Narrative that UK/Cal struggle early and get better late

[JFCats22]

I have seen this discussed the past few years over and over again on many UK sites. That being, that under Cal at UK his teams regularly struggle early and then peak and get better in February/March. I have always thought it was kind of nonsense that really wasn't true. It was brought up again on another UK site over the last couple of days so I decided to actually look at the numbers to see what they showed.

As you can see below this notion of Cal/UK improving as the season goes on is not true at all. February and March/April are Cal's worst two months by win percentage. Now, I know the strength of schedule is more difficult in February and especially March but the SEC has been pretty much garbage minus a few years during Cal's time at UK.

All of these win % numbers are crazy good but in November/December Cal is 112-17 for a win % of 86.8%. In January, February, March/April UK is 195-52 for a 78.9% win percentage.

Not sure if any of this really means anything I just wanted to see what the actual results were instead of leaning on the myth that we struggle early and get better late in the season.

Here is Cal's record at UK by month (through last season):

November: 61-6 (91%)
December: 51-11 (82.2%)
January: 66-15 (81.5%)
February: 60-18 (76.9%)
March: 67-16 (80.7%)
April: 2-3 (40%)

[Joneslab]

Meaningless numbers because of the level of teams played late versus the level of teams played early.

Just going by the eye test it appears to me that Cal's teams are often the best they'll get in late January or early February. Then there's been a sort of peak and a bit of a fade. (Again, strength of opponent accounts for much of that fade.)

There have been teams that have come alive in March and have looked the best in the tournament than they did at any point during the year. The 2014 team comes to mind. Also obvious the 2011 team really got better in March.

[GOCAT15]

The numbers are nice to see, but I have to agree with Will, those percentages are meaningless. Unless you look at the difference in level of competition game by game for each season it is impossible to tell if that is say a team progressed or regressed. Although 80.7% in March is a pretty good number in my opinion.

[Dwight Schrute]

This is a bad analysis.

[Joneslab]

This is a bad analysis.

Not sure what analysis is being drawn necessarily. I think it's that UK generally doesn't improve that much.

Anybody who pays any attention at all knows how wrong that is and I would hope that's not what's being suggested.

There have definitely been a couple of teams that peaked out too early. But that happens all over the sport. That's part of the psychology of young athletes as much as anything, I imagine. It's also what makes college basketball really unpredictable and borderline volatile. This sport is so dependent on focus and energy and getting hot at the right time. Not sure there's another sport like it in that regard.

[J.Jennings]

John Calipari

34 mins ·

As I get ready for practice today with my team, with some players who can go and some who cannot, our staff is trying to figure out:

- How to be a threat offensively

- How do we make more threes?

- How do we guard 5 spaced players?

- How do we get more consistent in playing WINNING basketball?

This is what we do every year. This is where we are every year.

And I love it!!!‬

[DA#23]

Not sure what analysis is being drawn necessarily. I think it's that UK generally doesn't improve that much.

Well, the thread is titled "Narrative that UK/Cal struggle early and get better late" ....

[Joneslab]

Well, the thread is titled "Narrative that UK/Cal struggle early and get better late" ....

The poster could be arguing that Kentucky doesn't struggle as much as perceived early or that they don't get better as much as perceived late.

I'm fairly sure I've seen crazzed say before that Kentucky didn't get any better during particular seasons so I'm assuming he's trying to prove the latter. But you'd have to watch no Kentucky basketball and just look at box scores to believe that.

The reason for this is generally defense. Cal's teams go from usually average to stout defensively as the season goes along. Young players have to learn how to defend up at the D1 level and it usually takes some time.

[Catatonic]

There is no question that they improve drastically over the course of the season. Some of these freshmen come in lacking basic fundamentals, others carry over bad habits from high school or AAU ball (selfishness, not being vocal, etc). They do sometimes peak early or regress.

[J.Jennings]

No doubt in my mind Cal teams get better as we go. Main problem we have is when it counts the most and the season is on the line, Cal usually gets out coached. Either he refuses to adjust or he stops attacking and that leads us to problems....

[DA#23]

He posts that title and then posts per month winning percentages which trend downward on average, so I think it's kind of obvious that Crazzed is suggesting that there is at least some hitch to the assertion that Calipari's teams are objectively better later in the season.

[JFCats22]

He posts that title and then posts per month winning percentages which trend downward on average, so I think it's kind of obvious that Crazzed is suggesting that there is at least some hitch to the assertion that Calipari's teams are objectively better later in the season.

No, not at all. My argument was mostly that Cal's team do not struggle early in the season. As I said, the win % is really good every month.

My question is though, how do we know/can we say Cal's teams are better later in the season? Is it the eye test, results against top 25, or top 50 teams, etc..? I honestly don't know the answer. Maybe we look at record against ranked teams in November/December versus the end of the season?

I think some of Cal's teams get better as the year goes on but I am not sure.

If it's not record (which is really all that matters) how do you compare the team at the beginning of the season versus the end of the season? I'm honestly curious as nearly every UK fan and a lot of basketball analysts always says Cal has them peaking/ready to go in February/March when, at least by their record, it doesn't necessarily seem that way.

[Catatonic]

Is there any team that doesn't trend downward in March and April?

[Joneslab]

There's no question that they get better. They're a bunch of high school kids trying to learn how to play college basketball.

I do agree however that they're not as bad as some make them out to be early in the season...usually. This year's team and last year's team don't really fit into that because both were (are) pretty bad early.

But honestly a better, probably more interesting analysis might be whether or not Cal's teams are better in March than they are on, say, January 25th.

You could never get a really good analysis simply because of the teams they play in March. But I've always felt Cal's teams hit their apex usually in late January/early February. There seems to be something happening right around that time where they click, and then there's usually a bit of a drop-off.

[Joneslab]

Is there any team that doesn't trend downward in March and April?

These teams that oddly catch fire late in the year and start doing things they weren't doing early.

Somebody posted a stat a couple of years ago about the first recent Villanova championship team. That team was just okay shooting from three until March. In March they just caught fire.

Texas Tech last year comes to mind as a team that got it together late and seemed to be doing different things in the tournament than they were early, but that was a team built on defense, so it's not like they reinvented themselves or anything.

So you do see teams radically change sometimes. Mostly though the teams that win it are able to just grind out really close, really ugly, really low-scoring games in the tournament.