The last 3 weeks of the season we have come together. Minus the LSU disaster. We win that game we are talking about the 2 seed and trying to win out to get the 4th 1 seed. Hopefully that one loss keeps this team driven. Young teams tend to forget those things. Hope Reeves, Adou, Ugo, Mitchell remind the guys about the loss to LSU and then the last minute of Tennessee.
UK #9 in new AP Poll
- Thread starter WeWant9
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I'm worried that the committee will use those computer rankings to justify giving us a 4 seed even though every (non-biased) human can see that we have a 3 seed resume.
Committee could acknowledge that we were unhealthy much of the season and give us credit for that. At least some of our lower overall metrics can be explained by that.
Not really expecting it, but it should be a legitimate excuse.
Problem we have is that overall SOS is a bit light compared to many other top teams.
If the committee is trying to get it right, they will have us in the 2/3 range, acknowledging the extreme quality of road wins at Auburn and UT, plus neutral site vs. UNC.
But they could just as easily slot us at 4/5. Look to 2011 and 2016, if you want some examples.
Not really expecting it, but it should be a legitimate excuse.
Problem we have is that overall SOS is a bit light compared to many other top teams.
If the committee is trying to get it right, they will have us in the 2/3 range, acknowledging the extreme quality of road wins at Auburn and UT, plus neutral site vs. UNC.
But they could just as easily slot us at 4/5. Look to 2011 and 2016, if you want some examples.
I'm trying to look at the poll and see how the S-curve would place teams.
You got Houston going south, uconn east, Purdue midwest..
Someone smarter than me, could the committee send Arizona out to the west as the final 1? Or would they put UNC as the 1 in the west and Zona in the west as a strong #2? Or tenn our west as they are slightly better and Zona goes elsewhere as a 2.
@The_Answer1313 ?
I'm wondering if UK wouldn't be better served being the first 3 as opposed to the final 2.
You got Houston going south, uconn east, Purdue midwest..
Someone smarter than me, could the committee send Arizona out to the west as the final 1? Or would they put UNC as the 1 in the west and Zona in the west as a strong #2? Or tenn our west as they are slightly better and Zona goes elsewhere as a 2.
@The_Answer1313 ?
I'm wondering if UK wouldn't be better served being the first 3 as opposed to the final 2.
if we do the 1 seed in the tourney will need to worry about us. The pressure will be on them. We know we can play with anyone.
2016 was because the SECT Final didn't count when we enacted revenge on TAM. Therefore giving them the 3 seed, and us with a #4 seed and IU in the 2nd round for storyline.
I'd hope that shit doesn't happen again.. but I think this team is in a better spot. If we lose 1st game in SECT, then we probably deserve to be a 4. Win 2 games or even just one, probably locked in as a 3.
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It's certainly possible. Final 2 we'd get whatever is left over. Top 3 we'd have our pick of region........or well assuming we are the 2nd SEC team, pick of 3 regions except for the one that UT went to.
Considering our Re-occurring rebounding issues….Marquette would be the best case scenario of the likely 2’s. They play a tiny lineup and would have trouble stopping our driving guards. For the 1’s Purdue is easily the best matchup for us. They have laterally slow guards and our pace would tire Edey out.
I bone bruised my kneecap, and even 6 years or so later I could feel a burning sensation if I was kneeling down to tie a shoe or tape a cable. Do not recommend.
Good info- so it’s a good think UConn is not trending like UK- I guess it’s good they’ve been good all yr based on their past championship rankingsInteresting chart of champions AP rank the last 7 weeks before the tournament. Kentucky's ranking the last 7 weeks is below:
T-1: 9
T-2: 15
T-3: 16
T-4: 17
T-5: 22
T-6: 17
T-7: 10
AP Poll Rank for NCAA Tournament Champions - BracketResearch.com
Table shows the AP Poll rank for the NCAA Tournament champion in the weeks leading up to the NCAA Tournament.bracketresearch.com
My fear is that we're looking at another year where the committee hammers us down to a seed that aligns with their computer models, much like 2015 when they slammed us with the 8-seed and everyone and their brother knew we were no worse than a 4.
4 wins against the Net top 10.
Tenn. #5
Auburn #6
UNC #7
Bama #8
2 on the road, 1 on a neutral floor. The NCAA tournament is not played at home gyms, so 3/4 away from home. That stat really needs to account for something. I know Purdue was the only other team that had 3 wins before we beat UT, does anyone have 4 ? I do not think Purdue got a 4th top 10 win in the NET.
Tenn. #5
Auburn #6
UNC #7
Bama #8
2 on the road, 1 on a neutral floor. The NCAA tournament is not played at home gyms, so 3/4 away from home. That stat really needs to account for something. I know Purdue was the only other team that had 3 wins before we beat UT, does anyone have 4 ? I do not think Purdue got a 4th top 10 win in the NET.
Yep, anyone who wasn't impressed with that win, and it clearly wasn't a fluke or luck, is either blind, biased, or just a liar.
and that’s a guy who gets paid to cover the sport. I trust the opinion of posters here over a lot of the sports media world.
Norlander is the smuggest SOB in the media, even worse than Seth Davis. He's like that mopey prick that everyone remember from high school that you want to punch in the face.
I always find this interesting. I know you can't judge officiating simply by looking at the overall FT numbers. But I still check those after every game. And it's interesting that UK routinely shoots fewer FTs than their opponent, even in games where the opponent is putting us on the line intentionally in an effort to come back at the end of games.
In conference games this year UK shot more FTs 3 times all season (Mizzou, Miss St, and Arkansas). At Miss St we tied, but MSU was fouling late to draw out the game. The 3 biggest "what if" games that could have put us in a position to play for a 1-seed where At Texas AM (UK: 21 and TAMU: 30), Florida (UK:17 and UF: 22), and LSU (UK:12 and LSU: 25)
All of this is a far cry from this board a month ago when threads were popping up "is UK going to make the tournament" lol
Up until 2021 tho under Cal we absolutely feasted at the line. There was always the stat that we made more free throws than our opponents attempted.
We shoot more threes these days. It's reflected in the stat. If you don't drive as much, you aren't getting to the line either that much. It's one of those tradeoffs.
Getting to the line (and by extension not fouling on defense) has a lot more to do with actual skill than the refs.
We shoot more threes these days. It's reflected in the stat. If you don't drive as much, you aren't getting to the line either that much. It's one of those tradeoffs.
Getting to the line (and by extension not fouling on defense) has a lot more to do with actual skill than the refs.
Not getting a 2 seed be lucky to get a 3 seed I mean JFC Gary Parrish has us a 5 seed right now.
Not just "not going to make the tournament" but "I hope Oats beats us by 40", "I quit watching a long time ago (lie), "I don't care anyway". etc.
The fair weather fans are the loudest.
Got to think if UK wins out, we get a #2 seed.
I want to avoid UNC, UConn, and Houston. I think we would beat Arizona, because we do what they do, only better. I also like how we matchup with Purdue.
Would love for us to draw Purdue as our #1 seed, and Marquette as our #3 seed with Kansas as the #4. Then St. John's as the potential second round matchup.
I want to avoid UNC, UConn, and Houston. I think we would beat Arizona, because we do what they do, only better. I also like how we matchup with Purdue.
Would love for us to draw Purdue as our #1 seed, and Marquette as our #3 seed with Kansas as the #4. Then St. John's as the potential second round matchup.
Parish and Norlander are the perfect example of two stupid people who look at the numbers so much they don't even realize what they are ranking anyone (Or understand how those numbers are actually calculated). Anyone who watches basketball and thinks there are 16 teams better than us this year is out of their mind. Yes we have a higher standard deviation in our performance than most teams, but being a clear 1 seed eye test wise recently should count for something too.
That's actually not true it seems. According to Torvik, Kentucky has a heck of a lot more "balanced" years of FT rate than a team like Duke has. I've gone back to 2015 so far, and I'd say not only does Duke have a greater discrepancy.. but it's by a good margin.
Take 2015 for instance.
Kentucky is 30th in FTR for us and 60th for the opponent.
Duke is 97th and 2nd.
What this says, in some ways, is that Duke was 2nd best in the nation at not getting fouls called on them.
I'm sure Coach K wrote a vicious letter to the NCAA over some team beating him out here.
Seeds are probably done as we speak. The NCAA committee has been awful the past 6/7 years. I miss the old days
Edit on my previous post:
Before 2015, Kentucky faired pretty well in FT rate, actually. Which is odd, because that would have been the time that the NCAA hated Cal the most, as it was closest to his time at UMass and Memphis (cal has otherwise been a pretty good ambassador for the college game since).
But yeah since 2015 there has been a drop off in this rate with some years where we were practically dead even with our opponent.
My guess? The SEC just got better during this time. Kentucky had a lot more knockouts in the 2010 to 2015 years where many of the bottom teams (and even mid range teams) just gave up. And also, probably fouled due to frustration.
Before 2015, Kentucky faired pretty well in FT rate, actually. Which is odd, because that would have been the time that the NCAA hated Cal the most, as it was closest to his time at UMass and Memphis (cal has otherwise been a pretty good ambassador for the college game since).
But yeah since 2015 there has been a drop off in this rate with some years where we were practically dead even with our opponent.
My guess? The SEC just got better during this time. Kentucky had a lot more knockouts in the 2010 to 2015 years where many of the bottom teams (and even mid range teams) just gave up. And also, probably fouled due to frustration.
One of the things I noticed is this isn’t just UK specific but rather the conference as a whole.
The SEC in a lot of these years just called more fouls than any other conference. We’ve seen those ridiculous games where seemingly a foul is called every trip (I think the UT game was like that)
Having said that some teams just do not foul. I’m not sure it’s specific to preferred treatment or just a general coach philosophy as you’ll find certain coaches teams foul way less. Jay Wrights nova teams did this quite often. And some like Houston foul way more.
FWIW I thought that come tournament these kind of things help UK as the games are called less like that. I don’t know but I suspect it does
The problem is, style of play might dictate how much YOU foul.. but that doesn't apply to your opponents rate. Duke isn't all the sudden playing 25 different opponents who all tend to foul less due to style of their play.
I do agree about other teams that have a defensive identity. Like Houston, I think of WVU in the huggy years, they played a lot of tough defense, subbing players in and out a ton and just throwing bodies at you.. but that wasn't really Cals MO.. to be like Houston or WVU. IMO we were good at defense more because of sheer talent size and speed, more than HOW we played. But maybe that's being biased.
I also think dealing with fouls and foul trouble early on helps in the tournament. But, at the same time, those fouls in the regular season can mean losses. We clearly lost some games this year because of a few very large free throw discrepancies and bad calls to decide games.
I do agree about other teams that have a defensive identity. Like Houston, I think of WVU in the huggy years, they played a lot of tough defense, subbing players in and out a ton and just throwing bodies at you.. but that wasn't really Cals MO.. to be like Houston or WVU. IMO we were good at defense more because of sheer talent size and speed, more than HOW we played. But maybe that's being biased.
I also think dealing with fouls and foul trouble early on helps in the tournament. But, at the same time, those fouls in the regular season can mean losses. We clearly lost some games this year because of a few very large free throw discrepancies and bad calls to decide games.
I think it applies to both.
Kenpom had good studies on this a few years back. Just how much is in the control of the offense and how much is in control of the defense.
Like say you have a team that forces a ton of turnovers on defense facing a team like UK who doesn't turn it over at all. Who wins that battle exactly. Well the number is going to factor in both aspects.
Same with the fouling. I believe there's a skill in not fouling on defense but there's also a skill in drawing fouls on offense. In fact, I suspect this is used quite often in the SEC with bad teams. They can't shoot, they turn it over all the time, the easiest thing to do on offense is drive drive drive and get fouled. Arkansas has done this consistently under Musselman. Awful shooting numbers past four years, turnovers not great, don't rebound much but they get to the line. I wanna say South Carolina under Frank Martin used to do this as well. Actually it seems to be the preferred method of a bunch of SEC teams (UK in the past included) which is why these games are basically foul fests.
We were the overall number one seed in 2015 and undefeated.
Learn your basketball DUDE!
Dilly actually does get fouled at a decent clip.
It's just different than previous years tho.
in 10.....Cousins at a FT Rate of 72.6. Wall 53. Bledsoe 39. Patterson 34.
There's like no one on this team in the same realm
I was at work and didn’t have time to look it up. And I don’t memorize each season exactly. I just know one year, whatever it was, we were handed an 8-seed with the twins and then ran through the NCAAT making the committee look like the idiots they are.
The year doesn’t matter - if you knew UK ball like you claim, you’d have quickly come back with the year, seed and core team names.
Yeah if they stick a Top Ten Team any lower than a 3 seed it will be a screwing. For us and whomever we end up playing 😂
I used to be able to name ever NCAA national champion in men’s basketball from 1978 to present.
As far as KY basketball it amazes people, other KY fans of the knowledge I can produce about KY basketball off the top of my head without google.
That has to look good to any non AI / Computer ranking system. Hopefully there will be some in the room with common sense....wait strike that....we know what we are dealing with here. lol
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