What on court coaching by Cal angered you most?
- Thread starter FurdTurgason
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The lack of inbounds plays or an offense.
Not feeding Towns over-and-over again against Wisconsin in 2015, while playing stall ball.
Refusing to scout and/or defend, or adjust his defense against Jack Gohlke Every UK fan knew Oakland had one good player ... I guess Cal didn't get that message. Ruined Reed Sheppard's only NCAA Tournament appearance.
Refusing to scout and/or defend, or adjust his defense against Jack Gohlke Every UK fan knew Oakland had one good player ... I guess Cal didn't get that message. Ruined Reed Sheppard's only NCAA Tournament appearance.
Taking the air out of the ball that allowed us to lose big leads and sweat it out till the end.
The order they cut the nets down in after winning the national championship. I was furious.
Definitely the Wisconsin game. Why the **** did he not tell the Harrison twins to stop shooting 3's & feed the ball to KAT every trip down? Frank Kaminsky couldn't stop KAT, it's simple, substitute the twins for Ulis & Booker if the twins wouldn't stop shooting.
Remember when Nick Saban switched from Jalen Hurts to Tua Tagliovua at halftime of the national championship game? It took big brass balls. Yeah, Cal never had those.
Let's see, lack of preparation, lack of adjustments, being outcoached by St. Peters and Oakland with inferior players.
Never switching to a zone defense. Cost us a title vs U Conn
Dadgummit I HATE these Cal threads but I can't help myself with my feelings towards him. It was A Tale of Two Cities in regards to that guy. His stubbnnorness has divided this fan base and will continue to do so until Pope wins big.
Probably the National Title, four Final Fours, 6 SEC Tournament Titles and 6 SEC Regular Season titles.
I don’t know why our fanbase has to act like he was the worst coach that ever was and tear him down (I’m not saying you’re doing this OP. Just a big portion of the fanbase seems to)
He brought the program back to prominence immediately after it had fallen off. Yes the last few years had some very disappointing results. Probably because he was burnt out just as much as a majority of the fanbase was with him.
I don’t know why our fanbase has to act like he was the worst coach that ever was and tear him down (I’m not saying you’re doing this OP. Just a big portion of the fanbase seems to)
He brought the program back to prominence immediately after it had fallen off. Yes the last few years had some very disappointing results. Probably because he was burnt out just as much as a majority of the fanbase was with him.
The Ruunnn and Gooo offense. His lack of any effort and lack of an attempt at coaching showed his true character. He was making the big bucks, no matter what, so he didn't even pretend to care about winning.
When he said that those 1st round draft picks was the biggest day in the history of UK basketball in 2010, the red flags were raised for me. There was much consternation with what he said that followed but everything was fine and dandy after that for a while. Truth be told, I wanted him gone after he said that but I lived with the results that followed, as we all did. However, I never forgot what he said. He used us. Plain and simple.
Recruiting freak athletes and then getting away from an offense that set them up for lobs like our old friend Jacob Toppin.
Seems like after 2012 we just quit throwing lobs and running offense.
Seems like after 2012 we just quit throwing lobs and running offense.
I didn’t care what he said in 2010 because it was coach speak. It really bothered a lot of people though. He’s not totally wrong with that statement. It was a pitch to recruits and nothing more. The success of those guys being drafted set UK up for the next 10 years of success. If you’re a really talented player that wants to play in the league why not go to the school that put 5 in the first round? That night led to Anthony Davis, Terrance Jones, KAT, MKG, Lamb, Knight, Booker, Fox, Monk, Randle, WCS, Andrew Harrison, Aaron Harrison and all the wins/success that followed.
Before the Wisconsin game I saw an interview with Cal discussing a conversation he had with Gino the UConn women's coach, Cal had asked him about winning a championship with a dominate undefeated team. Gino told him to let the players go out there and do what they do with no holding back, when I saw that I said we got this! And then Cal went out there and did what he does, it was a sickening feeling.
I haven’t rewatched it since but near the end of the 2017 game was some of the most horrendously heinous coaching I have ever seen or heard of. Everybody says it was the roofer. It was not the roofer. It was the last time we had the ball down only one point (or possibly two?) and there was very little time left. We had that incredible roster including at the time the fastest ball player on the planet not named John Wall. All we needed was for him or Monk or Bam to score on a simple play and then play defense a few seconds. So what do we draw up in the timeout?
No timeout. No play called on the fly either. No, obviously the thing to do at that point with a Final Four berth on the line is to stumble down the court blindly, getting in each other’s way, then dribble the air out of the ball with no plan until eventually we ran out of time or we turned it over or we threw up a brick, whatever it was. I have no interest in watching it again but it was despicable and it was not Roy Williams’ fault and it was not the roofer’s fault. Both may have done their best to beat us but neither could have done it without that special lift from the guy telling our guys to runnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.
No timeout. No play called on the fly either. No, obviously the thing to do at that point with a Final Four berth on the line is to stumble down the court blindly, getting in each other’s way, then dribble the air out of the ball with no plan until eventually we ran out of time or we turned it over or we threw up a brick, whatever it was. I have no interest in watching it again but it was despicable and it was not Roy Williams’ fault and it was not the roofer’s fault. Both may have done their best to beat us but neither could have done it without that special lift from the guy telling our guys to runnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.
He should have walked away if he was burnt out. He was given 9 million reasons/year to keep the fire burning. He went 2-7 in his last 9 postseason games, became very contentious with the fan base with his basketball Bennie’s comments and focused on one thing and one thing only and that was getting “his guys” to the league and he even failed at that toward the end. The end of his tenure will be what cal is remembered for, not the beginning, and rightfully so.
He didn’t become contentious with the fanbase, the portion that hates him became contentious with him. Y’all still hate him to this day. Y’all run on hatred ignorance and lies. Cal has banners in Rupp, hundreds of great memories, and his name will be hanging there too. You all just have hatred and will be remembered for nothing.
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When Willie cauley stein could not hit one in the Atlantic ocean in 2015 final four against Wisconsin. His man sagged off him to double team townes down low . Adjustment 101 cal what a choker .
I never bought into that until that Duke game. We were getting humiliated and he just sat there.
**** Cal all those final fours and Championship that he brought was washed away by his NIT loss to Robert Morris in 2013, his 9-16 season (worst in school history), Evansville loss, Richmond loss, Kansas State (2), UNC Wilmington, losing in the 1st round to the 15th seeded Peacocks in 2022 (one of the worst tournament losses ever in the NCAA definitely the worst at UK) , and then 2 years later he turns around and loses to #14 seeded Oakland in 2024. Just glad he is gone!
It was a more general problem than that. And though the whole "strategy" aspect of coaching is generally overrated, the philosophy aspect is not.
Cal did not appreciate ball movement and spacing (and shooting). His idea was to recruit the best athletes and try to get them in positions to make plays. And it frequently worked. But then his team would find itself in a tight halfcourt NCAA tournament game, and too often the offense would become completely stagnant. His great run of 06-15 at Memphis and UK is littered with rock fight tournament losses where his team couldn't hit shots (because there was no movement and thus very few good shots being taken), culminating in the last 5 minutes vs Wisconsin in 2015.
The UNC game you mentioned is another example, the year after saw the loss to K State, and next the loss to Auburn, which was more a collapse of the defense, but the only reason UK got that game into OT was because PJ Washington made a bunch of hero plays (though still couldn't hit FT's).
Cal finally seemed to change in his final season, but that team was terrible on defense (and his defensive philosophy, which was very, very good from 06-15, became much less so as 5 out offenses became totally common).
Yeah, we should probably take the banners down since they were washed away. Never stop laughing at the joke these UK hating clowns are.
With a championship and 4 Final Fours being washed away UK is now down from 8 and 17 to 7 and 13.
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Playing stall ball with an 8-12 point lead beginning with 8 minutes left in the game. Almost cost us a natty and did cost us several games along the way.
Not sure the guy ever coached a second at UK but I guess I would have to say his constant of playing guys he thought could get drafted over guys that could actually play.
Always love when people claim we would have won a title if Meeks would have stayed. No way Meeks is playing over Bledsoe in a Cal system.
Always love when people claim we would have won a title if Meeks would have stayed. No way Meeks is playing over Bledsoe in a Cal system.
Could never call an out of bounds play where we actually scored.. Usually turned into a turnover.
Not starting Dillingham and Sheppard against an overmatched Oakland Team. Oakland was terrible in the early minutes of the game...but we were just as terrible. Having two high 1st rounders in there to get off to a good start and bury Oakland might have been a good idea. Instead we let them hang around and gain confidence.
Coaching? What coaching? We never ran sets on offense, it was just have a better athlete than the other team and try to beat that guy off the dribble. He stopped teaching defense after 2017. We ran no out of bounds plays. Besides recruiting, what exactly did he do here?
Trusting the Harrison twins to close out the game in the last 5 minutes against Wisconsin after running them ragged and taking the lead and not running set plays and playing stall ball.
He lost all repect from me when he kneeled during the National Anthem