Honest question for Cal supporters
- Thread starter gwjenning
- Start date
opcorn:
I am a Cal supporter though I admit that I think he is doing/saying some odd things and needs to change his system up some.
To answer your question, Coach X:
140-39 over 5 years and 4 tourneys; 78%; 2 EE, 3 SS, 1 2nd round, jury out on last year.
1-6 start to the year...
Tough question. I think with Cal because of his overall history he earns a year to turn it around. Coach X would firmly be on the hottest of hot seats now because they didn't have 2010-2015 to fall back on.
FWIW- Indiana didn't suck, KSU did, we were neck/neck w UNC and Auburn was hotter than a firecracker...not excuses, just facts.
I’ll give you guys more wiggle room. Coach x had the exact same accomplishments as cal 2010-2015. Naturally winning the NC. a different year at a different school.
Now what about coach x?
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He would have a year to turn it around. I am not going to hang a HOF coach for one lousy year, especially in 2020...I don't hold Cal to the fire for 2013- Nerlens injury killed us and after a title year where most everyone left. JMHO. Cal is his own worst enemy now though.
Truth be told, a lot of how I feel about this season will happen when it ends.
Who leaves and who comes back?
If we get Askew, Ware, Toppin, Fletcher, Allen, Brooks- yeah I said him, I will be happy...if we have another revolving door it is game over for me.
The above is a major if and I readily admit that.
Asking sincere question. Do you believe Cal will change his approach to building his roster and his approach about tne NBA stuff?
That is in fact getting owned when you are the “Gold Standard”
The run is over, Cals peaked and we are rolling slowly down the hill. It’s time to part ways. Accept this and you will be set free.
Agree dude with one caveat. I'm ok if he leaves this year. The reason is, I do not believe Cal will change the way he recruits or the way he touts the NBA the way he does. UK comes in around 4th or 5th on his priority list imo.
The class he has signed for next year would be great to go with the current team if UK was only losing 2-3 players. We all know UK will lose Sarr and Mintz (yes I realize the NCAA granted them an extra year).
UK will likely lose 3-4 more besides those two and cycle continues. Clarke, Boston, and maybe Jackson. It's also possible there arecouple of transfers out of UK.
Mintz and Jackson likely will not be here. No idea what is going on with Brooks.
Will you be willing to leave until we have a new coach along with all the others crying? If you hate him there’s many reasons not to watch his teams.
The difference then and now is two=fold imo.
First: Cal was younger and hungry and very motivated. He also wanted to be at a place like UK or at UK. He was in a mode of making that happen
Second: Now, Cal has his title, the job at the top program, and the HOF. He's now focused on other things. Not the things that made him great. Can he change, yes....will he, I just don't believe he will.
If you were a NBA GM would you draft Clarke, Boston or Jackson based on what you have seen and how there are a couple hundred college players who are playing better than them? If know they may leave based on "potential" but no way would I draft them unless I already had Mr. L. James or Mr. K. Leonard on my team.
We really don't know if any of that is actually true.
It's possible that's true but I think everyone here is stating it as if it's facts.
Cal might still be as hungry as ever for all we know.
I just don't think it's likely he's stopped caring about winning titles and such.
But I get it. I mean he kinda did it to himself with all the NBA talk and such.
The only reason Auburn was even in that game was because of the kid that got hurt, the guards were good but that kid was on fire.
Jackson yes because of the flashes that he has shown. The other 2 haven't even shown flashes lol, how the hell can the play in the NBA shooting like they do. I was very critical of Maxey's shooting but he is like Steph Curry compared to these guys!
I will liken it to the Tom Landry situation sort of. Now Landry was their 1st and only coach for 29 years so it's a little different, but a lot of similarities.
Landry was very innovative, used some unconventional methods, but won a lot.
Two SB wins, three SB losses. Just dominated for years, but his last 5 years were not even close to his previous years. Ownership change was the only reason he was fired.
My point is, the game caught up to Landry. He was still doing the same things, but didn't have the same talent to execute it. Dallas had to make the change. Landry didn't forget how to coach.
Look it up for yourself. Look at videos of how Cal talked his first few years versus the last few.
I know Cal watched the NBA bubble and is going to adjust lofl, but look at the team he assembled, he has to know the NBA is going more towards shooting and skill and he literally is recruiting the complete opposite guys. He could have handpicked multiple grad transfers that could shoot the lights out, but left 2 scholarships empty. I like Mintz but he prob could have got a more traditional PG and he could've easily got the Powell kid of the kid from Belmont, instead he literally gets 4 6'7 guys that play the same position and have no skill.
Can’t be a Kentucky fan if you’re not a Cal fan? Interesting. I seen that you liked another post saying they hoped this coaching job stayed vacant when Cal leaves because that person didn’t want BBN to “turn on a coach they liked”. Some of you all need to come to terms that you’re more of a fan of a coach then a team. That’s fine to be that kind of fan, because we all have a RIGHT to our own opinions. Some people can like a program and not like a coach. It is what it is, but I can agree with anyone that says that people can go about things wrong at times on this board.
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Excellent scenario. Cal's last few years sound worse than the Gillispie years, truthfully.
A coach who started in 2016 and had had a second round exit, elite 8, sweet 16, elite 8, and a 2 seed with a canceled tournament, then started this year 1-6, would be on a very very hot seat. A coach, though, who has given us a title and 4 Final Fours has a longer leash because he's proven, at other schools and here, that he can win at the highest level. This year is a disaster, but I'm not of the mind that disastrous year equals coach must be fired.
Absolutely not! I’m a fan of the University of Kentucky! That includes men’s bb, football, archery, women’s bb, baseball, softball, volleyball, etc. I watch all UK sports every chance I get.
I was a fan of UK long before Cal and will be a fan long after he’s gone.
Right now I’m not a fan of Cal but I will continue to pull for this team and the players on it especially Dontae Allen.
I agree but if people are hating it, go do something else till it changes. You’ll just hate it for 20 more games if you hate it now. Go live life. It’s just entertainment or it isn’t. I haven’t watched the last three games.
Can’t disagree there. Good point if it would make people feel better. I gotta watch the games regardless. Don’t like how they’ve played but I don’t miss UK games. Just can’t do it lol
I understand what you are saying and there’s much more important things in life than sports. I honestly don’t get upset after losses like I used to. Before it would ruin my day. But I’m getting used to losing and really that’s an issue in itself.
Cal does what Cal wants. He does not have UK basketball at the top of his list. The top of his list is his own reputation. To listen to him is tiring. He is a fantastic recruiter but an average floor coach and practice coach. He cannot, as a famous coach once said, “take his’n and beat your’n, and take your’n and beat his’n.” I cannot even remember, without looking, out players from years past because Cal recruits for the NBA, not for UK. The players are not here long enough to call them our own.
No problem. What’s your share of the 20+ mill buy out. That’s what I figured.
Laughs.
Roy Williams went to a final four in 93, but didn't get back to that round for nearly a decade. He won two titles in five seasons at North Carolina, but he followed that up with: NIT, Elite 8, Elite 8, Round of 32, Round of 32, Sweet 16 before he finally punched it in again. He won a title in 2017, but followed that up with a Round of 32, Sweet 16, and then one of the worst seasons in recent UNC history.
Roy didn't change anything to his approach; he's had the same philosphy for decades. Having some bad teams didn't mean he'd lost a step or that he needed to make sweeping changes. Some of his teams just didn't work, and some of his teams did.
People always want to try and draw trends for these things. Sometimes they're right, but success and failure isn't always linear for coaches or suggestive of a "direction" that a coach is headed in. Sometimes your team hits a big shot to push you through to the Final Four (Knight in 2011), and sometimes the team hits a big shot against you to keep you out of it (Luke Maye in 2017).
What is the evidence that this is a Landry situation and not a Roy Williams situation?
This is my stance.
Not happy about 1-6.
Not happy about roster makeup
Cal has earned enough goodwill to attempt to recover from this disastrous season. But he doesn’t get 5 years to do it.
In Roy's final 2 games at Kansas he won 30 games and went to 2 straight final fours, and his hiring was a combination of him hating the AD at Kansas and Matt Doherty dismantling UNC. I think he left Kansas out of allegiance to UNC.
But in his second year at UNC he won a national championship, he's coached regular season champions of the ACC 9 times
He's averaging a final four about every 5 years and he has 3 national championships, well ahead of the once a decade "requirement" we have at UK.
Yes, he's had some clunker years no doubt, but hes pretty consistent in building a team as a progression. His last 2 championships , the prior year his team went to the final four.
That tells me he is building teams year over year, which is all most people are asking from Cal - and occasionally a veteran heavy teams leaves Williams with a team that needs experience and depth to compete.
I don't know about a Landry or a Williams situation.
What we know about Cal is it takes a specific makeup of his teams to dominate, and he isn't trying to put that kind of team together.
But in his second year at UNC he won a national championship, he's coached regular season champions of the ACC 9 times
He's averaging a final four about every 5 years and he has 3 national championships, well ahead of the once a decade "requirement" we have at UK.
Yes, he's had some clunker years no doubt, but hes pretty consistent in building a team as a progression. His last 2 championships , the prior year his team went to the final four.
That tells me he is building teams year over year, which is all most people are asking from Cal - and occasionally a veteran heavy teams leaves Williams with a team that needs experience and depth to compete.
I don't know about a Landry or a Williams situation.
What we know about Cal is it takes a specific makeup of his teams to dominate, and he isn't trying to put that kind of team together.
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Calipari has won six regular season titles in 11 seasons, Roy has won nine in 17 seasons. So Roy has contributed more to UNC in that regard, but in terms of success rate, thats not very different.
Agreed that Roy has a different system in terms of how he builds a roster and develops a team, but I still think it shows that really good coaches can have great seasons followed by down seasons followed by great seasons again and I don't agree that he's an exemplar of consistency. Roy went about 7 seasons in between championship game appearances, so its not like UNC fans can just bank on Roy churning out one extremely high caliber team of Juniors and Seniors every three or four years once he's developed a new crop of players. Roy went through multiple cycles of players without his system producing elite results again. If we're this pissed at Cal for no final fours in four seasons, how is Roy consistent when he went seven years without a final four?
And I don't really agree that Cal is not trying to put the kind of team he needs together. He's still recruiting athletic big men who can block shots, he's still recruiting athletic slashers, etc. It hasn't gelled so far this season and some of the freshmen we were counting on to be elite clearly aren't, for sure. That is 1000% on Cal, just like Roy's crappy seasons were 1000% on him. But if you had called Roy washed in 2015 after seven straight years of subpar (for UNC) results, you would have ended up being wrong.
I’d pretty strongly disagree that we’ve “tolerated” subpar. People were complaining about Cal and arguing he was over the hill before this season. Roy went 14-19 last year. That’s historically bad too. Guess we’ll have to monitor and see if their fans start claiming he’s done for or if they learned their lesson the last time.