Time to Worry?

[cats2010]

Overall we are a very fun team to watch even though we weren’t tonight. Hard for me to get my hopes up though with CCC roaming the sidelines, therefore I haven’t. Tonight’s game is a perfect example of why. He has no answers how to counter, no real idea on how to effectively manage his roster other than to make sure his guys get their minutes, will not under any circumstance even think about trying anything different on defense, even for out of bounds underneath the basket. The last 2 games we have given up 6 point blank looks, just ridiculous. He just stood over there and laughed as he really had no clue what to do. Washed up hack is what we are stuck with.

 

[Stan the caddy]

I’ll worry when I see them suck with Thiero at full speed.

That’s one thing that will absolutely make a difference. With Adou you can at least run 10 guys out there and maybe he brings some energy. The last 50 minutes have looked really bad. Hopefully the guys realize after this that every team isn’t gonna just let us hang 85+ on them.

See CSB, get us out of that other toxic thread and we aren’t that dissimilar 😁

 

[yoshukai]

Not trying to be naive, I know we can’t win them all. But all it takes is one bad game, and we lose in March.
Of course every team plays their A+ game against us, but how do we adjust to that? What are we preparing for?
We are either hot or cold, let’s hope we can rein it in for the next month.

Saw someone else mention that they had been wondering if we were going to be like a Gonzaga team . Pretty, flashy, and excellent offensive weapons…..but not tough enough to win in the end . Tonight did not alleviate that concern.

 

[CapnBlubs]

Team needs to man the f up. That's all there is to it. Play a LOT harder. Have to find it or it's another shitfest finish headed our way in March.

The most insane thing to me is that with our depth we have the capacity to go balls to the wall but they still aren't getting it done. What are you saving it for? But of course Cal doesn't hold them accountable enough. He's lazy as hell too.

 

[know1]

This is almost exactly the point of the season where it all went South last year.

 

[michaeluk26]

We got straight up punked and backed down. We never tried to run. Cal let them set the tempo. We ran the dribble out the shot clock and throw up a prayer offense of years past. No resistance from the players. Missing point blank shots. The blueprint is out on us. I've seen this shit show before. This was flat out embarrassing. This team has been getting worse. I wanna see how they come out against Arkansas but I think I know what's gonna happen. It was fun while it lasted.

I haven't even mentioned the defense.

 

[tug1543]

That was implicitly implied. It's pretty much all these top draft picks think about from day one. Most of us wouldn't go skiing at the age of 50 if our jobs depended on us not getting hurt away from work. The same line of thinking is for recruits under Cal. He sells them on the NBA, and their thinking is "if I get hurt or play too physical here I'm not getting drafted". Just wait until the next coach comes along. I think the biggest difference we'll see is kids going ALL OUT on defense and offense, and that continuing all the way up to the end. It seems our kids right now just play hard until they've secured a spot in the rotation somewhere (because they know Cal is going to trim to a certain number of guys at some point in the middle of the season), and then they just back off to bide their time.

I think you nailed it! I've always believed that the primary reason Cal's UK teams have such a poor showing in the NCAA tournament is because the one and done players view the tournament as a last opportunity to show case their individual talents to the NBA scouts. Team effort or results are a secondary consideration to a player focused on their draft status. The best example of this was the Wall and Cousins team. Each player seemed hell bent on demonstrating that they could shoot 3s. The final stat line was 3 for 33 3's. The exceptions were the Harralson 2011 team which featured only Knight as a one and done, the MKG led team first champions and the cinderella 2014 team.

 

[*CatinIL*]

 

[ukfan1622]

Nobody really has a clue about what we have with this team; the gap between their best level and bottom level is too vast to know where (in between) they really are.

 

[M4CAT]

Absolutely worried about this team defensively. That's for sure!