emphasis applied to "very" and NOT the whole "very talented" is a key detail. Your inability to grasp this "very" simple distinction is also astounding. And again, anybody trying to place Briscoe's overall abilities within the same ranks of Rondo or Wall because of shared shooting woes is being a complete bozo. Congratulations. But just to give it another go: the hypothetical group would concede that Briscoe is talented, yes, but lacking the ability to shoot the basketball well - as a "shooting" guard or off wing - the hypothetical group would be shy to agree that he is very talented. They might form a sentence using commonly interchanged terms like this: Briscoe a good bit of basketball talent, but until he learns how to shoot the damn ball a lot better we can't say he is highly talented.
your original statement, word for word
"For a lot of people's understanding of basketball, that just doesn't make very much sense at all. If you want to tell those people that somebody is very talented, you cannot tell them the individual cannot shoot. Particularly for any player in a backcourt / wing position."
It's pretty straightforward, no qualifications or caveats. You said some shit that doesn't really make sense, and I called you on it. Just because you want to backtrack when I post fairly obvious examples that refute your point, doesn't change what you originally said.
And Briscoe is a PG, which is what he would be playing if Ulis wasn't here. And he is a very talented player. But he should learn to shoot.
In your case the hypothetical group would concede not only that you are stupid, but very stupid.
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You left out what if Jodie Meeks stays? Then we go undefeated and have the greatest team in college basketball history....
