What Frank Martin said

[ArtLaibsGhost_rivals]

I think Oscar could have been a good fit. I never understood the flack he caught. Always felt like he was the only one with real heart on those teams.

Gotta blame somebody,beside the coach of course. Everyone is talking about this year's offense but it was MORE than adequate. Our inability to guard pretty much anyone was this teams problem. Our guards couldn't stay in front of anyone forcing our big men to pick up the driver late leaving nobody to rebound a miss. This is why most of the teams we played late in the season had a substantial edge in offensive rebounds.

 

[cats#1again]

So let me see:
-UConn plays thru their center
-Alabama attacks the rim with their centers
-Purdue plays thru their center
-Duke plays thru their center
-NC State plays thru their center
Hmmmmmmm

Last year every fan we have complained that cal ran through oscar

 

[cats#1again]

Because we had the Center and no shooters, now we had the shooters and no center. Cal hasn’t built a great all around team in years. Missing Dickinson hurt us immensely. Cal would have still screwed it up but having a guy who can bang inside and get a bucket is what we lacked.

You have to have scoring in the post, regardless of what you see on here about a big man clogging up the middle

 

[*Fox2Monk*]

You have to have scoring in the post, regardless of what you see on here about a big man clogging up the middle

Obviously we don’t want that. We changed the offense perfectly this year to prevent that, we just didn’t have one. Hate clogging the lane. Cals issue is he tries too when he plays two of them.

 

[Randy Bob]

Ky had 3 seven footers and no post up game poor coaching at its best.

 

[FFWhite]

Always thought Oscar’s biggest issue was being paired with Wheeler. Both sides of the ball

 

[TheWyldKat_rivals45219]

So let me see:
-UConn plays thru their center
-Alabama attacks the rim with their centers
-Purdue plays thru their center
-Duke plays thru their center
-NC State plays thru their center
Hmmmmmmm

Could be a different issue

We had the national player of the year for 2 years and he was a center big man

Didn’t work.

maybe the staff?

 

[Mike-D]

Because we had the Center and no shooters, now we had the shooters and no center. Cal hasn’t built a great all around team in years. Missing Dickinson hurt us immensely. Cal would have still screwed it up but having a guy who can bang inside and get a bucket is what we lacked.

Cal had 1 that could at least score, and chose not to play him for games on end. Kid missed half the season, and Cal decided that Z didn't need minutes every game to get acclimated to possibly help us in the tournament. Keep in mind, this kid was our overall best option at Center. Then again, we're talking about Cal here. He doesn't build teams, he glues them together.

 

[SemperFiCat]

UConn is heavy pick n roll . To perfection. Its not that that have a great 5 but a great system
Alabama is a perimeter team .
Purdue has a unicorn . Guy is 7'4 with good skills . I'll give you that one .
Duke's 5 isnt a back to the basket 5 , and they shot a fair amount of threes and again their system isnt to throw it inside to their 5
NC state does have a power 5 . He scores and is back to basket .
Not sure what point of what ever Frank Martin said , but NC needed a miracle to make the tourney . Alabama lost 11 games . Having a 5 that can score sometimes isnt a magic ticket to success IMO.

This. The OP is pretty ridiculous, IMO. This argument is disingenuous. Every team tries to get their centers involved. Purdue is the only team on that list that FEATURES a center as its primary Off weapon. And Edey is a bit on an anomaly.

This argument is pretty weak, IMO.

 

[rob_47]

Oscar would have been great for this team IF cal utilized him properly.

But Cal would have tried Oscar and Tre together, or Oscar and Aaron, or even Oscar and Ugo.

Edward’s and Thiero should have been manning the 4. Thiero was really good when he played the 4 this year and we were really good. Same with Justin.

We put Z, Justin, and the 3 R’s out there for extended minutes against bama and we scored 40 points in like 9 minutes of game time and had them down nearly 40.

Oscar, with the 3 r’s and either Thiero or Edward’s at the 4 would have dismantled teams. But we would have rarely seen that lineup. also oscar was a better defender than given credit for.

Oscar was better on d than given credit for I totally agree. He might of been weak in the pick and roll but he was a good one on one defender against the other teams post players and this team sorely lacked that!

 

[KentuckyCat420]

Dickinson was a locker room cancer. And I called that on. The stories out of KU are he’s an immense prick. Shocker I know.

Yea I figured that out pretty quickly when I regrettably followed his podcast during his recruitment.

Massive doucher

 

[Elliott Tim]

So let me see:
-UConn plays thru their center
-Alabama attacks the rim with their centers
-Purdue plays thru their center
-Duke plays thru their center
-NC State plays thru their center
Hmmmmmmm

Seasons of change.

 

[Montana81]

Oscar was better on d than given credit for I totally agree. He might of been weak in the pick and roll but he was a good one on one defender against the other teams post players and this team sorely lacked that!

He was very active his first year here. I think he averaged nearly 3 steals/blocks a game and was getting a ton of deflections.

The second year he struggled a little but i think some of that was due to not being 100% for part of the season.

We have a few posters, and i remember who they were but i’m not going to say any names, they were adamant that we would be better off with Bradshaw than Oscar and I have not seen a single one of them man up and admit they were wrong about Bradshaw.

Mostly the same ones that were trying to use talent as an excuse to absolve Calipari of any responsibility for the last few seasons of underperforming. The same ones that also insisted a transfer from Illinois State wasn’t good enough to be our #1 option. I wish the season had ended differently but it was nice to see Antonio shut those morons up at least. That was always such a laughably bad take.

 

[Soupbean]

So let me see:
-UConn plays thru their center
-Alabama attacks the rim with their centers
-Purdue plays thru their center
-Duke plays thru their center
-NC State plays thru their center
Hmmmmmmm

I was thinking this yesterday watching . . . all the talk every year about guard play and this year all but one have big man that controls the game from the paint. The abilitiy to have a go to scorer and rim protector in the middle is the big advantage in this tournament. Bama doesnt have that and still has to spread you out and score form the perimeter and they are very good at that. The others can start by dumping it inside and saying stop this, then if you adjust they can kick it back out to capable shooters. But it starts with a big in the middle that is really hard to deal with.

 

[UKWildcats1987]

I think Oscar could have been a good fit. I never understood the flack he caught. Always felt like he was the only one with real heart on those teams.

He's the only reason UK won a tourney game n ncaa. He wasn't the reason UK lost either season.

 

[fatguy87]

Oscar was better on d than given credit for I totally agree. He might of been weak in the pick and roll but he was a good one on one defender against the other teams post players and this team sorely lacked that!

He also owned the glass which is an important component of defending. We would have been better with a couple more defensive rebounds a game.

 

[DreadLox]

There is no "royal road" to success. Teams adapt to trends.

 

[HagginHall1999]

Because we had the Center and no shooters, now we had the shooters and no center. Cal hasn’t built a great all around team in years. Missing Dickinson hurt us immensely. Cal would have still screwed it up but having a guy who can bang inside and get a bucket is what we lacked.

Cal always seems to be one player short.

 

[rob_47]

He was very active his first year here. I think he averaged nearly 3 steals/blocks a game and was getting a ton of deflections.

The second year he struggled a little but i think some of that was due to not being 100% for part of the season.

We have a few posters, and i remember who they were but i’m not going to say any names, they were adamant that we would be better off with Bradshaw than Oscar and I have not seen a single one of them man up and admit they were wrong about Bradshaw.

Mostly the same ones that were trying to use talent as an excuse to absolve Calipari of any responsibility for the last few seasons of underperforming. The same ones that also insisted a transfer from Illinois State wasn’t good enough to be our #1 option. I wish the season had ended differently but it was nice to see Antonio shut those morons up at least. That was always such a laughably bad take.

Lot of those posters said things about Oscar because Cal had thrown him under the bus.

 

[postmodernprimate]

I think Oscar could have been a good fit. I never understood the flack he caught. Always felt like he was the only one with real heart on those teams.

I absolutely adore Oscar. Just a unique, wonderful human being and a rebounding machine but... he was equivalent to the kind of supermassive black holes that sit at the centers of large galaxies. Not for any intentional negative quality he had, he just had no natural aptitude for passing out of a double-team when drawing defenders or having an innate awareness of where and when to look opposite and keep an opposing defense on a string. That is a skill/talent, just like rebounding that some players come to more naturally than others. I used to love watching late career Arvydas Sabonis (he would have been Jokic before Jokic if he had been able to play in the NBA in his prime) out there like a magician seeing everything and everyone and delivering absolute dimes. So pretty.

 

[chroix]

I absolutely adore Oscar. Just a unique, wonderful human being and a rebounding machine but... he was equivalent to the kind of supermassive black holes that sit at the centers of large galaxies. Not for any intentional negative quality he had, he just had no natural aptitude for passing out of a double-team when drawing defenders or having an innate awareness of where and when to look opposite and keep an opposing defense on a string. That is a skill/talent, just like rebounding that some players come to more naturally than others. I used to love watching late career Arvydas Sabonis (he would have been Jokic before Jokic if he had been able to play in the NBA in his prime) out there like a magician seeing everything and everyone and delivering absolute dimes. So pretty.

I think he was capable of learning how to pass out of the post. Call me crazy.

 

[kyhoward]

Because we had the Center and no shooters, now we had the shooters and no center. Cal hasn’t built a great all around team in years. Missing Dickinson hurt us immensely. Cal would have still screwed it up but having a guy who can bang inside and get a bucket is what we lacked.

COW does not build teams, he acquires talent. No concept of building anything for UK that leads to wins and tournament success, but boy he sure likes to build draft choices for the NBA! That is success!

 

[UK-Chulo]

So many geniuses on this board and on the radio ( Matt Jones) said last spring that they didn’t want Oscar with this group because it would mess up the offense.

Just think if we had a 15/15 guy down low this year which teams had to guard or double.

Somehow Oscar got it in his head he was a primary option on offense. Not sure he would have been content getting the fifth or sixth amount of touches on this team. And for sure he wouldn’t endure that “slight” quietly. If he was content getting his points off offensive rebounds we would have been even better this year. Otherwise posting him just negates the advantages this year’s team had.

 

[UK-Chulo]

I think he was capable of learning how to pass out of the post. Call me crazy.

Not in a year I fear. He loved being the focal point of everything.

 

[*Fox2Monk*]

Cal always seems to be one player short.

Yup and injured but this year he had everyone we needed. His coaching, preparation, and strategy doesn’t work anymore.

 

[UK-Chulo]

Yup and injured but this year he had everyone we needed. His coaching, preparation, and strategy doesn’t work anymore.

Was no excuse this year. Should have started Shep, Mitchell, Reeves, Dillingham and either Adou or Edwards in the tournament. We’d have put the game away before halftime.

With that lineup do not allow Mitchell to get within three feet of the three point line. Only free throw line extended to be in the center of the zone to hit open shooters.