TheCatsDomain.Com Message Boards: Cal is is great,getting players to the NBA but why can't they win at UK

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Posted by catmandoo (Member # 1284) on 12-31-2020, 09:26 PM:

For the first time in over a century, the Kentucky Wildcats are 1-6. This hasn’t happened since 1911 and is a shocking stat when you look at all the talent on the roster. This is a team that had the No. 1 recruiting class coming in, led by five-stars B.J. Boston, Terrence Clarke and Isaiah Jackson. Those three players will most likely still go on to have successful careers in the NBA but what is it about playing one year under John Calipari that causes so many players to struggle in college?

“He’s really good at making players comfortable with being uncomfortable,” one former player who played for Calipari told Yahoo Sports. “Sometimes it takes longer to adapt to his system. Coach Cal wants to see his players be successful and have longevity at the NBA level and that’s sometimes more important than the win-loss column at Kentucky.”

Devin Booker came off the bench at Kentucky in 2015. He was a top-30 player in high school and chose the Wildcats over Duke, Florida, Arkansas and Alabama. At Kentucky, Booker played just 21.5 minutes per game and averaged 10 points, two rebounds and 1.1 assists for the season. The Phoenix Suns drafted him with the No. 13 pick and he’s now one of the best guards in the NBA. He scored 70 points in 2017 at 20 years old and became the youngest player ever to do so. Were there glimpses of his scoring abilities at Kentucky? Sure. But he was playing behind sophomore guards Aaron and Andrew Harrison and the offense ran through future No. 1 pick Karl Anthony-Towns.

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Posted by rlt4uk (Member # 3194) on 01-01-2021, 02:04 AM:

I wish cal was great at doing his job. Coach Joel Justus previewed the miss St game. Cal routinely gets other coaches and players to do the post game interviews. You'd think he'd be out front earning his money.

Posted by ukcatfannfl (Member # 1425) on 01-01-2021, 08:44 AM:

"Coach Cal wants to see his players be successful and have longevity at the NBA level and that’s sometimes more important than the win-loss column at Kentucky.”

That is exactly the problem with Cal and the program!

Posted by Tiptree (Member # 844) on 01-01-2021, 11:01 AM:

I don't see how winning at Kentucky (including championships) cannot also prepare kids for the NBA.

Honestly, I think Cal is well-connected in the NBA, and is gets his satisfaction from "selling" our players to those teams. He talks a lot about the NBA tending towards "positionless basketball", but he doesn't teach that to his kids here. "Positionless" means everybody can shoot from anywhere, anybody can guard any other player, etc. Great! Recruit shooters, or when you do recruit them, teach them enough defense to put them on the floor.

I don't think anybody expects Stephon Curry to be on the all-star defense team. Ditto for Trae Young. They play adequate defense, and the team plays team defense, and it works. We have shot blockers on this team that can defend the rim.

Oh, wait. Team defense requires high basketball IQ and sufficient experience. When your kids are only here for one year, I guess we have to rely upon "length and athleticism".

See the problem here? He is stuck recruiting NBA "raw material", which teams gladly pay top dollar for, and spends the year working on their mental preparation for the league. He doesn't have time to teach them enough to be great college players. Instead, he teaches them to be "tough-minded", he develops their bodies, and he sells, sells, sells them all year long. Every comment to the press is not directed to us fans. It is directed to the NBA. He is a victim of his own system, a slave to the one-and-done.

There has to be a happy medium. Right now, the wins we have enjoyed are merely a side-effect, not the primary goal. Cal said so himself. If he wanted to, he could teach his kids how to run NBA-style offenses and defenses at UK, which would seem to be the intersection of preparing them for the league and winning championships in the process But that would require more than one year to teach them. I really think Cal will never deliver another championship to UK, and I don't think he cares.

Posted by Bama Cat (Member # 153) on 01-01-2021, 11:07 AM:

The hardest thing for a great bb player coming out of high school to learn is to play TEAM BALL. Most of them as you know were the stars of their high school team and as they went so did the team. Why should we expect anything different when they get to college?

Of course that's not the case at UK where we have Cal. You either play team ball or you don't win as we've seen numerous times. Second thing is you have to play defense whether you did in high school or not. That is unless you are a flat out best player in the country and can shoot the strings off the net.

Another requisite for playing at UK is you must be pretty athletic, in most cases. Another problem is a UK roster should be limited to 7 or 8 kids because any more than a max of 9 and Cal has a problem seeing that anything over that gets much attention to their game. If you stick around 3 or 4 years you may get good enough for him to use you.

Sorry but that is my observation after 10+ years. I don't believe he will change just like we saw Tubby never changed his ideas after the BB college world passed him by. All we can do is pray that he can start attracting some of the top 10-20 kids instead of having to settle for guys like we have coming next year; Hickman, Hopkins and Collins. They are good players but they are none of the top kids he wanted when he started looking.

Posted by ukcatfannfl (Member # 1425) on 01-01-2021, 01:47 PM:

You guys are sooo right. The University of Kentucky is nothing more than a one year training ground to get "his" players to the NBA.

Players 1st mean just that - if Ky happens to do good that is a bonus for the players and their spot in the draft.

IMO we were lucky to have had "ONE" superstar AD that carried us to a title. Without at least one superstar we have no chance. Even that may not work as we had two with Wall/Cousins and lost.

Hell I can't even name the roster this year!

Posted by PaulCat (Member # 513) on 01-01-2021, 03:57 PM:

I think the combination of Lamb/Miller/Jones was more instrumental in the National Title than Anthony Davis. Without any one of those three non-freshman we're not even playing in the title game. Davis played great defense in the title game but was only 1-10 from the field. Typical for a freshman.

Posted by catmandoo (Member # 1284) on 01-01-2021, 05:05 PM:

Here is where Tubby and other UK coachs had it over the current UK coach, Tubby was a coach who knew his team came before the individual players. If any of his players started firing up contested or bad shots no matter who they were they would be sitting next to him on the bench in a heart-beat and getting a "ear" full on what UK basketball was all about. If the current players played "team" basketball they wouldn't be 1-6 and that's a fact. Why Cal can't see that and make the necessary adjustments is mind-boggling.

Posted by Bama Cat (Member # 153) on 01-01-2021, 05:53 PM:

When our shooting accuracy goes up our winning percentage will also go up. period!

Posted by m hamilton (Member # 127) on 01-01-2021, 05:53 PM:

Is that why Tubby lost 25 games in his final 2 years at KY?
Not only that, after the first year, playing with Rick's players, he never again reached the Final Four considering we only lost 4 games the entire year of '02-'03 we still weren't good enough to make the Final Four!

Posted by ukcatfannfl (Member # 1425) on 01-02-2021, 08:11 AM:

"I think the combination of Lamb/Miller/Jones was more instrumental in the National Title than Anthony Davis"

disagree Paul - while good solid players, not the superstar needed to win a title at Ky. Take AD off that team and we are a sweet16/final8 at best team IMO

Posted by PaulCat (Member # 513) on 01-02-2021, 12:22 PM:

I think you can say the same about Lamb and Miller. In the NCAA tourney Lamb averaged over 16 points/game and shot 55% overall including 52% on 3-pointers. Miller shot 23-41 overall with back-to-back 19-point games against Iowa St and Indiana.

Yes, we don't win that title without Davis, but I don't think we win it without Miller or Lamb or Jones or Gilchrist either. I just don't feel that one person carried us to that championship.

Posted by m hamilton (Member # 127) on 01-02-2021, 04:08 PM:

I'm with you Paulcat. Jordan may have won a title in '82 but there were 3 other NBA players on that same squad!

One player can have a bad outing during the tourney and someone else steps up and wins!