How many FFs and National Championships has his teams missed out on because he refuses to value free throw shooting?
Cal is too stubborn.
- Thread starter zannmann
- Start date
I don't even know what this means.
You're an idiot if you think it's Cal's fault kids miss free throws or that he doesn't "emphasize" them.
Free throws is just a small part. It’s several things like the switching man to man defense when you don’t have the players to do it. No out of bound plays...no time outs when the game is on the line....refusal to play zone when required....refusal to game plan for opponents....
Keldon should have had two free throws with 12 seconds.
As good as PJ was at UK he will be remember for chocking at the FT line v K St and AU in NCAAs.
Fact
Fact
Hard for me to argue against some of these. We got killed several times on the switches, putting our bigs up top on Harper and Brown was comical. I agree we have ZERO out of bounds plays. For the life of me, I can't figure out why we don't at least try some sort of zone if only for a couple minutes to switch things up a little to get them out of a rhythm.
He’s just not a micro kind of guy. He’s a macro, big picture guy. Idk, I’ve just kind of learned to accept the fact that his loose, emotion driven, motivation oriented coaching style is good enough to get past the first two or three games of the tournament, but when you get to the sweet sixteen and beyond you’ve got to be an above average x and o guy or have some veterans to lean on that can play without coaching. Cal has just lost too many inexplicable games where his teams have been leading, and/or have lost to teams with lesser talent because of odd mental mistakes and free throw shooting. It’s just happened too many times for people not to recognize a trend at Memphis and Kentucky with situational errors costing his teams in crucial moments again and again. It’s just who he is. Be happy with the ride, but don’t expect championships. If you’re a UK b-ball fan and have aspirations of being Alabama football and absolutely being the gold standard in a sport, you better leave those dreams at the door.
The bad part is that Cal generally gets far enough in the tournament to where he never really has to take a long hard look in the mirror and re-evaluate his coaching philosophy. If anything it’s rat poison that we made it this far, because it’ll only empower Cal to continue his “style” of coaching.
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We literally scored with a lob to Keldon on out of bounds play today.
Funny. That’s applies to Coach k also. He only has 5 titles in 40 years and didn’t win any his first ten years despite multiple final fours.
I was completely shocked by that play. So many teams run beautiful plays on us the inbounds under the basket or out of a timeout. First time I can remember a flawless in bounds play for us in I don't know how long.
This was a great free throw shooting team. Just not today for whatever reason.
In all honesty, this team started really playing tight off the tip vs wofford. Not sure why. Just how it was.
In all honesty, this team started really playing tight off the tip vs wofford. Not sure why. Just how it was.
And Herro got a layup off of about of bounds play.
But for anyone to deny that their are issues is just being willfully blind. The offense is just atrocious, and was so for the last 3 games. No ball movement, no player movement, just run a high pick and roll with the shot clock dwindling down. If you didn’t know any better you would have sworn you were watching a Virginia game. And it’s been that way in every season ending loss except to UNC in 2017.
We shot free throws fine all year.. Today we played bad. PJ was a beast but he missed free throws. Hero and Keldon were horrible today.. Hagens made bone headed turnovers.. We had a really bad game against a team that we had already beaten twice.. It's very hard to beat a team 3 times in a row. IMO All the things that led to our loss today were not coaching. It was really bad play by key players on our team. Cal's game plan was fine.. You have to knock down shots and not be afraid like Hero appeared to be. Coach Cal is an Elite Coach.. It's fine to criticize him but the truth is we're damn lucky to have him and he will win at least one more title before he retires.
So, he valued it all the way up until the last game? The coach does not shoot FTs.
He doesn't emphasize them and has said as much. He said it's up to the kids to practice them
Caliparis game plan today was stupid. He slowed the game down to a half court game. We were struggling to score in our offensive sets. We had opportunities to push the ball and score easy baskets. If it wasn’t there then pull it out and run the offense. But there was no interest in scoring in transition unless we got a turnover out high. When you can’t score in the half court, you have to find other ways to score. Pushing the ball and scoring in transition is easy baskets and we do that already. Press and try to score off of turnovers.
Calipari was scared to run with Auburn. Late in the game he had 3 timeouts. We drove the ball got blocked and Reid got the ball close to the end line, finally found KJ who tried to score and got blocked. Cal should have taken a timeout. His team, players were in trouble, he should have called the timeout. Team usually does good coming out of the timeout. He likes to let the players play it out and that’s terrible when you have 2-3 freshmen on the floor. Take the time out and lead them. Calm them down and point them in the direction you want them to go and then send them back out there focused. He fails at this way to often to be coaching young players every year.
I am personally ready for Coach Cal to move on. If UCLA is interested, I want him to take that job. I’m fine being in the minority but I don’t feel like Cal will deliver another title to UK.
Calipari was scared to run with Auburn. Late in the game he had 3 timeouts. We drove the ball got blocked and Reid got the ball close to the end line, finally found KJ who tried to score and got blocked. Cal should have taken a timeout. His team, players were in trouble, he should have called the timeout. Team usually does good coming out of the timeout. He likes to let the players play it out and that’s terrible when you have 2-3 freshmen on the floor. Take the time out and lead them. Calm them down and point them in the direction you want them to go and then send them back out there focused. He fails at this way to often to be coaching young players every year.
I am personally ready for Coach Cal to move on. If UCLA is interested, I want him to take that job. I’m fine being in the minority but I don’t feel like Cal will deliver another title to UK.
These numbers will make you sick. 14/27 from the free throw line in the Elite 8 game vs. WVU in 2010..lost 73-66. 4/12 from the free throw line in the Final 4 vs. UConn in 2011..lost 56-55. 13/24 from the free throw line vs. UConn in the National Title game in 2014..lost 60-54. PJ was 8/20 just by himself last year vs. K-State in the Sweet 16..lost 61-58. And today..12/21 from the free throw line..lost 77-71 in OT.
Down the stretch there were several times we had shots right around the rim and it appeared to be plenty of contact but I don't remember them calling any of them. It was like if we was going to score inside it was going to have to be a dunk. Remember thinking the refs had gotten three of their 4 bigs in foul trouble so they was going to let it go and not foul another one or two out.
It is truly amazing how not just missed FT's, but missed shots in general have doomed most of Cal's best teams here.
We scored ONE point from the FT line and was O'fer from 3 the ENTIRE second half!! You're not going to win big games shooting like that.
He even acknowledges that a player can miss shots, just not EVERY shot. That seems to happen WAY too often in the biggest losses in Cal's career. if that's the case, why not put a bigger emphasis on MAKING shots, including FT's?!!!
We scored ONE point from the FT line and was O'fer from 3 the ENTIRE second half!! You're not going to win big games shooting like that.
He even acknowledges that a player can miss shots, just not EVERY shot. That seems to happen WAY too often in the biggest losses in Cal's career. if that's the case, why not put a bigger emphasis on MAKING shots, including FT's?!!!
I think free throws are pretty minimal reason why we lost. Cal’s losses in the tournament always comes down to 2-3 things.
Quick guards
Slow pace
Mismatches on his switch everything defense.
Pearl was able to get some nice matchups and take advantage of it just like Ryan did in 15. Our offense was a sputtering mess the entire tourney. Even against Albliene Christian the half court offense was a mucked up mess. All season long it was “Run” following a defensive rebound but in the last 3 games it was “walk.” He needs to change that philosophy. We also struggled to keep their guards in front of us late in the game. Lack of 3 point shooting hurt us too when Auburn packed it in with a zone
Quick guards
Slow pace
Mismatches on his switch everything defense.
Pearl was able to get some nice matchups and take advantage of it just like Ryan did in 15. Our offense was a sputtering mess the entire tourney. Even against Albliene Christian the half court offense was a mucked up mess. All season long it was “Run” following a defensive rebound but in the last 3 games it was “walk.” He needs to change that philosophy. We also struggled to keep their guards in front of us late in the game. Lack of 3 point shooting hurt us too when Auburn packed it in with a zone
Players should take it on themselves but Cal should make them if they don't. You shoot 100 free throws a couple of times a week and you will be a good FT shooter. This was a good shooting team because we have some guys that shoot it well. Today those guys didn't get to the line much.
And given how often we have lost games because of poor FT shooting you would think he might work on it.
As I pointed out in a thread yesterday, we hit 35 of 37 in the IU sweet sixteen game in 2012. We hit even a normal good rate that game and we lose. Seems to me that free throws are low hanging fruit.
And given how often we have lost games because of poor FT shooting you would think he might work on it.
As I pointed out in a thread yesterday, we hit 35 of 37 in the IU sweet sixteen game in 2012. We hit even a normal good rate that game and we lose. Seems to me that free throws are low hanging fruit.
That was the first one that I can actually remember. I think my post to that was OMG I just saw an inbounds play
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anon_013cn8yrfncx2
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Gotta give Cal some credit there. Other teams are so use to our lob in to a big they fell asleep not once but twice.
Ohh I do. I just think we should have an inbound play more often....a lot more often especially now that I know he can do it
There’s two big flaws in Cal’s approach to free throws. First, he has said repeatedly that he generally lets players practice free throw shooting on their own. That presents two problems in and of itself. Will they put the time in on their own? Who will correct bad habits they might develope on their own at the line? Secondly (and most importantly), you can’t just stand at the free throw line and repeatedly shoot them in order to get better. Yes, it will help, but you also have to practice free throws when you’re tired and breathing hard under physical stress. When I played, we would shoot free throws in the middle of various drills such as wind sprints and suicides. You have to be used to shooting them when you’re fatigued. We shot them well to start the game today and it went down hill as the game wore on. That is the problem with Cal’s approach to free throws in a nutshell.
Free throws almost always come down to who is shooting them. Duke had a bad shooter at the line to tie it and he didn't come close. If Herro shoots the eleven free throws that PJ does then we win it at the line. Worst free throw shooter on the team shooting them and I'm sure that was part of Auburns game plan.
Its called pressure.
Some guys perform better under it others not so much.
Is this the only game you watched? This team has been one of his best ft shooting teams. For whatever reason they were off today. Put down the crack pipe
It started because Cal chaged. It use to be if you screwed up you were yanked and other players got to see the floor and shine. For whatever reason he wants to tighten the rotation but WHYYYY Cal? Montgomery should have played at least 15-18 minutes and Richards should have seen at least 10.
Exactly. When you can't keep the opposing backcourt in front of you, then man to man is a struggle unless there's rim protection.
That's when occasionally switching to a zone helps slow the other team down. I'll bet Virginia switches up defense to control tempo. Similar to what Louisville did to Uconn in the Big East Conference Tournament before they went on a crazy run and no team followed the blueprint.
This is idiotic. Kentucky shot 74.4% on free throws this year. That’s 52 out of 351 teams. That’s plenty good. But they have a bad day and you say they lost because he “refuses to value free throws”?
Gimme an effin break. We’re all pissed. Don’t let it make you start saying stupid things.
Gimme an effin break. We’re all pissed. Don’t let it make you start saying stupid things.
I can only imagine the amount of trembling some posters would experience in the tournament, I bet their arm would lock up half way and the ball wouldn’t hit anything. Teams miss free throws regularly in the ncaa due to pressure, the consequences of whether that free throw is made or missed causes them anxiety. Cal can’t control a players psyche, we were a good ft shooting team this year.