Why You say??? Because after 20 games they have not bought into the idea that you have to play defense. Yes they can score but as in all our losses we scored plenty of points to win,but the other team out scored us. UCLA has the offensive players to do it,but Tennessee and Louisville do not if you play average to good defense. You can get to the round of 16 without any defense but that is as far as you will go. In fact right now I can see UL going further than us on their defense alone. This may be the fallacy of the one and done player. His mind set is always showing his offensive skills so he can quickly go to the NBA. So if you are a Kentucky Fan I wouldn't get your hopes up too high.
This team will not win the NCAA
- Thread starter etowncatfan
- Start date
Thanks for the heads up. I guess I'll quit watching now
Finally someone has an original thought on this board. [eyeroll]
Oh I am a Kentucky fan. In fact I was in Rupp Saturday. Through the years I have watched lots of Basketball to know you have to have offense and defense to win against elite teams. Very few Freshman buy into playing defense. Defense has to be taught.
You are correct unless a light goes on someplace. We do not have one single lock down defender on this team nor an eraser in the paint.
We have never won a title after losing to UT.
Until this year.
Until this year.
I really like our team. They can get up & down the court the whole game. I do still think we can win #9 this year but I don't think it is probable. I agree with Etown, our half court defense is no better than it was at the start of the season. Our guards can't stay in front of whoever they are guarding. I would like to see us go fullcourt press the whole game. We are giving up layups anyway, we might get a few steals off the press.
We lost to a really good 10-9 team, probably best 10 -9 team in the country. I think you are jumping the gun, relax.
Really going out on a limb here. UK's first NCAA appearance was in 1942. In those 75 years, UK has won the title 8 times. 0.1066667 of the time UK wins the title. So bravo for really going there.
I hope the loss last night teaches the guys they have to play Defense. But I'm starting to wonder if it will ever show up. Cal's teams here at UK have always featured at least 1 rim blocker with the exception of this year and last year. So I'm not really surprised the ball line drives are all of a sudden an issue. It's just in the past if you went into the lane Cousins, Jones, Davis, WCS, and Towns were waiting there. Even in the NIT year, you had a prolific shot blocker in Noel. This team can certainly win the title by outscoring teams. They cold very easily lose as well. But with over a month to go, I wouldn't be getting out on the ledge just yet.
I hope the loss last night teaches the guys they have to play Defense. But I'm starting to wonder if it will ever show up. Cal's teams here at UK have always featured at least 1 rim blocker with the exception of this year and last year. So I'm not really surprised the ball line drives are all of a sudden an issue. It's just in the past if you went into the lane Cousins, Jones, Davis, WCS, and Towns were waiting there. Even in the NIT year, you had a prolific shot blocker in Noel. This team can certainly win the title by outscoring teams. They cold very easily lose as well. But with over a month to go, I wouldn't be getting out on the ledge just yet.
Well, as previously stated, then quit watching if you feel that way. Let me guess, you also said the 2013-2014 team would be NIT bound halfway through the season?
Very observant...
And 3 seniors that are not as good as the freshmen...........
This team doesn't stand a chance because they can't put together 6 great games in a row. They're just not as good as we had hoped.
Wow. UK has only been good at defense then 8 times in its entire history. Pure genius you are!
Well get used to it bro because that's all it's gonna be for the next 4-5 years.. Malik thinks he's steph curry and Fox thinks it's okay to put up a '15 teardrop from the ft line.. Bam's like a big ***** too, it's sad when your coach has to tell you to toughen up and play like a man.. something tells me dudes not that smart either, like a cave man or something.. I've never been so pissed about a game this long either.. wish briscoe would just leave.. I mean look at'm, dudes put on 20 lbs and looks like he's given up and don't care anymore.. wish he'd give Fox some of that food he's hogging lol..
I tend to agree. And this may be somewhat reactionary, but I see some fatal flaws with this team that really makes me skeptical about our chances to win 6 straight in March.
1) Briscoe. He's been poor defensively, he's struggled in pretty much every big game we've played this season, he's undersized and honestly a bit redundant when we already have a non-shooting guard in Fox who's far better at penetrating/creating than him. He's a major issue, IMO.
2) Rim protection. Bam is 1-2 inches too short to be an elite rim protector (although he is an elite post defender) and Gabriel has just started coming on in this area lately so hard to know if that'll continue or if it's more of an outlier. Either way - we have two guys on the perimeter who are turnstiles defensively in Briscoe and Monk, so rim protection becomes an even bigger issue when these guys are constantly being blown by.
3) Lack of quality depth. Humphries simply isn't good enough. Willis is a deer in headlights 75% of the time. Hawkins is what he is. And Mulder, who I actually like the best out of the bench guys, has never really gotten enough playing time to get his sea legs under him. Given how terrible college officiating is, we can safely assume we'll be in serious foul trouble at least once in March, probably multiple times... and this bench inspires no confidence in terms of their ability to compensate for that.
Can we win it? Sure. Would I pick us if I weren't emotionally invested? I don't think so. I can think of 3-4 other teams I'd favor over us at this point.
1) Briscoe. He's been poor defensively, he's struggled in pretty much every big game we've played this season, he's undersized and honestly a bit redundant when we already have a non-shooting guard in Fox who's far better at penetrating/creating than him. He's a major issue, IMO.
2) Rim protection. Bam is 1-2 inches too short to be an elite rim protector (although he is an elite post defender) and Gabriel has just started coming on in this area lately so hard to know if that'll continue or if it's more of an outlier. Either way - we have two guys on the perimeter who are turnstiles defensively in Briscoe and Monk, so rim protection becomes an even bigger issue when these guys are constantly being blown by.
3) Lack of quality depth. Humphries simply isn't good enough. Willis is a deer in headlights 75% of the time. Hawkins is what he is. And Mulder, who I actually like the best out of the bench guys, has never really gotten enough playing time to get his sea legs under him. Given how terrible college officiating is, we can safely assume we'll be in serious foul trouble at least once in March, probably multiple times... and this bench inspires no confidence in terms of their ability to compensate for that.
Can we win it? Sure. Would I pick us if I weren't emotionally invested? I don't think so. I can think of 3-4 other teams I'd favor over us at this point.
I can name several teams that can win it all, but we're not one of them. Let me ask you, name some things this team has improved on since the beginning of the season.
I can tell you that the defense is horrible, they play selfishly and their basketball IQ is questionable at best
Yes clearly before Cal got here we were competing for NCAA titles the previous decade. Bro.
Nova
Zona
Louisville ( with the right matchups )
UVA ( because of defense )
Guess there's a few more but there ya go..
Dukes last championship team lost three road games in January. Y'all overreacting. Beat Kansas and stay in top five and still on track for a one seed then all is forgotten.
It seems to me that this year is a crapshoot. I still believe we have a shot at winning it all. I doubt that is a likely outcome at this point but there still remains a chance for that to happen. But, you can say that about Villanova and Kansas after their big losses last night too. Everyone has had some losses except for Gonzaga and maybe this is finally their year to break through. Yes, we definitely have a problem on defense against elite teams and now we saw it hurt us against a very mediocre, at best, team last night. Sure, OP, we could be an early out but we also could be right in there for the Final Four. I don't have unrealistic optimism for this team but I'm not giving up on them yet either.
Virginias stellar defense hasn't gotten them past the second round. Have to score to win a championship.
Lol. UL isn't going anywhere. They can't score consistently against good teams. Zona under Miller has done nothing in the tournament. UVA has given up 88 to Pitt and has gone nowhere under Bennett in the tournament.
This team will mess around and lose to a 7 seed in the second round.
This team will be in the final 4. Villinova, Duke, UNC and some other's have lossed to some crappy teams because these type of things happen. There's not an elite team in college basketball but Kentucky still has the most elite talent so I like the Cats chances!!!
Not blaming it on Cal at all. If you're happy with just being good every year with the best freshman, cool.. other than our previous couch( two years ) UK has always been good bro, we're blue bloods.. At some point, you gotta win championships.. not SEC's either, been doing that way before Cal. Everybody gets on to KU because of their conference, we'll look at ours and still get beat by the bottom feeders.. take the glasses off and face it ...
You win titles huh? Like who else has at UK the past 60 years? No other coach has more than one title after Rupp. Name one coach outside of K who has had more success than Cal at UK during his time here?
If I had to pick the biggest issue right now, I would say our inside presence is just not up to par. Williams made our post guys look clueless. Our guards couldn't hit much of anything and Monk took 13 - 3's. The whole team was flat.
Okay, I get you're butthurt, but you do have to recognize that it was a road game don't you? I mean, that has to slip into your mind at some point right? Tge guys played like they were rattled.
That same UL team you talked about as being so high and mighty only beat this UK team by 3 points in their house and it was UK's first true road game.
UCLA just got stomped at home, and if you're going to say our downfall will be defense, you really shouldn't use UCLA as an example of a team that has what it takes.
Villanova, you know, the #1 team in the country, lost to Marquette last night. Are tge sweet 16 too? UNC lost to Georgia Tech, a CBI team.
So if not UK, who? Who do you have getting to the FF and winning it all? Gonzaga?
"Yes they can score but as in all our losses we scored plenty of points to win,but the other team out scored us."
That usually happens when you lose!
EVERY team, even this late in the season, often even later, has bumps in the road. Often those can be a good thing as they bring a team back down and make them more willing to listen & learn. There have been a number of champions who even as late as the conference tournament or last week of the season looked horrible. I think it will be key to see how the team responds both on Saturday, but also next Tuesday vs an unranked team.
Does this UK team have flaws? Yes.
Does every NCAA team have flaws? Yes.
I like our chances as good as anyone's! And would put us in the short list of about 10 schools most likely to win the championship. And I'm not sure I see a clear favorite out of the bunch.
That usually happens when you lose!
EVERY team, even this late in the season, often even later, has bumps in the road. Often those can be a good thing as they bring a team back down and make them more willing to listen & learn. There have been a number of champions who even as late as the conference tournament or last week of the season looked horrible. I think it will be key to see how the team responds both on Saturday, but also next Tuesday vs an unranked team.
Does this UK team have flaws? Yes.
Does every NCAA team have flaws? Yes.
I like our chances as good as anyone's! And would put us in the short list of about 10 schools most likely to win the championship. And I'm not sure I see a clear favorite out of the bunch.
It's unbelievable what some of the fans want here and how they go nuclear over a loss
Yeah, but why does there HAVE to be a rim protector to win it all? Villanova didn't have one, Duke didn't have one in 2015, did UL have one in 13, did Uconn have on in 11 or 14? If they did, it wasn't anyone any better than what we currently have.
Tournament play is a lot different than true road games.