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Posted by Trey Ball (Member # 332) on 01-28-2022, 09:30 PM:

Other than not being able to win Championships with all of the talent that Cal had at UK, especially early, here are my two biggest disappointments with Cal coached teams.

1. He has severely dumbed down the schedule. We play too many directional schools. When Pitino was here and especially Tubby the schedule had many more marquee games and UK would go to the Maui Classic every 4 years. Cal refuses to go to Maui.

2. UK's record against ranked opponents when UK gets the chance to go against better teams the last 5 years: 7-19

2017-18 Season - 2 Wins 4 Losses
2018-19 Season - 2 Wins 5 Losses
2019-20 Season - 1 Win 2 Losses
2020-21 Season - 1 Win 5 Losses
2021-22 Season - 1 Win 3 Losses

Even the 2016-17 Season UK was only 6-5 against ranked teams.

I'm conditioned to the fact now that when UK plays a ranked team they are going to lose. Getting a win against a ranked team is a huge surprise these days when it use to be the other way around.

The one thing most of these losses have in common: UK struggles to score and Cal will say something after the game about the defense, when clearly offense is the issue. Just look at this year in the three losses the score was 71-79, 60-65, and 71-80. In the one win UK scored 107 and gave up 79.

I've been very surprised that the National Media has not picked up on it or even the local media to put pressure on Cal.

[ 01-28-2022, 10:27 PM: Message edited by: Trey Ball ]

Posted by ukcatfannfl (Member # 1425) on 01-29-2022, 07:52 AM:

Trey that is excellent reporting - I for one didn't know it was as bad as you said. Knew we were pretty bad on the national front for a few years and you indicate just how bad.

In Cal's eyes the UK basketball program is there to see how many of "his" kids can make it to the pros. I think that is pretty evident with his constant remarks.

Your comments also show just how bad we really are and our not making a FF in a few years show that we are not a very good team on the national stage.

I "hope" we can beat Kansas but they have a better team and it is in their house so that will be a tough one..

again ty

Posted by EnterpriseCat (Member # 2881) on 01-29-2022, 10:07 AM:

Definitely do a lot more "hoping" lately. Especially versus talented teams.

Posted by PaulCat (Member # 513) on 01-29-2022, 01:18 PM:

I always think back to what I believe to be Cal's best UK team - his first year. We had Wall, Cousins, Patterson, Orton, Bledsoe, Liggins, Miller, Harrelson and Dodson. This team should've been unstoppable in the paint with Cousins, Patterson, Harrelson and Orton. And the guards were definitely well above average. This team scored 62 points against Cornell the game before scoring only 66 points and losing to WV. Prior to the NCAAA tournament, that team scored under 70 points only five times (two were losses). Definitely a very disappointing season marred by terrible offense in the tournament.

Posted by Tiptree (Member # 844) on 01-29-2022, 05:21 PM:

And the 2015 squad was not as star-studded, but played awfully well, as evidenced by going undefeated. That is the year that Cal kept slowing the game down in the last few minutes and it finally cost us.

We are in for a rough patch for sure, with our injuries. But if we get everybody back, nobody will want to play us in the NCAA tournament. With our full roster, we can beat a lot of teams.

Posted by Bama Cat (Member # 153) on 01-29-2022, 09:56 PM:

Well don't look now but things didn't happen as expected. The only missing player, or he just didn't play was Collins. And even the subs played well, except he didn't think Allen was good enough to play a few minutes in the first half. The reason Cal did so good in his first season was that half his team was recruited by none other than Billy G. Billy had 3 of the good freshmen already signed and then Cal hooked the other 3 top recruits for a class of 6 that was just about the best class ever. But they fell to the 1984 jinx game against Georgetown when we shot about 3 for 30 in the second half. This team I believe loses their concentration during a 40 minute game or the defense throws something different at them and they go to pieces with all kinds of turn overs.