What is wrong with this team
- Thread starter jedwar
- Start date
I'm inclined to hold out hope and as long as we have a
next game we have a chance.
1). This team is not tough. More like marshmallow soft.
2). Lack of leadership.
3). Shi!!y defense. No hard fouls. How many freakin layups can u give up each game.
4). Boards. No boxing out or winning 50/50 balls. Rebounding is mostly position & effort. Florida dominated the boards & the game.
5). Half court offense. ??????
6). Inability to develop post play. Bam is regressing. Hump is not good. Gabriel is shooting 3's. Sacha is on a milk carton.
7). Lack of consistent outside shooting.
8). Cal's inability to change tactics ingame.
2). Lack of leadership.
3). Shi!!y defense. No hard fouls. How many freakin layups can u give up each game.
4). Boards. No boxing out or winning 50/50 balls. Rebounding is mostly position & effort. Florida dominated the boards & the game.
5). Half court offense. ??????
6). Inability to develop post play. Bam is regressing. Hump is not good. Gabriel is shooting 3's. Sacha is on a milk carton.
7). Lack of consistent outside shooting.
8). Cal's inability to change tactics ingame.
When you have no real inside scoring threat and only one outside scoring threat, you become easy to defend.
My thought is the early season was fool's gold and we simply aren't very good as a team. Talent in some areas and some of that talent is one-dimensional. There has been no growth and development in any player's skill set.
It happens. We should all know by now that the all-freshmen thing is not going to work every year. If we had only Ulis back, I think this year is different; he would not allow this crap to happen.
Man this sounds like the Lexington I grew up in. In sure pitino is on his way back because why not
I thought coming into the season that Gabriel and SKJ would be more-talented Marcus Lees and provide some low post scoring, good defense and shot-blocking. Fast forward a few months, and Gabriel would rather camp out on the 3-point line, can't guard anyone on the other end, and SKJ is essentially the 12th man. I still think this team can turn things around defensively, particularly on the perimeter, but the frontcourt is a disaster. It rivals last season, which I never thought would happen again under Cal.
If your game plan is to force it into the paint to get points from someone who struggles to do anything other than dunk. You may need a new plan, we have lost 3 of the last 4. Chemistry is shot for this team, major changes need to be made or this team will get an early off season imo.
Honestly they are the same team I saw in early November. There has been no improvement at all. They don't have any chemistry at all. When they have to deal with offensive adversity they stop playing defense. If you stop playing defense for long stretches when baskets aren't dropping you're going to go on these 10-15 minute stretches they have had all season where the score swings 20-30 points.
I see a team that right now doesn't realize that there is no "I" in it. Because of that they aren't putting out the effort to cover for each other. When Bam got the ball tipped away from him and it lead to a 5 on 1 fast break for Florida, it was pretty obvious they weren't playing for each other. Part of this is they are mostly young. Unfortunately, I don't see that they have an attitude that really hates losing. I see "there will be another (AAU) game to showcase my skills later" attitude. If that continues, the team goes nowhere fast. Hopefully, they've hit bottom and Calipari can get through to them. There was really not much fight out there last night.
This team is going to go as far as Fox and a hot shooting Monk can carry it. Which if we are lucky may get us to the sweet 16, but it wouldn't shock me a bit if we were sent home in the first weekend.
There are roughly 5 weeks left in the regular season and Bam isn't suddenly going to develop Olajuwan skills, Willis and Briscoe are what they are, defense suddenly is not going to get better which Cal also realizes since he is now trying zone out to stop the layup lines.
It's quite a mess honestly that this team is racing towards double digit losses.
All we can hope is Monk goes nuclear come March.
There are roughly 5 weeks left in the regular season and Bam isn't suddenly going to develop Olajuwan skills, Willis and Briscoe are what they are, defense suddenly is not going to get better which Cal also realizes since he is now trying zone out to stop the layup lines.
It's quite a mess honestly that this team is racing towards double digit losses.
All we can hope is Monk goes nuclear come March.
And we have won what 1 game, and very lucky to do that. UK has had tougher stretches than this and not been manhandled like this team has.
Tougher stretches with a beat up PG and mono stricken 6th or 7th man?
Don't think so.
Looks to me there is no leadership starting at the top, Cal is the coach, he has 5 stars players, I know they are fresh. but the have Brisco, Willis, Hawk, Mudler, this did not start last night this was going when they started giving up big leads many games ago, finally catching up with them at Tn. Cal is the coach and he is the only one who can fix it..
Quit making excuses. This team has issues. They are just being exposed. And we weren't relying on Mulder at the beginning of the year. If our season comes down to the health of Mulder then this team is in bigger trouble than even I believe. They don't guard.
Having a hurt and sick PG who by the way is the second best player on the team maybe the best is not an excuse it's a fact.
Stop being so negative and look at the circumstances.
If Fox and Mulder had been 100% the last two weeks ok....
I'm not being negative. I'm being real. I'm not going to say all is well when it is not. That's complete BS that losers do. We have issues and until they are corrected they will continue to get beat. Plain and simple. And until this team decides it wants to guard someone we will continue to get beat by equal or better teams. If you think all is well that's fine, I'm just not in that camp. If that makes me negative in your eyes that's fine also. Could care less.
It's all part and parcel of depending on freshmen. Some arrive "as good as advertised" Others, not so much. I would have not anticipated one of our 5-stars would be on a milk carton this far into the season. Couple that with then trying to force players into roles for which they are not suited (Skal as a post-up last year) and it only exacerbates the deficiencies. So now we have a tentative team lacking in confidence. I certainly hope coaches and players can figure it out. We shall see.
You absolutely nailed it. I read your post and had to look who posted it, because I thought maybe I had, because it's exactly the problems I see with this team.
Nice job.
Thank you for this post...nails it IMO. The rest of the season is not going to be pleasant because nothing is going to change.
A little harsh, perhaps, but this morning it sounds just about right.
I think after a little scouting it became pretty easy to slow us down and take away our biggest weapon, transition. If the game isn't in the 80s, we don't stand much of a chance against a very good team.
Pebble's camp wasn't the only one calling for us to force the ball to him. There was thread after thread on this board about it. Problem is he has zero basketball skills.
We go as far as Monk takes us. There is no one else to go to for scoring when Monk is having an off night. It's amazing to me that some of these guys are 5* players.
Cal's strategy, or lack thereof, is not hard to figure out. Transition and pushing the ball up the court is our strongest point and opponents know what they have to do to stop it. We certainly don't have any half court offense.
Cal's strategy, or lack thereof, is not hard to figure out. Transition and pushing the ball up the court is our strongest point and opponents know what they have to do to stop it. We certainly don't have any half court offense.
This is a title team, if I've ever seen one. They are superior athletically to everyone so they get bored sometimes. this is all part of the master plan to take focus off the team so they can sneak up on people in the tourney!
Cal let the cat out of the bag in his post game presser against UT? KU? When he said certain guys were worried about their futures.
Cal puts himself in almost damn near impossible situation because he has to "make it happen" for certain guys on the team but he also has to "make it happen" for the University and the BBN. The problem is, sometimes those two things can't coexist in a particular season. I think Cal tries to straddle the line between the two and then you get what youre seeing.
99 percent of this board realizes Briscoe should be backing up Fox. Common sense we need more than one shooter on the floor at all times, but this will never happen.
Bams post moves or lack thereof has been an eye opener. We have zero post presence and are trying run our offense like we have KAT down there. Craziness.
Last year, Skal shouldn't have sniffed the floor being out rebounded all year by Tyler Ulis. Those minutes should've went to developing Hump/Tai and maybe they would be further along this year, but that never happened.
Love the idea of being a players first program. The problem seems to be imo, its only certain types of players that qualify.
Cal puts himself in almost damn near impossible situation because he has to "make it happen" for certain guys on the team but he also has to "make it happen" for the University and the BBN. The problem is, sometimes those two things can't coexist in a particular season. I think Cal tries to straddle the line between the two and then you get what youre seeing.
99 percent of this board realizes Briscoe should be backing up Fox. Common sense we need more than one shooter on the floor at all times, but this will never happen.
Bams post moves or lack thereof has been an eye opener. We have zero post presence and are trying run our offense like we have KAT down there. Craziness.
Last year, Skal shouldn't have sniffed the floor being out rebounded all year by Tyler Ulis. Those minutes should've went to developing Hump/Tai and maybe they would be further along this year, but that never happened.
Love the idea of being a players first program. The problem seems to be imo, its only certain types of players that qualify.
They don't rebound, play defense, or play extremely hard. Until that changes, we're in for a short NCAA run.
It's the same thing wrong with Duke. Any other Duke team with that much talent, playing at home, with it being Krybabyshitski's first game back, would have annihilated a 10-loss Pitt.