The Good, The Bad, Kentucky Isn't Good at Basketball Right Now: Utah Valley Edition

[Joneslab]

Are peopled tired of Cal?

People are always tired of the coach when the team doesn't play well. He's just the easiest person to take one's frustrations out on.

The one-and-done thing itself has become a vessel for fan frustration. I've seen fans blame it for virtually everything. As I said above, I've seen fans blast it when we were on our way to a national championship.

Just generally, UK fans are a bit more old school and prefer players to be in the program for the sake of the program. Many still can't wrap their mind around the idea that the program is just a stepping stone for most of these players.

I would argue that it's been a stepping stone since well before Cal got here. Cal just acknowledges it and exploits it.

[Dwight Schrute]

People are always tired of the coach when the team doesn't play well. He's just the easiest person to take one's frustrations out on.

The one-and-done thing itself has become a vessel for fan frustration. I've seen fans blame it for virtually everything. As I said above, I've seen fans blast it when we were on our way to a national championship.

Just generally, UK fans are a bit more old school and prefer players to be in the program for the sake of the program. Many still can't wrap their mind around the idea that the program is just a stepping stone for most of these players.

I would argue that it's been a stepping stone since well before Cal got here. Cal just acknowledges it and exploits it.

Yeah I get it. Nick Saban had people calling for his firing after losing to LSU.

[Joneslab]

Generally I think the older generation is a little more harsh toward Cal because there's something unearned about young phenoms using UK to get rich.

I think what's happening with UK basketball in the Cal era undercuts a lot of romanticism people have about Kentucky basketball. We all have visions of players who would run through a brick wall for UK. Who wear the jersey proudly. Who play for the program and not themselves. And so on.

Cal has completely subverted that. Just turned it straight upside-down.

Fans can shut their mouths about that...when things are going well. When they aren't going well a lot of spite comes out.

I would point out that the two things can co-exist: you can have a player who wants to get rich AND who will run through a brick wall for UK. Both things can be true. We've had a bunch of players like that.

But when things are going bad people are really apt to blame the youth culture, the AAU culture, the get-rich-quick scheme that college basketball has become at this level.

This is going to increase the better Chris Mack does at Louisville. There's a decent chance Mack might have a Final Four team over there in his second year while UK regresses. That isn't going to set well with any UK fans, regardless of generation.

[Dwight Schrute]

Generally I think the older generation is a little more harsh toward Cal because there's something unearned about young phenoms using UK to get rich.

I think what's happening with UK basketball in the Cal era undercuts a lot of romanticism people have about Kentucky basketball. We all have visions of players who would run through a brick wall for UK. Who wear the jersey proudly. Who play for the program and not themselves. And so on.

Cal has completely subverted that. Just turned it straight upside-down.

Fans can shut their mouths about that...when things are going well. When they aren't going well a lot of spite comes out.

I would point out that the two things can co-exist: you can have a player who wants to get rich AND who will run through a brick wall for UK. Both things can be true. We've had a bunch of players like that.

But when things are going bad people are really apt to blame the youth culture, the AAU culture, the get-rich-quick scheme that college basketball has become at this level.

This is going to increase the better Chris Mack does at Louisville. There's a decent chance Mack might have a Final Four team over there in his second year while UK regresses. That isn't going to set well with any UK fans, regardless of generation.

Yeah this is true. My dad hates this era - he thinks they're all 'traitors'. No amount of reasoning will dissuade him so I just move on.

I agree that Chris Mack is making it hard to hate Louisville, or at least the way they do things.

[Lighthouse]

Don't give up on this team yet. I think one of the reasons they are developing slow is the type of players they go against in practice. With the number of scholarship players and injuries, they are practicing against walk on's. Our other teams developed quicker because they had better competition in practice that they had in some games.

[Catatonic]

I still don't understand how this roster ended up so shorthanded. Cal's teams always have major growing pains to work through, but having such an extremely slim margin of error is a pretty unique situation in this era.

Aside from just players I think Cal needs to recruit a new recruiter, shake up the coaching staff.

[JFCats22]

I still don't understand how this roster ended up so shorthanded. Cal's teams always have major growing pains to work through, but having such an extremely slim margin of error is a pretty unique situation in this era.

Aside from just players I think Cal needs to recruit a new recruiter, shake up the coaching staff.

It's ridiculous and 100% on Cal. Every team has injuries so I don't want to hear that nonsense.

A few years ago I remember him ranting about being shorthanded and that he would never let that happen again. Going into a game with 7 scholarship players is insane.

[Dwight Schrute]

The thing about the rosters is who exactly do you add? They did try to add Kerry Blackshear and N'faly Dante, and neither of which worked out.

If we just add guys for the sake of filling out scholarship players, I'm not sure what the benefit is unless you're just looking for practice bodies.

[GOCAT15]

Cal is playing with Fire every year because you cant predict what 17-19 year olds are going to do. If Keldon came back and we landed Blackshear, we would be a different team, obviously and it would give him more bodies. But you have to have 10 decent guys to go at each other in practice, and we've usually had that.

But I for one am not running Cal out of town, because as frustrating as this is, if anyone wants to seriously complain about the last decade you need to step away from the game. I guess Coach K should've been ran out of town last year since he didn't win with his all-star team either?

[Joneslab]

The thing about the rosters is who exactly do you add? They did try to add Kerry Blackshear and N'faly Dante, and neither of which worked out.

If we just add guys for the sake of filling out scholarship players, I'm not sure what the benefit is unless you're just looking for practice bodies.

I think the frustration is in the series of misses with the big men. Once you missed on all those guys it was pretty much over. What's annoying is that he shouldn't have missed on all those guys.

Oddly Zeke Nnaji looks like the cream of the crop right now. How much would that guy have helped?

Also I'll point out that a thing Cal likes is to have one guy at each position with two or three spot players coming in behind those five. This gives your top five a spotlight to entice NBA scouts.

The problem is when one or more of those five isn't a true NBA player, plus you have an injury (or three) in there.

That's when the experiment goes a bit off the rails.

[Joneslab]

Cal is playing with Fire every year because you cant predict what 17-19 year olds are going to do. If Keldon came back and we landed Blackshear, we would be a different team, obviously and it would give him more bodies. But you have to have 10 decent guys to go at each other in practice, and we've usually had that.

But I for one am not running Cal out of town, because as frustrating as this is, if anyone wants to seriously complain about the last decade you need to step away from the game. I guess Coach K should've been ran out of town last year since he didn't win with his all-star team either?

Good post.

For me though it comes back to the thing we've said a thousand times: if you want to run a one-and-done program, get real one-and-dones.

If you don't...well, you get this team.

I'm by no means giving up on them. Lighthouse's point above is right. We're playing without a full roster, after all. But I do have major concerns with the talent level this year.

[Dwight Schrute]

A few years ago I remember him ranting about being shorthanded and that he would never let that happen again. Going into a game with 7 scholarship players is insane.

You're making a poor comparison here. The year he said that was the 2013 team that was shorthanded on good players. The only player from that year that year that would definitely see minutes on this team is Nerlens. Willie Cauley-Stein might, but he was really raw as a freshman.

I dunno what you guys complaining about the roster want. If he'd just added someone to have a practice body and tried to play them last night you'd be on here ********************ing about how pathetic they were.

Maybe just chill.

[Dwight Schrute]

I think the frustration is in the series of misses with the big men. Once you missed on all those guys it was pretty much over. What's annoying is that he shouldn't have missed on all those guys.

Oddly Zeke Nnaji looks like the cream of the crop right now. How much would that guy have helped?

Also I'll point out that a thing Cal likes is to have one guy at each position with two or three spot players coming in behind those five. This gives your top five a spotlight to entice NBA scouts.

The problem is when one or more of those five isn't a true NBA player, plus you have an injury (or three) in there.

That's when the experiment goes a bit off the rails.

I agree, recruiting misses happen. But the criticism here seems to be more about the numbers than anything else and only having 7 scholarship players available. Who gives a spit if there are more if they can't play at this level?

[Joneslab]

I think they were certain they were getting Wiseman because they'd put so much time in him, and when he chose somewhere else things went a little sideways.

The staff has been caught in that situation before where it spent a large amount of time on one player, and missing on that one player blew a hole in the roster. Trae Young comes to mind.

Generally though Cal doesn't like depth. Depth takes away from what this is, and what this is is a platform for NBA hopefuls. The more bodies you have the more crowded that platform gets. That isn't what the families of these players want.

I've often wondered if Nick Richards got in the way of what UK was trying to do in its late recruiting this year. Remember, Cal sent out that tweet after Wiseman passed saying Richards was going to be the man. When you anoint somebody the man, then to recruit over him--even if it's with a body--can be seen as reneging on the promise you've made to him and his family.

It's another casualty of the UK-as-a-glorified-G-League-program experiment.

[Dwight Schrute]

I think they were certain they were getting Wiseman because they'd put so much time in him, and when he chose somewhere else things went a little sideways.

The staff has been caught in that situation before where it spent a large amount of time on one player, and missing on that one player blew a hole in the roster. Trae Young comes to mind.

Generally though Cal doesn't like depth. Depth takes away from what this is, and what this is is a platform for NBA hopefuls. The more bodies you have the more crowded that platform gets. That isn't what the families of these players want.

I've often wondered if Nick Richards got in the way of what UK was trying to do in its late recruiting this year. Remember, Cal sent out that tweet after Wiseman passed saying Richards was going to be the man. When you anoint somebody the man, then to recruit over him--even if it's with a body--can be seen as reneging on the promise you've made to him and his family.

It's another casualty of the UK-as-a-glorified-G-League-program experiment.

Depth has never been a real issue. That title team only played 7 guys regularly, with Eloy being the 8th who played minutes to spell somebody. The Final Four team the year before only played 6. After the Platoon year Cal said he was never doing anything like that again.

We're getting wrapped around the axle of numbers when that really isn't the issue. The issue is we just don't have very good players right now.