When Cal gets leads...
- Thread starter Blueathletics
- Start date
First, you initially said "huge failure", now it's just a failure. Big ass chasm between the two.
Second, people on this site consistently refuse to give Wisconsin credit for being a great team. Consistently. And they were. The other day I was following Mike Decourcy on Twitter. I like him a good bit, and was just curious as to his reaction to UK/UofL, since he picked UofL. At one point, in response to someone who was basically saying teams now are weak, that if you consider all the teams between 2000 and 2010 - except for 2008, which did have several really good teams - that there were 3 teams in 2015 that were better than anyone between 2000 and 2010. Bilas says consistently no one this year would be in the top 6 last year, and Decourcy is going him one better: he says that UK, Duke and Wisconsin last year were 3 of the best teams of this century. ESPN's power ratings, the BPI, which to me seems the best of the computer ranking systems, has been in existence since 2012. And of the best 15 teams in that period, 6 of them were from last year.
Two points from that:
1. We picked a horrible year to try to go unbeaten; and
2. Wisconsin was really, really, really good. One of the best 1 seeds in years and years.
And yet, for you and others, it's like we -- Cal -- blew it by losing to a 6 seed or something.
But we had a legendary team, right?
That's the reason people are ate up by that game. I always thought we were a little weak offensively, so I'm not suprised they were beatable. Some people actually believed they couldn't be beat.
Also it's the way we lost. You have never seen, and never will see again, a team have 3 straight shot clock violations in a game like that, let alone on that situation.
That's what I think anyway. People jjst couldn't handle losing that way.
I agree with both of you. Cal was in a tough situation - he'd trusted the Harrisons before and they'd always rewarded him, but on the other hand, those shot clock violations were piling up.. at what point do you say "okay, forget their 9 prior tourney wins"? After 2 violations? 3? I dunno - it's a hell of a call to have to make. And as a reminder, Booker was booty in that game. Ulis might have been able to help, guess we'll never know.
But Mojo is dead on - last year had the strongest 1-5 teams since 2008, and probably since before that. Yes, ours was legendary, but suppose they were 75% to win against that Wisconsin team with the best offense in the history of Kenpom - that's pretty crazy praise for that UK team, right?
But if you calculate based on consecutive probabilities in a single elimination scenario, that 75% is deadly. Even if every game going into Wisconsin was 90%, that 75% chance on the fifth game puts you below 50 percent chance overall ((.9^4)(.75)=.492) just to make the championship game, much less win it.
And yes, obviously, these are people and not random number generators, but you understand my point.
This dead on. If Cal told them to stall the clock, it was too early to do it(as we now know), or the players did it on their own, it still falls on the coach. The coach either:
A. Had the wrong strategy
B. Didn't make a substitution
It all rests on Cal's shoulders.
Once again, let me say this. There is NOT another coach I want here but Cal. But he has some issues that we as a fan base can talk about.
That's fair. No one would say Cal, or any coach, is perfect and without blemish. He's only human, so by definition he'll do some things well and others not so well. For you to say, well, this is a message board, we ought to be able to talk about the things he doesn't do well - I have no issue with that. That's a personal thing - like I said earlier, to me it's kinda like complaining that your superhot supermodel girlfriend has a mole and you dwell on that and not the other 99% of her - but again, personal preference.
There's a distinction to be made between all that, on one hand, and on the other the few posters here who go way beyond that line and think Cal isn't a good coach at all, they just don't like him, whatever. I have little use for that......
True, but thing is the 30 second shot clock, not much to be gained for taking it too low, then throw up some awful shot, lose possesion. The other team is going to get the ball back, regardless, so not much to be gained, a lot to be lost, it is a crap shoot.
You're kidding, right.........JMO but anytime you blow a game in the semis..... it's huge
Cal addressed this in the postgame interview for an unintelligent reporter and i guess for you two guys as well.
We did have issues getting the ball in and UL's press was not guarding the inbounder after the throw in, thus Tyler made the pass and was supposed to get it back immediately with the opportunity to get up the floor quickly.
Blew it or just the wrong decision. Anyway, that decision will always be in my mind as the biggest blunder since Pitino decided to not guard the inbound pass.......you know the one.
It was easy to see that was the plan, just by watching the game. Glad he was able to explain it for you though.
Doesn't change the fact that we were having no trouble breaking the press when Tyler was on the receiving end...but did when he was in bounding the ball.
Which is why he pointed out that Tyler was cramping up at the end of the game and he was having to ask him if he thought he could even play. I'm sure it would have made you much happier if he had ran himself out with 2 minutes to go and had to sit while Jamal Murray or Hawkins ran point.
Similar threads
