An Amazing Cal/UK Stat

[Cowtown Cat]

Noticed at the end of the UK-Florida game the other day that a Cal/UK stat appeared at the bottom of the screen. At UK, Cal is 70-0 when UK holds their opponent to 55 points and under. 70-0!!!!

Haven't seen it posted here anywhere, so maybe it's not that great of an accomplishment. To me, it seemed almost surreal. Is there another team or coach with similar numbers? UVA maybe? Thoughts?

Disregard if already posted.

 

[STL_Cat]

Pretty cool stat but also pretty unsurprising. Losing a game where we give up less than 55 would be a total shitshow.

 

[DerekMcPwn]

It’s funny that you mention UVA because to me that stat isn’t a defensive commendation, but an offensive one. It says that Cal’s team will always score more than 55.

Edit: Although it is impressive to have held opponents to 55 points SEVENTY times in that span.

 

[ganner918_rivals60369]

My favorite Cal-era stat is 8 home losses in 9 and a half seasons.

 

[Cowtown Cat]

I wonder what the numbers would be if we were to move the bar up to 60 points, instead of the 55.

 

[Nuke99m.]

I would think teams under Cal have not been under 55 points on offense much. Vandy in 12/13, UK scored 48 in a loss. Can't think of any others.

 

[DelkBowl]

My guess is that most people who hold a team under 55 usually wins. Maybe not 100% of the time but I bet it's way up there.

 

[kyjeff1]

One thing is for sure, Virginia Tech is at least 1-0 when holding teams below 25 points per game.

 

[Nuke99m.]

I wonder what the numbers would be if we were to move the bar up to 60 points, instead of the 55.

Holding a team to 60 and under, Cal has lost 4 times.
1) 10/11 lost to UConn 56-55
2) 12/13 lost to Alabama 59-55
3) 12/13 lost to Robert Morris 59-57
4) 13/14 lost to UConn 60-54

 

[mjj_2K]

Pretty cool stat but also pretty unsurprising. Losing a game where we give up less than 55 would be a total shitshow.

Tubby Smith says "Hi".

He lost 4 of those at UK. And yes, they were not fun at all. Since I'm sure some people wonder about it, since their breakout season in 13-14, Virginia has lost 2 like that. But of the 34 they've lost, they were under 60 in 16 of them.

I started looking at the inverse of the OP's original stat, and under Cal UK has only lost 7 games when they scored 80, with over 130 wins. Raise that to 85 or 90, and the winning % gets even better.

You play good defense, you're likely to win. You play good offense, you're likely to win.

We all know that Cal tends to favor the grind, so I guess the numbers support that philosophy to a certain extent.

 

[JC43]

Holding a team to 60 and under, Cal has lost 4 times.
1) 10/11 lost to UConn 56-55
2) 12/13 lost to Alabama 59-55
3) 12/13 lost to Robert Morris 59-57
4) 13/14 lost to UConn 60-54

Thanks for answering, but ouch some flashbacks though too

 

[Cowtown Cat]

Holding a team to 60 and under, Cal has lost 4 times.
1) 10/11 lost to UConn 56-55
2) 12/13 lost to Alabama 59-55
3) 12/13 lost to Robert Morris 59-57
4) 13/14 lost to UConn 60-54

Thanks!

 

[mjj_2K]

Thanks for answering, but ouch some flashbacks though too

Yeah, especially since 3 of those ended seasons.

Cal is a great coach, but I wish he had a little more gamble in him. I think his insistence in excelling in halfcourt slugfests has prevented upsets, and assured that UK advances to big games in the tournament. But it also might have cost him some titles.

 

[502 Wildcat]

Another amazing stat, I think it was mentioned during the Vandy demolition, about Cal's record when leading a game by 10 or more points. I don't remember the numbers, but it was incredible.

 

[The_Answer1313_rivals]

what's not impressive is the 70-0 part

It's that we held teams to under 55 70 times.

 

[Lexchess]

Score over 80, or hold other team to 55, and we are effectively 200 wins and 7 losses. I suppose I can live with 97% win percentage.

 

[akaukswoosh]

Noticed at the end of the UK-Florida game the other day that a Cal/UK stat appeared at the bottom of the screen. At UK, Cal is 70-0 when UK holds their opponent to 55 points and under. 70-0!!!!

Haven't seen it posted here anywhere, so maybe it's not that great of an accomplishment. To me, it seemed almost surreal. Is there another team or coach with similar numbers? UVA maybe? Thoughts?

Disregard if already posted.

Probably why he’s a defense first guy. There are always nights where you can’t make a basket but you can always hustle and play D.

 

[JC43]

At UK, Cal is 311-0 when leading by 10 with 5 secs left in game
Edit...hope I didn't jinx him

 

[Cowtown Cat]

At UK, Cal is 311-0 when leading by 10 with 5 secs left in game
Edit...hope I didn't jinx him

LOL smartass!

 

[Cowtown Cat]

Another amazing stat, I think it was mentioned during the Vandy demolition, about Cal's record when leading a game by 10 or more points. I don't remember the numbers, but it was incredible.

Yeah, seems like I've heard that several times as well. Maybe it's a 10 point + halftime lead.

 

[Poetax]

Pretty cool stat but also pretty unsurprising. Losing a game where we give up less than 55 would be a total shitshow.

But the sad facts are it does happen, just hasn’t happened to us in 70 games.

 

[Rideordiewildcat]

Holding a team to 60 and under, Cal has lost 4 times.
1) 10/11 lost to UConn 56-55
2) 12/13 lost to Alabama 59-55
3) 12/13 lost to Robert Morris 59-57
4) 13/14 lost to UConn 60-54

What is this Robert Morris loss you speak of?

 

[Myotis]

Tubby Smith says "Hi".

He lost 4 of those at UK. And yes, they were not fun at all. Since I'm sure some people wonder about it, since their breakout season in 13-14, Virginia has lost 2 like that. But of the 34 they've lost, they were under 60 in 16 of them.

The obligatory slam Tubby post. Let's get some more perspective here. Hall lost 6 of them.

Next, let's add this quote......

what's not impressive is the 70-0 part

It's that we held teams to under 55 70 times.

Actually, Calipari's teams have only done it 66 times, unless you count exhibition games. Tubby's teams did it 68. Yeah, he wasn't perfect when doing so, but his percentage was .941. They lost the 4 games by a total of 5 points (Hall lost his 6 by a total of 27)

Calipari is 66-0, 1.000 W/L, .189 holding opponents to 55 or less (8 ranked opponents held to 55 or less)
Gillispie was 15-0, 1.000 W/L, .224 holding opponents to 55 or less (but ZERO ranked opponents held to 55 or less)
Smith was 68-4 .941 .208 holding opponents to 55 or less (9 ranked opponents held to 55 or less)
Pitino was 28-0 1.000 .104 holding opponents to 55 or less (3 ranked opponents held to 55 or less)
Sutton was 17-2 .894 W/L .149 holding opponents to 55 or less (1 ranked opponent held to 55 or less)
Hall was 56-6 .903 W/L .156 holding opponents to 55 or less (10 ranked opponents held to 55 or less)

 

[Poetax]

Tubby Smith says "Hi".

He lost 4 of those at UK. And yes, they were not fun at all. Since I'm sure some people wonder about it, since their breakout season in 13-14, Virginia has lost 2 like that. But of the 34 they've lost, they were under 60 in 16 of them.

I started looking at the inverse of the OP's original stat, and under Cal UK has only lost 7 games when they scored 80, with over 130 wins. Raise that to 85 or 90, and the winning % gets even better.

You play good defense, you're likely to win. You play good offense, you're likely to win.

We all know that Cal tends to favor the grind, so I guess the numbers support that philosophy to a certain extent.

I'll take the one that gives us the W.

 

[mjj_2K]

The obligatory slam Tubby post. Let's get some more perspective here. Hall lost 6 of them.

Next, let's add this quote......



Actually, Calipari's teams have only done it 66 times, unless you count exhibition games. Tubby's teams did it 68. Yeah, he wasn't perfect when doing so, but his percentage was .941. They lost the 4 games by a total of 5 points (Hall lost his 6 by a total of 27)

Calipari is 66-0, 1.000 W/L, .189 holding opponents to 55 or less (8 ranked opponents held to 55 or less)
Gillispie was 15-0, 1.000 W/L, .224 holding opponents to 55 or less (but ZERO ranked opponents held to 55 or less)
Smith was 68-4 .941 .208 holding opponents to 55 or less (9 ranked opponents held to 55 or less)
Pitino was 28-0 1.000 .104 holding opponents to 55 or less (3 ranked opponents held to 55 or less)
Sutton was 17-2 .894 W/L .149 holding opponents to 55 or less (1 ranked opponent held to 55 or less)
Hall was 56-6 .903 W/L .156 holding opponents to 55 or less (10 ranked opponents held to 55 or less)

Joe Hall never coached a single game where there was a shotclock and a 3 point line, genius, while every game Tubby Smith ever coached had both.

I'm hardly the leading member of the hate Tubby club (while also certainly not his biggest fan), but I was never a fan of his tendency to get UK involved in incredibly ugly, slow-paced games.

I'd say he started losing the faith of a significant minority of the fan base when he lost a home game to UT 47-46 in January of 99, with a team that still had Wayne Turner, Scott Padgett, and Heshimu Evans. It wasn't the loss itself, because stuff like that happens, but it was the idea that the UK coach was willingly involved in a game like that. Didn't think that boded well for the future.

You'll notice that I question Cal about the same tendency. Slightly less, because the overall results are a lot better, but I still don't like seeing it. I would much prefer that the next tournament loss be 90-89, not 60-59. Losing 60-59 type games too often feels like the team played scared.

 

[Cawood86_rivals]

I remember UK losing to UT under the Ol' Tubster and UT didn't break 50. Ahhh, the good ole days.

 

[Myotis]

Joe Hall never coached a single game where there was a shotclock and a 3 point line, genius, while every game Tubby Smith ever coached had both.

I'm hardly the leading member of the hate Tubby club (while also certainly not his biggest fan), but I was never a fan of his tendency to get UK involved in incredibly ugly, slow-paced games.

I'd say he started losing the faith of a significant minority of the fan base when he lost a home game to UT 47-46 in January of 99, with a team that still had Wayne Turner, Scott Padgett, and Heshimu Evans. It wasn't the loss itself, because stuff like that happens, but it was the idea that the UK coach was willingly involved in a game like that. Didn't think that boded well for the future.

You'll notice that I question Cal about the same tendency. Slightly less, because the overall results are a lot better, but I still don't like seeing it. I would much prefer that the next tournament loss be 90-89, not 60-59. Losing 60-59 type games too often feels like the team played scared.

Not necessarily pointing the finger at you, I just get frustrated when the same stat that's used to heat praise on Calipari (his teams held the opponents to 55 or less X number of times) is used to bash Smith (who actually did it more and more often, but only won a mere 95% of them, instead of 100%). Double standard.

And Hall does not get a pass because of no shot clock or 3 point line, those things make it harder to hold a team below 55, yet Smith did it more often, won more often when doing it, and lost by less on those rare occasions when he didn't win them. I will concede that in his day, Hall got plenty of grief for his style of play being ugly just as Smith does, but somehow Hall got resurrected into good graces, but Smith apparently never will.

For me, it seems a pointless statistics, not far removed from the tongue-in-cheek comment about Calipari never losing when leading by 10 with 5 seconds left in the game. Of course you're going to nearly always win when preventing the opponents from scoring much. Duh.

 

[mjj_2K]

Not necessarily pointing the finger at you, I just get frustrated when the same stat that's used to heat praise on Calipari (his teams held the opponents to 55 or less X number of times) is used to bash Smith (who actually did it more and more often, but only won a mere 95% of them, instead of 100%). Double standard.

And Hall does not get a pass because of no shot clock or 3 point line, those things make it harder to hold a team below 55, yet Smith did it more often, won more often when doing it, and lost by less on those rare occasions when he didn't win them. I will concede that in his day, Hall got plenty of grief for his style of play being ugly just as Smith does, but somehow Hall got resurrected into good graces, but Smith apparently never will.

For me, it seems a pointless statistics, not far removed from the tongue-in-cheek comment about Calipari never losing when leading by 10 with 5 seconds left in the game. Of course you're going to nearly always win when preventing the opponents from scoring much. Duh.

We're talking about 2 different things.

I'm more focused on playing incredibly slow paced games that lead to scores in the 50's, as opposed to the idea of "our impenetrable defense held them below 55". Sometimes it's the latter, sometimes it's the former. Another poster made the comment that it was almost impossible to lose if you held a team to 55, and I just used the Tubby example to show it's not. I would also use Cal's Elite 8 loss at Memphis to UCLA in 06.

Joe B was justly criticized for his style of play in the back half of his career. But he's a native, he's stayed around the program after a necessary period of staying low profile, and (justifiably, I think) he's seen as having built something on top of the Rupp tradition (some good, some not so good), whereas Tubby is seen as having inherited something great and mostly squandering it.

 

[Myotis]

We're talking about 2 different things.

I'm more focused on playing incredibly slow paced games that lead to scores in the 50's, as opposed to the idea of "our impenetrable defense held them below 55". Sometimes it's the latter, sometimes it's the former. Another poster made the comment that it was almost impossible to lose if you held a team to 55, and I just used the Tubby example to show it's not. I would also use Cal's Elite 8 loss at Memphis to UCLA in 06.

Joe B was justly criticized for his style of play in the back half of his career. But he's a native, he's stayed around the program after a necessary period of staying low profile, and (justifiably, I think) he's seen as having built something on top of the Rupp tradition (some good, some not so good), whereas Tubby is seen as having inherited something great and mostly squandering it.

Fair enough, as I said I wasn't pointing the finger at you, necessarily.

FWIW, I think Hall and Tubby share something that they had no control over and has reflected negatively on both of them. They both had impossible-to-follow acts. Hall followed arguably the greatest basketball coach of all time, and Smith immediately followed a level of success that hadn't been seen at UK in nearly 50 years. There was no way Hall could ever live up to the level of success of Rupp, and Smith literally had nowhere to go but down, at least to some degree. I believe Hall suggested somewhat tongue-in-cheek, yet poignantly, that he take over the UCLA job when Wooden left, saying "...there's no point in destroying two people's lives..." Tubby may have contributed to the effect by winning the title in 1998, if you simply swap his 1998 title with the 2003 or 2005 teams, which were certainly competitive for the championship, his legacy might have been seen quite differently, as most of his career wouldn't be following 2 titles in 3 consecutive championship appearances.

 

[mjj_2K]

Fair enough, as I said I wasn't pointing the finger at you, necessarily.

FWIW, I think Hall and Tubby share something that they had no control over and has reflected negatively on both of them. They both had impossible-to-follow acts. Hall followed arguably the greatest basketball coach of all time, and Smith immediately followed a level of success that hadn't been seen at UK in nearly 50 years. There was no way Hall could ever live up to the level of success of Rupp, and Smith literally had nowhere to go but down, at least to some degree. I believe Hall suggested somewhat tongue-in-cheek, yet poignantly, that he take over the UCLA job when Wooden left, saying "...there's no point in destroying two people's lives..." Tubby may have contributed to the effect by winning the title in 1998, if you simply swap his 1998 title with the 2003 or 2005 teams, which were certainly competitive for the championship, his legacy might have been seen quite differently, as most of his career wouldn't be following 2 titles in 3 consecutive championship appearances.

Valid points, especially the last.

Tubby is never going to get as much slack as Joe B now receives, for a variety of reasons (some legit, some just sad), but I do think, as we get 20 years and more removed from his time at UK, people will dwell a lot less on his shortcomings and more on his accomplishments.