Where's the excitement?
- Thread starter Lempface
- Start date
I've learned to never underestimate Cals ability to screw things up.
We have a legitimate shot at 9. The problem is, so does 20 other teams. I like my team. It's like gambling, you have to have a little luck to win it all. I wish it was best out of 3 frome elite 8 on. I don't see how the $ counters could lose.
I'm beyond excited to watch Calipari not start Reed and RD as we fall behind by 8+ again.
I'm 50/50, part excited/frustrated because I know this team is the best in the country and could easily win it all, but Calipari's ego loves sticking it to us.
I'm 50/50, part excited/frustrated because I know this team is the best in the country and could easily win it all, but Calipari's ego loves sticking it to us.
We're just waiting to see how the season plays out. Like the pumpers are so fond of saying.
Instead of making any outlandish predictions of the team reeling off 6 straight or thinking the worst with the Cats being bounced out in Round 1 by Oakland, taking it one game at a time.
2-7 in our last 9 tournament games will kinda do that to you
Well when you win 2 total post season games in 4 years it has that effect on folks.
Uhhh.
What is our defensive scoring ranking?
[Hint: 334th, 79.9 points a game].
NCAA College Men's Basketball DI current team Stats | NCAA.com
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And what is the lowest defensively ranked team to run the tourney?
[Hint: 17th].
The odds are extremely long that a defensive team ranked in the hundreds pulls off an NCAA tourney championship.
It has never happened.
Add the fact that we are team that hangs its hat on 3 point shooting, and that doesn’t typically work well in mega arenas for the last 3 or 4 games of the tourney.
Pull a Sweet 16, and I feel like house money!!
If we had Kidd-Gilcrest and the brow defending the rim, we roll.
And with those two, most solid HS teams would win it all.
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I’d be more excited if our best lineup actually started. And then actually played together for an extended stretch. I’d be more excited if Adou and Justin played all or 95% of the mins at the 4. I’d be more excited if our $9M/yr coach could see the same thing both analytics and an interested toddler can see about the lineups. I’d be more excited if I didn’t think that $9M man was pi$$ing away one of the most exciting UK rosters I’ve seen in my 48 yrs.
I love the COVID season. There are 10 different teams that claim it was their season.
Certainly true on offense.
If we just had a man in the middle to protect the rim!!!
If Cal coached Caitland Clark, he could hold her under 25.
She’d look damn impressive coming off the bench!!
Lemp aren’t you an admitted Syracuse fan who didn’t grow up attached to this team? Thats fine, but you really don’t have the pulse of a real UK fan if so. I assume you started paying attention to U.K. under Tubby. I remember a back and forth you had with someone a while back about this. If I have it wrong please correct me.
No, a real UK fan does not want the longest drought without a 1 seed or final four.
I believe you also said you grew up idolizing Boeheim. Well to real U.K. fans he’s a joke. He should have been fired by Syracuse years ago. It’s no wonder you think everything is fine, but that’s not how Kentucky does things. That’s how Syracuse does things.
No, a real UK fan does not want the longest drought without a 1 seed or final four.
I believe you also said you grew up idolizing Boeheim. Well to real U.K. fans he’s a joke. He should have been fired by Syracuse years ago. It’s no wonder you think everything is fine, but that’s not how Kentucky does things. That’s how Syracuse does things.
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I've become stoic with UK basketball. I don't get super excited anymore. The positive to that is I don't get letdown either. I'll watch our games and hope for the best. But as long as Cal is here I'll never allow myself to get attached to winning. When your head coach basically admits he doesn't care about winning, you're a fool to expect it.
Gift of a draw,really. NCState,Marquette and Houston are EXACTLY the type of teams that have given us fits this year. You think A&M was boys against men wait till we play Houston,and banking on them playing like they did the last game is foolish. They didn't play 2 of their best players at all,and 3 others only had about 20 minutes. It was obvious that while Sampson didn't throw the game he was resting players as he already had a 1 seed locked. Marquette is no prize either. We could still win a few but crowing we have an easy bracket is whistling past the graveyard.
I love when people act like Rafters is some weird twilight zone entirely cut off from the real world. Try walking around in bars, restaurants, malls all over Lexington any day of the year. This place is almost always (though not technically always) a little more optimistic than what you'll find there. It only stands to reason that it would be: people only find their way here if they start out with a higher than average interest in seeing our program succeed.
Some people just haven't gotten around to dealing with that yet.
I, like almost all of ACTUAL BBN, am cautiously optimistic. Thrice bitten, (in a row, and counting) twice shy.
All the same I am built to get excited about Kentucky basketball and I'll get excited just fine as soon as there's something concrete to get excited about. Hopefully that's on the way.
Some people just haven't gotten around to dealing with that yet.
I, like almost all of ACTUAL BBN, am cautiously optimistic. Thrice bitten, (in a row, and counting) twice shy.
All the same I am built to get excited about Kentucky basketball and I'll get excited just fine as soon as there's something concrete to get excited about. Hopefully that's on the way.
This is such a great draw, I don’t think Cal can botch this up. Someone on the committee was taking care of us.
I'll come around by Thursday, but the last 5 years doesn't have my hopes very high.
I'm very excited that each game brings us closer to the end of Cal's reign of terror.
If our guards will fight through picks, we have a great chance. Oakland picks more than a Bluegrass mandolin player on Red Bull Energy.
Yeah, this is me. That loss was like a punch in the gut. I was very disappointed. But I'll be ready for Thursday. I want to see the fire we saw against Auburn, Alabama, and Tennessee not the low energy and lack of effort we saw against A&M. I'll feel better after we get a win to get that gut punch out of my system. I think we'll know soon after the tip if this team is ready to play or if it's gonna be a struggle all day.
You beat me to it. I just don’t suffer fools well and a coach who doesn’t start two lottery picks and always starts the game down seven or eight is driving me crazy . for the first time ever I stopped watching the last ten minutes of the A&M game .
Cal has made it not any fun anymore . It offends my sense of justice that Reed Shepherd will only have one chance to win an NCAA and the talent is there . But our beyond arrogant coach insists on starting the fifth best team we have and spotting the other Team seven or eight points So he dan protect his little favorites for their NBA dream.
I HATE THE NBA and what it has done to our program . That’s why I’m not excited . I don’t give a rats ass about a coach who deliberately destroys our program. it really is true . You can’t fix stupid .
Cal gotta get us out of the first weekend for me to get excited, a lot of us have lowered our expectations bc of whos at helm. I do like our seeding and our side but I'll wait and see
At year 12 or is it 13 of Cal, I have lost most of my excitement for us in tourney. It could be because we have only won 1 game it it in 4 or 5 years. It is mainly though because I don't look at it the same as most people. Many people get really excited some years because of the players we have playing in it. I don't, it's not about who plays for us in each tourney if that were true we would have had about 4 titles since Cal got here. Look at the enormous talent,great players we have had in so many tourneys,did it get us where we want to go with 1 shining exception no. Why ,the answer is twofold.
1 the model Cal runs is not designed to win championships, 1 and done, sans Anthony Davis, is not a title producing propositions. This is especially true with NIL and defacto free agency in the college game.
2. Cal is not a great game tactician. I will not belabor the point,anyone who watched us over the years knows this. He has relyed on overwhelming talent and a basic we do our thing try and stop us mentality,very little tactics involved here. One could argue he would have 2 more titles here if hadn't STOPPED doing that and tried to stall the ball in the last 5 minutes of several critical games. The problem is he doesn't have overwhelming talent anymore,he HAs to coach the games now. What are the results in the last 4 years,he has had trouble winning ANY games, much less a title. I will never be super excited again about our NCAA chances again until we get a DIFFERENT COACH!!@@
1 the model Cal runs is not designed to win championships, 1 and done, sans Anthony Davis, is not a title producing propositions. This is especially true with NIL and defacto free agency in the college game.
2. Cal is not a great game tactician. I will not belabor the point,anyone who watched us over the years knows this. He has relyed on overwhelming talent and a basic we do our thing try and stop us mentality,very little tactics involved here. One could argue he would have 2 more titles here if hadn't STOPPED doing that and tried to stall the ball in the last 5 minutes of several critical games. The problem is he doesn't have overwhelming talent anymore,he HAs to coach the games now. What are the results in the last 4 years,he has had trouble winning ANY games, much less a title. I will never be super excited again about our NCAA chances again until we get a DIFFERENT COACH!!@@
I'll be cheering. We need something in March. Hope we make a run, but I have 0 faith in Calipari. I think if we do somehow get past the 2nd round we get clipped in the s16 or E8.
SK73 is an alabama football fan, the fred flinstone guy cheers for ohio state football, Lemp is a syracuse fan. Lol, it makes sense.
Yes I grew up around Syracuse and yes I liked Boeheim. I've been following UK since 96 when I was 11 and they spanked my Orangemen but were really exciting to watch that whole tournament.
I've lived in lex since 2005 basically half my life and longer than I lived around Syracuse. I consider myself a UK fan first at this point.
I'm just surprised at the premptive disappointment when we've got a decent draw and a capable team. Especially when as I said if I offered everyone a prediction of finishing 7-2 and getting a 3 seed everyone would have taken it without question and most wouldn't have thought it was possible.
I just don't see the point in the hand wringing and lack of excitement when it's the best time of the year for sport and we've got our best team in many years. The negativity is draining... Doubt our chances fine, but the preemptive disappointment is weird.
We just got smacked by A&M and all of the last couple of weeks feel like a mirage. We’ve won two postseason games since 2019. If we lose to Oakland....,...,
Because we all know how this ends..Cal has done NOTHING to improve our team on the defensive end. Yeah we may beat a good team in this tournament but we're not winning it all. It'll be a small miracle to reach the 2nd weekend.
I have my money on A&M beating Houston in the 2nd round. We match up well with Marquette.
this teams Achilles heel is not being the underdog.
Many of their wins have been won by the motivation to prove otherwise when they were doubted to win. Its a reflection of their coaching. They cannot play with the needed intensity for more than 2 - 3 games without a lapse. Then the loss is excused by a burned out coach who truly believes that regular season wins individually don't matter.
Spot a hungry physical team 8 or 10 points in the tournament and they aren't coming back from it
The lack of excitement is due to the belief that this team can't win 6 in a row, all UK fans are hoping for is really 4 in a row , or at the minimum, don't be embarrassed with an early round loss. The most talented team UK has had in years, one of the most endearing to the fans and Calipari starts every game with a lineup he doesn't believe in. If he believed in it, he'd play it more than 5 minutes a game.
Its mind boggling.
The lack of excitement is abundant because UK fans know that to win the tournament this team has to do something they haven't been able to do all season. Its more than just win 6 games in a row, its win 6 games in a row against teams that are going to guard you, that are going to score against you and are going to be physical with you.
Give this UK team another year and they are unstoppable in the NCAA. People used to say "its March, these kids aren't freshmen anymore"
That is a complete BS statement. They are absolutely freshmen. They have been freshmen all year and Calipari is incapable of getting them to play at a consistently high level.
And if the tournament plays out like the season including up to Friday, they'll come off an incredible high only to be dismantled the next game.
Many of their wins have been won by the motivation to prove otherwise when they were doubted to win. Its a reflection of their coaching. They cannot play with the needed intensity for more than 2 - 3 games without a lapse. Then the loss is excused by a burned out coach who truly believes that regular season wins individually don't matter.
Spot a hungry physical team 8 or 10 points in the tournament and they aren't coming back from it
The lack of excitement is due to the belief that this team can't win 6 in a row, all UK fans are hoping for is really 4 in a row , or at the minimum, don't be embarrassed with an early round loss. The most talented team UK has had in years, one of the most endearing to the fans and Calipari starts every game with a lineup he doesn't believe in. If he believed in it, he'd play it more than 5 minutes a game.
Its mind boggling.
The lack of excitement is abundant because UK fans know that to win the tournament this team has to do something they haven't been able to do all season. Its more than just win 6 games in a row, its win 6 games in a row against teams that are going to guard you, that are going to score against you and are going to be physical with you.
Give this UK team another year and they are unstoppable in the NCAA. People used to say "its March, these kids aren't freshmen anymore"
That is a complete BS statement. They are absolutely freshmen. They have been freshmen all year and Calipari is incapable of getting them to play at a consistently high level.
And if the tournament plays out like the season including up to Friday, they'll come off an incredible high only to be dismantled the next game.
That explains a lot about SK73 and ft000. I keep wondering why a fan would be fine with Calipari. Well “fan” means different things to different people. I guess at least Lemp made the jump, those guys aren’t even that. And lol at Ohio State. Literally no way to root for U.K. and Ohio State, yet…
It’s because Calipari has been pitiful and is lowering our bar, which is his intent. Many of us ( I don’t know a single U.K. fan in Kentucky who still wants him outside of 5 or 6 here) knows how this ends and isn’t going to play the year to year game anymore when Calipari is slowly destroying Kentucky basketball. It’s like trying to put a fire out on the stove when it’s already spread throughout the entire house.
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Cal stole it a while back. A hung on as long as I could, all the way to St. Peters. Anyone who can allow themselves trust or excitement past that point, my hats off to you. But I have seen the movie too many times now. Covid killed Cal and the university replaced him with a tub of butter.
Make the second weekend and I will probably trick myself once again into hope.
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