It is time to tinker with lineup. It is obvious we need more scoring and it is even more evident that the 3 pg thing isnt working. I say its time to sit briscoe who is a major liability because he cant shoot or hit ft's. Statt Willis in his place and put up with his defensive lapses because his offense is needed. Wr also need posy scoring. The problem is we dont have post scorers. Cal will need to figure out how to produce points in the paint so we can take the d's focus off our guards. Not sure how cal does this....maybe he draws some plays that feature poy and lee or maybe he plays Wynard? If thete arent changes soon we ate looking at another NIT tourney invite!
Sit poythress and briscoe
- Thread starter BigBlu_2002
- Start date
No coach is going to sit one of their leading scorers and best defender. Also, the guards are no where near the problem with this team, in fact that is it's only strength.
Sometimes I wonder if people even understand what they are watching, when they watch UK play. The game yesterday turned when Briscoe picked up his phantom fourth foul while guarding Canty. Before that foul, which was a bad call, UK was in good shape.
Sitting Lee would be a better choice,Briscoe would be hard to sit vs Arkansas.looks like we will have match-up problems anyway,it looks lie they play 4 guards and a big a lot of the time,Mulder might be a fit here.
You can't sit Briscoe. He's playing out of position and has no business on the wing, for sure. But the problem this team has beyond any other is that it lacks heart - WAY too many guys are soft and don't bring energy/passion every night. You can't say that about Briscoe. He's busting it every minute out there.
LOL! The 3 point thing isn't working? The reason is because of poor spacing and poor shot selection, basically resulting from failure by Labissiere and Lee to give us anything offensively on the low block all season. It was time to tinker with the lineup after the blowout loss at Baton Rouge. But you want to bench Poythress and Briscoe? That's crazy. Let's not jump out of the frying pan into the fire. You think Willis offers more than Poythress? That's crazy too. Willis had 1 good game yesterday, but still committed big defensive mistakes. Every time you let your man beat you and drive straight to the basket for a layup or a dunk, that cancels out 1 of your made shots. If you score 12 points while giving up 12 points to the other team on layups and dunks, that doesn't help. Willis' 12 rebounds helped, but I bet he can't duplicate that against South Carolina, Texas A&M, Vandy. Willis is averaging less than 6 points and less than 3 rebounds a game. He has drawn criticism from Calipari for his defensive limitations. Willis plays less than 13 minutes a game, maybe he should play 15. But Poythress is a senior, and a much better player than Willis despite his own inconsistencies. Briscoe is the best defensive player on our team by a lot, and probably our best transition player after Murray. Labissiere is the guy who ought to be benched. Calipari has said Wynyard is not in shape, and hasn't learned his assignments. With 6 weeks left in the regular season, unless Wynyard can quickly prove he ought to get into games before Humphries, then Wynyard should redshirt. This team might cause problems for higher seeded teams in March, but it is not a great team because of our weak baseline game. Tinkering won't change that.
We get slaughtered on the boards , esp on the road with that lineup .. not enough size .
Could anyone explain to me why I am wrong to think some of our shooting issues is worse because almost no one on the team uses the backboard when taking a short jumper?
Watch Briscoe; I like this kid but feel he is always shooting to swish the ball and not use the glass.
Same for most all our players.
We get around the basket and seem to be always trying to finesse the ball into the basket. I would love to see anything in close be dunked, but that is not always possible.
I am not talking about the crap we saw against Auburn where they were banking in 3 pointers, I am talking about good shots where the glass is being used as part of the shot, not just on those lucky ones.
Watch Briscoe; I like this kid but feel he is always shooting to swish the ball and not use the glass.
Same for most all our players.
We get around the basket and seem to be always trying to finesse the ball into the basket. I would love to see anything in close be dunked, but that is not always possible.
I am not talking about the crap we saw against Auburn where they were banking in 3 pointers, I am talking about good shots where the glass is being used as part of the shot, not just on those lucky ones.
Lee and Briscoe use the backboard a lot especially on free throws
How many short jumpers from the side of the lane do we take? Tyler shot a couple last night but I dont recall many.
Overall the backboard stopped being utilized years ago and many a layups have been missed since.
I agree with the OP not so much as "sitting" Briscoe or Poy, but changing the combinations of players on the court. Although the 3 best players clearly are Murray, Ulis, and Briscoe, it is a 3 guard line up which would work if we had a better interior. We don't. So, we have to play a traditional line-up with 3 bigs and two guards like most teams. Briscoe was a point guard and should be the sub for Ulis and we need Lee, Willis, and Poy in the front court or Hawkins, etc. You can sub Skal with two other bigs as well, but two bigs on this team only is such a huge weakness.
We should recruit the best free throw shooters each class has to offer and watch the titles roll in .
Not sure why Briscoe gets such a bad rep from some people. He is clearly UK's 3rd best offensiveplayer behind Ullis & Murray and arguably the best defender. He is not a three point shooter and has struggled with free throws, but those are such a small part of his game. His upside clearly negates those minor fixable issues.
I would argue that the opposite is true of Willis (I am not a Willis hater either). He gives up so much on the defensive end that I am not certain he helps UK at all. I will say yesterday against AU he did play his best game ever and seemed to try and hustle more on the defensive end and on rebounds. However, he still gave up a ton of points on defense. It is not an effort thing, it is a physical thing. He is not quick or strong enough to keep up with most of the players he defends.
I do not know what the answers are but I am cautious to move Willis into a starring role or even give him more mins. What UK really needs is for Poy to start developing a post presence that is even halfway reliable. Which seems like a long shot at this point.
I would argue that the opposite is true of Willis (I am not a Willis hater either). He gives up so much on the defensive end that I am not certain he helps UK at all. I will say yesterday against AU he did play his best game ever and seemed to try and hustle more on the defensive end and on rebounds. However, he still gave up a ton of points on defense. It is not an effort thing, it is a physical thing. He is not quick or strong enough to keep up with most of the players he defends.
I do not know what the answers are but I am cautious to move Willis into a starring role or even give him more mins. What UK really needs is for Poy to start developing a post presence that is even halfway reliable. Which seems like a long shot at this point.
I'm sorry to say, buy I agree with this. Poy is just not, and will never be, the player anyone thought he'd be. Is the knee in his mind? Maybe. Does he just flat out not have the competitive "fire" that it takes to compete at this level. More likely. I sometimes honestly think he's just going through the motions to end his uk career and is simply tired of playing basketball. He's more than likely come to the realization that he will not play in the NBA ( he's a smart kid - he's figured that out by now).
As far as improving stock for the NBA, it's not happening for Alex,so I say time for him to sit way down at the end of the bench. Let ANY of the other guys have his minutes and I mean anybody. Don't give me "we're going as far as Alex takes us" because if that's true - we're done right now!
Mulder, Humpries, Wynyard and especially after yesterday Derek Willis deserve to get their chances.
As far as Briscoe, I agree with all who've said no way we bench him. I get he can't throw it in the ocean if he was standing on the pier, but he works his ass off on D. Best defender we've got on the team. His game is obviously getting to the rim and it's been negated almost completely by our inside guys being so soft. We've clogged up the middle so often trying to get Lee, Poy or heaven forbid, Skal the ball - none of them can score from down there.
I say go with Willis as a starter for Poy to open up the middle a bit and have Mulder, Humpries and Wynyard ready for the 6, 7 and 8th spots depending on who/where needs to be subbed.
Only reason I'm leaving Lee in as a starter is he's the only guy on the entire team who might block a shot and his rebounding has been decent, just needs to stay out of foul trouble.
That's my "what Cal should do" rant - I'm sure he'll do exactly as we all think
![[winking]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/classic/wink.r191677.gif "Winking [winking]")
If Poythress hasn't developed a halfway way decent post presence by now, then he's probably not going to.
How so? Willis just out rebounded Lee..Poy..and Skal combined. We give up a lil on defense with Wilis in but from the looks he brings energy crashing the boards and can score. Undersize with Poy but hey those IMO are the 5 best players on the team...Moulder rebounds better than Skal smh
Can't disagree with this at all. I can say this tho, IMO if he does not suddenly develop a post presence on offense this is going to be a problem. More than likely much of the same-- rely completely on the guards offensively and, depending on how they are shooting on a particular night, that is how UK will fare.
