A team that loses at home to UNCW isn’t winning a national championship. That loss should have made it clear there’s something inherently missing from this team that lowers its ceiling. And the Wagner excuse is absurd. That loss showed the roster and team, though at times super entertaining, just doesn’t have what it takes.
The UNCW loss should have made it clear to UK fans
- Thread starter IowaMuse
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What's missing from this team is Ron Holland. If we had a star wing player we would be top 5 right now. Holland was a big time miss.
We were without 3 players and another playing their 1st college game coming off an injury and long layoff.
I just don't think that game means as much as you think it does.
Now, I'm very concerned by the USCjr game.
A team of Rob, Reed, Reeves, Mitchell and Thiero cant beat UNCW? At home? Either the guys aren’t nearly as good as we think (possible) or there’s just something missing. Size and physicality, roster construction, rotation issues, something. I actually think this loss was dismissed way too much by folks.
Exactly this. We were basically missing 3 of our top 10 players that game amd ot was Bradshaws first game. It was a bad loss but UNCW isn't a dead weight. They are top 1/3 in rankings. Meaning 67% of teams are worse than them.
What should of made it clear is when Kentucky let one of worst offenses in major college basketball in Texas A&M get 97 points
So UK had 7 of its top 10 players and couldn’t beat UNCW. No other top 20 team is losing that game in the same circumstance. It’s crazy.
"Can't" refers to the present. Of course we could have beaten them if those player you named had played just a little better; they just didn't do it.
Heck, there is nobody in college basketball right now that is likely win it all this year.
I stand by my statement that a game where we were without 3 of our top 9 players
and a 4th of our top 9 players playing his first game off a long layoff
and a player not among our top 9 playing 32 minutes like he normally plays is a throw-out game when it comes to predictive value about the future.
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Cal starts way behind other coaches every year because of his team-building style. I’ve been pretty actively pretty anti-Cal the past five years because of bad choices he kept doubling down on. And even I’ll say that the problem has never been the floor with his teams. It’s the ceiling. The USCjr loss concerns me somewhat. The UNCW loss, not even a little bit.
Edit: Well, it concerns me because it will affect our seeding as usual and that pisses me off. It doesn’t make me concerned about where our ceiling is because imo it doesn’t have anything to do with our ceiling.
Edit: Well, it concerns me because it will affect our seeding as usual and that pisses me off. It doesn’t make me concerned about where our ceiling is because imo it doesn’t have anything to do with our ceiling.
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Kansas Lost to a 6-11 WVU team and had a full squad missing no one.
Arizona lost to Stanford who is ranked right next to UNCW and bad this year.
Stanford is 109th
UNCW 115th
WVU 151st
Lots of top 20 teams have similar losses and with a full roster. No one is saying it isn't a bad loss. It was trash, but it wasn't a sub 200 or 300 loss. Facts are facts.
If you believe that, you don't see very many top 20 scores; more inexplicable losses than that one happen almost every single week.
They could definitely beat Iowa on their home floor.
I believe Adou could have been that. Had we missed on Edwards I believe Adou would have been a star this year.
Wilmington had 2 players that could play anywhere in America. They were both red hot but still. We threw everything at the pg at the end and he was driving and scoring with the game on the line
White is legit.
He's averaging almost 21 a game and 39% from three.
Everyone drives and scores on us but I get what you're saying.
The reality is that the weaknesses have been there the whole time. They were just easy to ignore with the splashy big wins. Still have time to right the ship but every day is one day closer to that not being true.
What we are missing is what usually beats us. That is 2 or 3 blazing fast, jitterbug quick guards that can get to the basket at will against the type of guards we usually have. They can also guard anyone we put on the floor and make our offense bog down and become ineffective.
Not a great loss but to say we should have packed it in is a little much. I am not sure we find our defense in time. If we do then we might have a shot if not then yeah no chance. Still a little reason to hope.
wasn't Edwards supposed to be that big time wing you mentioned?
what about the brilliant idea of Bradshaw playing out on the floor like a wing?
imo, the bigger miss was the Konecht kid that is tearing it up @ UT, but then again, ccc would pull him out when he was on fire like he does Dillingham
It was a bad loss. No question. We should have won. Zero excuses.
But you can't draw definitive conclusions about a team losing when they aren't anywhere near full strength.
DJ didn't play.
Ugonna didn't play.
Z didn't play.
Bradshaw was playing his 1st ever college game.
The question is simply: Are we better off with DJ, Ugonna, and Z? I think that's an obvious yes.
Edwards logged 32 minutes so for 80% of the game we were practically playing 4 on 5.
Also this team just looks and plays better when they are playing from the perimeter. That game they only took 17 threes which seems like a decent amount but Edwards took 5 of those going 0-5. Shep, dilly, reeves and Mitchell combined 5-12 (not enough) We looked our best this year getting 25-30 up a game. USCjr we took 13. It’s no coincidence that 2 of our 4 losses have come when we have taken the least amount of 3’s.
Edit to add Bad Dilly also showed up for that game. 24 minutes, 2 points on 1-9 shooting, 0-2 from 3 with 4 turnovers. Easily his worst stat line of the year.
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You are correct, but People don't want to hear the facts. They just want to bitch and complain. And it wasn't just 3 players, it was our starting PG (arguably the most important position), and the other 3 guys were supposed to be in some combination our C. That 2 of 5 positions. The one playing his first game, it's also not like he had been practicing all summer, he had practiced for about 1 week since May.
Now while we still SHOULD have won that game even under those circumstances, it wasn't a lock. In sports, the best team does not always win, there are always upsets. In a tournament like the NCAA-T, more often than not the best team does not win it. You have to have the components to win it (20ish or so teams do every year), and some luck, and especially get hot at the right time (see UNC 2 years ago, who in late Feb were questionable of even getting an invite).
Agreed, and funny how that works....a team looks at and prepares for the opposing team's biggest strengths and formulates a game plan to defend against those strengths. Dang, wish we had a game plan to deter UNCW and USCjr from scoring so much, and how to get the shots up we need.
However, look at just last night, 2 top ten teams lost. Both on the road, to unranked teams. It happens, but I hate it when it happens to us. I think if we hadn't completely folded against SCarolina like we did, but only lost by a few points, I'd certainly feel a lot better about moving forward.
The game planning also goes on for the other side of the court as well. Opposing coaches know how cal is going to defend their team as cal defends all teams practically the same way. It is very easy to see from my perspective why other teams perform so well offensively against us.
That's what I was alluding to... South Carolina knew our strengths were transition and perimeter shots. They took both away, disrupted our offense and executed their offense to their plan. We did nothing to change that.
The rankings I posted are from metrics not opinionated polls. So yes in fact the facts are UNCW wasn't a sub 200 or 300 loss. The immaturity level in your trolling is embarrassing.
Cal never does. When it comes to actual coaching he is an all systems fail hack. I’m not sure you could find any coach in D1 that is actually worse at coaching than him. Can you imagine him with Louisvilles roster? Probably sitting at 1-2 wins at the moment.
