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So before the Wisconsin game Cals record was 42-13 against ranked teams ..

If we're going to rehash the Wisconsin game for the billionth time, can we at least keep it within the realm of what actually happened?

People say over and over that Cal is too loyal and he played the twins because they're his favorites and cost us the game. It isn't true.

Devin Booker was beaten like he stole something all night long by Sam Dekker. I mean embarrassed as badly as I've ever seen a good player be embarrassed at this level.

The only person nearly as bad as Booker was Lyles in the exact same way. Neither guy stopped him, and Lyles watched about 7 offensive rebounds be gobbled up by Wisconsin.

Between them, they had 2 rebounds, 1 assist, no steals and no blocks.

The twins shot 50% from the floor, both scored in double figures, and had 1 turnover between them.

Willie was also a total space cadet and was destroyed by Kaminski while also not rebounding or being engaged. But people blame the twins.
Thanks for that rare dose of realism - but it won't take, it doesn't jive with the narrative. I spend very little time on this forum anymore, just can't take it - makes me a little wistful, although I suppose getting my nose out of a screen is a good thing. Tell my kids that, anyway.......
 
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Why are you pretending in your head that it's Kentucky against the majority opinion when in fact Duke is seen by everyone as a pussy program that gets every benefit in the world?
Sorry man, but Duke has zero to do with Cal going 10-12 against the top 25 since 2015 (unless UK lost to Duke in a few of those games). UK had the number one recruiting class in 16 and #2 in 17. Quit avoiding the fact that UK has just about every advantage a college basketball program is able to have and has struggled against the top 25. I am sure I could find other programs with a winning percentage against the top 25 in the time period that doesn't have the advantages UK has. Pretty lame to blame Duke for all of your woes
 
Sorry man, but Duke has zero to do with Cal going 10-12 against the top 25 since 2015 (unless UK lost to Duke in a few of those games). UK had the number one recruiting class in 16 and #2 in 17. Quit avoiding the fact that UK has just about every advantage a college basketball program is able to have and has struggled against the top 25. I am sure I could find other programs with a winning percentage against the top 25 in the time period that doesn't have the advantages UK has. Pretty lame to blame Duke for all of your woes

Hasn't coach K been past the sweet 16 4 times in the last 15 years or so? [laughing]

That's with allowed cheating, NCAA favoritism, and the softest brackets imaginable. That's why he copied Pitino, Cal, and others to adapt to their style. He's a phony, and you've probably never stepped foot in Durham.

I cant wait until K is gone so that Duke becomes the next Indiana and you pick a new team.
 
Hasn't coach K been past the sweet 16 4 times in the last 15 years or so? [laughing]

That's with allowed cheating, NCAA favoritism, and the softest brackets imaginable. That's why he copied Pitino, Cal, and others to adapt to their style. He's a phony, and you've probably never stepped foot in Durham.

I cant wait until K is gone so that Duke becomes the next Indiana and you pick a new team.

LOL; with your hate of Duke you can't even address what I originally was talking about. Whatever, I give up; it's pointless with you. also fwiw, not a Duke fan at all
 
Hasn't coach K been past the sweet 16 4 times in the last 15 years or so? [laughing]

That's with allowed cheating, NCAA favoritism, and the softest brackets imaginable. That's why he copied Pitino, Cal, and others to adapt to their style. He's a phony, and you've probably never stepped foot in Durham.

I cant wait until K is gone so that Duke becomes the next Indiana and you pick a new team.

Also better be careful with that last line. Cal leaves and it can be UK. All the current great schools are one bad hire from being Indiana
 
Also better be careful with that last line. Cal leaves and it can be UK. All the current great schools are one bad hire from being Indiana

Kentuxky has won national titles with FIVE different coaches. We are the only program to continue success to that level.

Duke has one coach who pretty much built the program.

It's the university of KENTUCKY.

Vs.

It's the UNIVERSITY of COACH K

Take a look at what it looked like with Capel being the only one on the court the officials look at. Go back and watch tape.

Good luck.
 
LOL; with your hate of Duke you can't even address what I originally was talking about. Whatever, I give up; it's pointless with you. also fwiw, not a Duke fan at all

Well Louisville is just a national joke. I would have stuck with Duke.
 
Cal made the comment a couple days ago that he was “still hacked” about the Wisconsin loss and not going 40-0.
well, if the refs HATE UK ( like a lot of folks on here believe), and they refs LOVE duke (as they say) and make sure duke gets all the calls, then, he still wouldn't have been 40-0
 
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Interesting stat....I don’t think anyone can argue that season was a turning point. We win, go 40-0, cal has 2 titles, K’s most recent is 2010.
 
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Kentuxky has won national titles with FIVE different coaches. We are the only program to continue success to that level.

Duke has one coach who pretty much built the program.

It's the university of KENTUCKY.

Vs.

It's the UNIVERSITY of COACH K

Take a look at what it looked like with Capel being the only one on the court the officials look at. Go back and watch tape.

Good luck.
40-27
 
is that supposed to mean something? Not half as whitty as you think you are just spit it. Nobody cares about your wired personality type and how clever you think you are.
 
well if you believe what the recruiting people say and that is the team from 2 seasons before beget the current recruiting class. so 2010 got us 2012 and 2012 got us 2014 and so so on. Then the only "superstar" class in the last 4 was 2017 which would of have been gotten by 2015 and the platoon so to say the platooning hurt recruiting i think is not true. That team got 6 of the 10 wins vs ranked teams by the way. Now the other stuff yes to all of it. First year Duke started to recruit like us, Orlando and Rod left, and yes I think Wisconsin undeniably took something out of Cal. How could it not? You've spent your entire career striving for a goal like going undefeated, you finally get into the hall of fame and the haters have to give you respect, you're going to be able to beat Duke for said title to give you 2 to K's 1 in the time you've been here and put Kentucky on top of the mountain as the preeminent college program with no doubts. 2.5 hours later all of that is out the window and nothing you did that year will be remembered as anything other than another year where Cal had all the talent and lost with it again. It has to destroy Cal internally.

That loss will haunt our program for a long time.
 
I am going to get scalded for saying this, but the Wisconsin game may prove to be Cal’s Waterloo. Cal lost a lot of credibility for the way he handled the last 20 minutes of that game. Cal is loyal to his players to the detriment of team success, which not only impacts wins/losses but also impacts other players morale/goals/ambitions and desire to give it all for the team.
In an effort to empower the twins to hopefully enable them to secure a spot in the draft(as I feel sure Cal made that commitment to them and their parents) Cal chose to play them ahead of Booker and Ulis which was total nonsense. Cal’s stubbornness (ego) or loyalty to the twins cost Cal a perfect season, cost UK a national championship, but worst of all it cost Cal coaching credibility with recruits and their parents which other coaches are using against Cal to siphon off some of the top recruits who do not want to risk sitting behind the previous year recruits that failed to get drafted.
The platoon system also worked against Cal because he abandoned it just when he needed to stick with it the most (last half of Wisconsin game.) Cal will never admit it, but that decision to play the twins over more talented players changed everything for his system that he was trying to sustain at KY.
Easy to sell top recruits on why it is risky signing with Cal, you may end up riding the bench behind a lesser talented one and done that wasn’t one and done.
Fire away. JMO


You hit the nail right on the head!
 
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That 2015 experiment was going to go a long way in validating Cal’s system and in retrospect would define his legacy to a great extent. Time will tell if Cal can recover and reinvent his coaching style to win with the second tier 5 stars that seem to be what he can recruit to his current system. We are no longer the sexy choice for the #1s at their position. I think that has as much to do with Cal’s positionless basketball strategy as anything else. If you can’t get the best player at each position it almost forces you to take the best available regardless of position.
 
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I think some people are right about certain aspects of this topic, but we might just be straining too hard at a gnat here. Between 2002-2009 Duke wasn't exactly lighting up the record books, only making it past the S16 ONCE in 8 seasons. 2 of those seasons, they had 3 losses going into the tournament and got bounced in the S16. Cal would be long run out of town with that kind of stretch. Let's all breathe a little.
 
If we're going to rehash the Wisconsin game for the billionth time, can we at least keep it within the realm of what actually happened?

People say over and over that Cal is too loyal and he played the twins because they're his favorites and cost us the game. It isn't true.

Devin Booker was beaten like he stole something all night long by Sam Dekker. I mean embarrassed as badly as I've ever seen a good player be embarrassed at this level.

The only person nearly as bad as Booker was Lyles in the exact same way. Neither guy stopped him, and Lyles watched about 7 offensive rebounds be gobbled up by Wisconsin.

Between them, they had 2 rebounds, 1 assist, no steals and no blocks.

The twins shot 50% from the floor, both scored in double figures, and had 1 turnover between them.

Willie was also a total space cadet and was destroyed by Kaminski while also not rebounding or being engaged. But people blame the twins.
you are totally right about everything you have written there. I have one point to make though. I have said this in other threads before over the years and I still won't name the player because that's not fair to him because he's still around the program, but he told me point blank just a couple months after 2015 final 4 Calipari was screaming at the twins the last 5 minutes of the game to go to Karl like we had against ND to get the W in the elite 8. They completely ignored him including in the under 4 timeout when apparently he read them the riot act. So my issue is and has been since not that he should of been playing Ulis and Booker because as you said Booker was terrible and really had been terrible the final 5-6 weeks of the season but he should of been playing Ulis who was having a good game and who would of got the ball to Karl. Now maybe we still lose, that's something we will never know but I'd have preferred going out with the best player in the country touching the ball. It's a scenario that has repeated itself with Cal and certain players know they don't have to fear the hook. They do what they want because Cal won't bench them. We saw it then, we saw it last year, and we see it this year. His threshold for benching a guy is all about what number they were in the recruiting rankings not how they are actually playing at the time, i think that is pretty indisputable for anyone who's not a total homer.
 
If we're going to rehash the Wisconsin game for the billionth time, can we at least keep it within the realm of what actually happened?

People say over and over that Cal is too loyal and he played the twins because they're his favorites and cost us the game. It isn't true.

Devin Booker was beaten like he stole something all night long by Sam Dekker. I mean embarrassed as badly as I've ever seen a good player be embarrassed at this level.

The only person nearly as bad as Booker was Lyles in the exact same way. Neither guy stopped him, and Lyles watched about 7 offensive rebounds be gobbled up by Wisconsin.

Between them, they had 2 rebounds, 1 assist, no steals and no blocks.

The twins shot 50% from the floor, both scored in double figures, and had 1 turnover between them.

Willie was also a total space cadet and was destroyed by Kaminski while also not rebounding or being engaged. But people blame the twins.

Why would anyone do that when it’s just easier to regurgitate that booker and Ulis should have been in for the twins. Never mind that Booker didn’t do anything in the game, and as you noted, was abused continuously by Decker. But i don’t even put all of that on him.

If any game showed Calipari’s stubbornness, it was that game. It’s not like Wisconsin didn’t know that UK would switch every pick and roll, and therefore they were able to work the ball around to get booker isolated on Decker. But UK never switched coverage, never gave help. Just didn’t try to do anything different when it was obvious what Wisconsin was doing.
 
Theory:

Coach Cal silently agreed to take the Cavs job. He backed out for a shot at 40-0 because he didn't expect all those guys to return. Lebron got pissed and. Wes disassociated. We were shut out of Nike recruits.

Had nothing to do with platooning
 
You do understand that you still would have had to have beaten Wisconsin right?

Also, blame Tom Izzo for pissing on the party. It's not Duke's responsibility to make sure all the regions hold together. He got his team to the Final Four and that's that.
You mean a tired Wisconsin team that would have had to play a top 5 team in the semis first? They would have been fatigued, just like they were when they played Duke in the title game.
 
..... UK's record is 76-25 including that Wisconsin game through the last 101 games..../QUOTE]
This stat blew me away. Should have known it..sensed it..but actually seeing it is a different matter. And, with top recruiting classes of mostly 5 stars.

But I do give Cal a lot of slack. My expectations of Freshmen are pretty low no matter the number of stars. And then my expectations are even lower when you start 4 or 5 of them.
 
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The downfall of that 2015 team (other that losing Poythress) was that Cal accepted to just play the halfcourt game the last half of the season. When we played with a freelance offense, we were lights out. We shot more 3s and spaced the floor better also. Hell, we should have been pushing the pace instead of playing slower. No doubt we should have went more fast paste. [laughing]
 
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I am going to get scalded for saying this, but the Wisconsin game may prove to be Cal’s Waterloo. Cal lost a lot of credibility for the way he handled the last 20 minutes of that game. Cal is loyal to his players to the detriment of team success, which not only impacts wins/losses but also impacts other players morale/goals/ambitions and desire to give it all for the team.
In an effort to empower the twins to hopefully enable them to secure a spot in the draft(as I feel sure Cal made that commitment to them and their parents) Cal chose to play them ahead of Booker and Ulis which was total nonsense. Cal’s stubbornness (ego) or loyalty to the twins cost Cal a perfect season, cost UK a national championship, but worst of all it cost Cal coaching credibility with recruits and their parents which other coaches are using against Cal to siphon off some of the top recruits who do not want to risk sitting behind the previous year recruits that failed to get drafted.
The platoon system also worked against Cal because he abandoned it just when he needed to stick with it the most (last half of Wisconsin game.) Cal will never admit it, but that decision to play the twins over more talented players changed everything for his system that he was trying to sustain at KY.
Easy to sell top recruits on why it is risky signing with Cal, you may end up riding the bench behind a lesser talented one and done that wasn’t one and done.
Fire away. JMO

Interested in your response to my post given that you used the Wisconsin game to not only discredit Cal, but to say it cost us a title, a perfect season, caused other future recruits to not come here or to not play as hard as they should when they come here, and it was all based entirely on a premise that isn't true.
 
you are totally right about everything you have written there. I have one point to make though. I have said this in other threads before over the years and I still won't name the player because that's not fair to him because he's still around the program, but he told me point blank just a couple months after 2015 final 4 Calipari was screaming at the twins the last 5 minutes of the game to go to Karl like we had against ND to get the W in the elite 8. They completely ignored him including in the under 4 timeout when apparently he read them the riot act. So my issue is and has been since not that he should of been playing Ulis and Booker because as you said Booker was terrible and really had been terrible the final 5-6 weeks of the season but he should of been playing Ulis who was having a good game and who would of got the ball to Karl. Now maybe we still lose, that's something we will never know but I'd have preferred going out with the best player in the country touching the ball. It's a scenario that has repeated itself with Cal and certain players know they don't have to fear the hook. They do what they want because Cal won't bench them. We saw it then, we saw it last year, and we see it this year. His threshold for benching a guy is all about what number they were in the recruiting rankings not how they are actually playing at the time, i think that is pretty indisputable for anyone who's not a total homer.

I wouldn't have been against a Ulis/twins trio at the 1-3, but we were getting killed on the boards and Cal tried to remedy it with size by putting Lyles at the 3. He wasn't quick enough to guard Dekker.

With Willie giving us nothing at the 5 that night and Poythress hurt, Cal did what he thought was best and went with the guys who had proven they could handle the moment.

Wisconsin also completely took KAT away down the stretch to make someone else beat us. People don't talk about it much now, but Drew was fouled on two drives late in the game because we spent most of the clock trying to get an angle to feed it into KAT and nothing was there so they had to force the drive. The shotclock violations get all the discussion but the lack of fouls called there changed the entire game.
 
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Why would anyone do that when it’s just easier to regurgitate that booker and Ulis should have been in for the twins. Never mind that Booker didn’t do anything in the game, and as you noted, was abused continuously by Decker. But i don’t even put all of that on him.

If any game showed Calipari’s stubbornness, it was that game. It’s not like Wisconsin didn’t know that UK would switch every pick and roll, and therefore they were able to work the ball around to get booker isolated on Decker. But UK never switched coverage, never gave help. Just didn’t try to do anything different when it was obvious what Wisconsin was doing.

We had switched everything all year because we were built perfectly to do it. When Willie couldn't handle Kaminski at the top of the key, it left us open to drives from the top and Dekker cutting against Booker/Lyles all night.

We had used our size to smother teams, but once we ran into a squad with bigs who could drive and shoot and needed our bigs to play good defense out front, they picked the worst time of the year to flop.
 
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I wouldn't have been against a Ulis/twins trio at the 1-3, but we were getting killed on the boards and Cal tried to remedy it with size by putting Lyles at the 3. He wasn't quick enough to guard Dekker.

With Willie giving us nothing at the 5 that night and Poythress hurt, Cal did what he thought was best and went with the guys who had proven they could handle the moment.

Wisconsin also completely took KAT away down the stretch to make someone else beat us. People don't talk about it much now, but Drew was fouled on two drives late in the game because we spent most of the clock trying to get an angle to feed it into KAT and nothing was there so they had to force the drive. The shotclock violations get all the discussion but the lack of fouls called there changed the entire game.
Beat us? What? Surely that's a typo.
 
Beat us? What? Surely that's a typo.

I think my keyboard is broken. I didn't mean to type that a historically great offense featuring two lottery picks and a cast of talented veterans could end the game on a scoring run and beat a young team playing under the weight of a 40-0 season.

Don't know what happened. Must be time to buy a new one.
 
Cal made the comment a couple days ago that he was “still hacked” about the Wisconsin loss and not going 40-0.

I don’t think the solution, though, is to “never watch the tape” of season-ending losses. They might reveal some correctable patterns in late-game situations.
If he don’t know what he did wrong by now, watching won’t help. What are assistants for, if not to give advice?
 
I think my keyboard is broken. I didn't mean to type that a historically great offense featuring two lottery picks and a cast of talented veterans could end the game on a scoring run and beat a young team playing under the weight of a 40-0 season.

Don't know what happened. Must be time to buy a new one.
Keep your day job. Analyzing basketball is not your strong suit.
 
The ranking of the four 1-seeds in the 2015 tournament were

1. Kentucky
2. Villanova
3. Duke
4. Wisconsin

Wisconsin didn't even get to the 1-seed line until Gonzaga lost late in the season. The selection committee got the brackets right.
 
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