John Wooden.

84Alumni

Sophomore
Oct 14, 2012
391
172
0
I think Coach Cal could and should take a page from John Wooden's playbook.

“It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”

Translated: If you are going to try to win with freshman, you have to be rock-solid in your fundamentals. Period. UK is not, as follows:
  • Free Throws - Only one point at a time, but they add up. Don't know the stats for today's game, but I guarantee you if we hit out free throws, we will this one going away.
  • Defense - do they teach guys to shade people to their right, since about 95%+ of the players have their right as their strong side?? Simple tactic, that can mean the difference in a layup and a stop. Seems like it happened a few dozen times today. Let's call it, "forcing a player to go left!"
  • Crashing the Boards. Amazing to me when it is down to crunch time, or anytime for that matter, that we have ONE guy in the paint trying to rebound, lol. Is anybody home. Champions own the paint!! We leased it on a part-time basis, thus the Kats are coming home.
Having witnessed Coach Wooden teams first hand, I can tell you today's basketball is but a shadow of that game. His teams actually ran an offense, did not make mistakes, and ground you down to dust - game in, game out. To say he was solid in the fundamentals, would be an understatement.

While I know it is not going to happen, it would be nice to see Coach Cal go back to the basics with these youngsters, and concentrate on the fundamentals the full year. I'd start with free throws. That alone will win you a number of games over the course of a season.