What happened!

[willievic]

My grandson, who is in Medical School at UK called me this morning, and asked me what I think happened to UK this year. He said, "Papaw, we had more talent then most teams who beat us this year. What do you think was wrong with our team?" Both of my Grandsons are big UK fans, both in basketball and football, just as my Grand daughter is. All three graduated from UK and she got a Masters degree and the two boys are in Medical School there.

It doesn't matter what I, or any other fan thinks about this year, since it's over. It wouldn't have mattered even before it started. I agree with my Grandson, we had more talent then most of the teams who beat us. What happened, plain and simple, is Cal was determined to prove that Askew was the answer at Point Guard. After 3 or 4 games, a lot of us could see that Askew was NOT the answer, and we posted on here our thoughts. If Cal had moved Mintz to point guard, went more with Allen, and removed Boston when he was not playing well, set him down, and explained that he needed to let the game come to him, instead of forcing it, he would have done better. Jackson, Sarr, Brooks, Allen, Boston, Mintz and whoever Cal thought should be the 7th player should have been our main players. Askew could not shoot, slow first step, and not a good ball handler. We would have been a much better team, without Askew at Point Guard. Mintz, could shoot, and had the experience to make good decisions. Tell me what you think would have helped this team. All of us have opinions, and really, none of them are wrong. We're entitled to our opinions, since none of them count.

OLD STOLL FIELD GUY!

 

[UK90]

We had plenty raw talent, but the parts didn’t fit together well.

The absence of a true point guard on this roster was a huge blunder by Cal, It’s inexcusable to be leaving multiple extra scholarship spots unused when you don’t have a single guy suited to play the most important position.

 

[crashtestdummy_rivals61973]

the thread (Askew is back) sheds light on the Askew question!

 

[crashtestdummy_rivals61973]

My opinion is we were lacking in talent all over.

 

[Crawfords Corner]

I think in the end we had a "finesse" team in a physical league. We played a physical schedule of teams with a "finesse" team. That's why more often than not UK got bullied on the boards(worst free throw rebounding team Ive ever seen) and shot so terribly around the basket.

*I should add IJ did not get bullied on the boards as much as Sarr.

 

[St.PatterSoN-54-]

My opinion is we were lacking in talent all over.

Our talent would have been plenty good if we had a capable ball handler at pg. put Tyler Ulis on this team and it’s a top 10 team.

 

[Blue Bigfoot]

Emphasis on length over maturity and strength.
We just got bullied in the paint, and couldn't withstand any physicality.
Esp. Boston and Sarr.
You need some junk yard dogs to win. We had none this year.

 

[Burly]

We had crappy talent - do people watch the games or just study the Rivals rankings? We sucked

 

[katwest]

Leaving scholarships open is Cals way to play the players he wants to play without having to worry about playing players you don't want to have to rely on. The thing about that is if you have anybody quit or get hurt you are in trouble and have to play those less heralded prospects you didn't want to have to rely on like Allen. Allen won several games this year by being the only guy that could score when the rest of the team was struggling. When you have a full roster of the kind of players Cal wants, you can't play them all at the same time and you have players leave that's why there are always several guys that are walk-ons that will be content just to sit on the bench. We lost a lot of games this year to teams that had no 5 star players, player ratings are overrated and relied on to much.

 

[Cowtown Cat]

I think the OP puts it perfectly into perspective. Cal’s stubbornness, ego and him being hellbent on proving he was right were the downfall of this team. He would rather die than admit he was wrong and BBN was right.

 

[Col. Angus]

We had plenty raw talent, but the parts didn’t fit together well.

Basically. You can take scrap parts from every single sports car in the world and make a scrap car but it’s probably not gonna run worth a damn.

 

[ABlockalypseBrow]

Leaving scholarships open is Cals way to play the players he wants to play without having to worry about playing players you don't want to have to rely on. The thing about that is if you have anybody quit or get hurt you are in trouble and have to play those less heralded prospects you didn't want to have to rely on like Allen. Allen won several games this year by being the only guy that could score when the rest of the team was struggling. When you have a full roster of the kind of players Cal wants, you can't play them all at the same time and you have players leave that's why there are always several guys that are walk-ons that will be content just to sit on the bench. We lost a lot of games this year to teams that had no 5 star players, player ratings are overrated and relied on to much.

At this point Cal leaving scholarships open just feels like laziness. Properly utilizing a full roster takes a lot of work, you have to manage whose playing each game but also monitor each players overall development over the course of the season to see how your roster is evolving.

Calipari admits he can’t even remember who all is on his limited bench in a given game. It’s much easier to play the same 6-7 players all year long and hope those guys come around by the end. This year that didn’t work and he fell on his face.

 

[Cowtown Cat]

The two injuries of Brooks and Clarke didn’t help things either. Granted, Brooks looked like a hot mess for the latter part of the season. Clarke was streaky the few games he played.

He looked great his first game back, at Florida. He regressed every game after that. Constantly getting lost on defense and couldn’t find a groove on offense. He was a major disappointment this season IMO.

 

[kennyskywalker34]

Mintz played as the starting PG the last three games. He played outstanding. UK still lost 2 of those 3 games. So while having Mintz play PG all year long we would have certainly been a better team. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that PG was the only problem.
This was just a bad team. Team had some talent no doubt but the parts didn't fit together to make a good team.
As @crawfords corner pointed out above in his post. The biggs were soft as charmin. And most of the teams we played had Juniors and Seniors who were physical. This team backed down from physical play.
Anyone catch Ware who was supposed to be the physical infororcer on the team. He was yelling as the Mississippi St big man was abusing him. I NEED HELP.

 

[HerrosHeroes]

The Curse of the Rooferee

 

[Yardeth]

Coaching

 

[Hancock2]

It seems to me that “somebody” tried to fit a lot of square pegs into round holes.