Narrative that UK/Cal struggle early and get better late

[JFCats22]

This is a bad analysis.

Tremendous insight, thank you for sharing!

[Dwight Schrute]

No sheet the win percentage is better in November and December - we don't play the Utah Valley State's of the world in January and February like we do in November and early December.

Using misleading statistics to make a bad point strikes a nerve with me. All you need to do to expose this post for how bad it is is to imagine that if it were possible to manipulate the space-time continuum and allow Cal's teams from February-March to play the November versions of themselves, and imagine how many games the November versions would win.

My strong guess is that the November versions would not win more than a game or two out of 10.

[Catatonic]

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.

I meant a team's trajectory compared season to season, per the OP's standard. Everyone is trending downward late, or else they'd be winning it all every year.

But sure, there are always anomalies. That's a lot of what makes the NCAA fun to watch. Grinding, low-scoring basketball....eh, not so much. Seems like the Championship is often one of the worst games of the tournament.

[JFCats22]

Cal at UK record by month against ranked teams. I did this quick but I think it's correct

November: 6-5 (54.5%)
December: 12-4 (75%)
January: 7-3 (70%)
February: 8-8 (50%)
March: 24-10 (70%)

[Joneslab]

I actually think basketball is a weird sport where sometimes you will have teams playing ungodly good games in November and you might not see a performance like that for the rest of the year. You also might see a team that's playing really well late and they lay down a clunker in March that just doesn't make any sense and all of a sudden their season is over.

I think this is because basketball is so contingent on effort, hustle, scrap, etc. It's also very contingent on match-ups. You might have a team that goes through a season and doesn't improve a whole lot but draw a good match-up for their particular personnel in March.

For instance, both UConn teams we lost to in March (2011 and 2014) were bad match-ups for those particular Kentucky teams IMO. Both improved in hellacious ways throughout the year but ran into teams that did things they weren't really suited to counter.

[Blue Heaven]

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....

BINGO! For years I refused to believe this and then we played Wisconsin and Cal refused to feed KAT in the post. Worst coaching move of his whole career.

[Dwight Schrute]

I do kind of agree that Cal shrinks in big moments. Cal is really really good at getting a lot out of these teams and getting a group of freshmen to play beyond their years, but he gets outcoached a lot. I think part of that is that he takes his foot off the gas too early and tries to take the life out of the game, and that gets you beat a lot.

[Lighthouse]

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.

Great post! The OP is always interested in one thing, negativity, Of course our winning percentages are less in March and especially April. The only percent that is puzzling is February, but the others are very explainable. Start with April. Most years the only games that occur in April is the Final Four, and I would imagine that most Coaches winning percentage is low in that month especially if they've made it several times as Kentucky has. March, many games here are also tournament games because the SEC and NCAA rounds are then.

Personally I have been pleased with Cal's success as our Coach. I don't always agree with the way he Coaches, but I will never talk against him or belittle his record at UK. This team is puzzling right now and they may not be a factor this year, but they are THE team I choose to cheer for and that's exactly what I plan to do.

[Lighthouse]

BINGO! For years I refused to believe this and then we played Wisconsin and Cal refused to feed KAT in the post. Worst coaching move of his whole career.

That was not Cal's decision and one of the Harrison's admitted it right after the game. Wisc made a defensive move that made it more difficult but at the last our guards had the ball and didn't get it to KAT. Cal would never say this, but they did.

[lilproUK98]

That was not Cal's decision and one of the Harrison's admitted it right after the game. Wisc made a defensive move that made it more difficult but at the last our guards had the ball and didn't get it to KAT. Cal would never say this, but they did.

Yes, but the entire problem with that whole sequence of 3 straight shot clock violations is Cal ran the circle play over and over and sat on the ball. He put the ultimate pressure on his players and when the clock got under 8 seconds the Harrisons were stuck trying to make a play. That strategy has won us some games and lost us some games, unfortunately against Wisconsin, it backfired.

[Catsrock]

What still stings for me about the Wisconsin game has nothing to do with getting the ball to Townes. It's that--and it may have been total BS--Cal claimed they watched no tape on Wisconsin because we had the better team. Either the dumbest or the most arrogant thing I've ever heard from a high dollar coach. Chances are they actually did watch tape--so why say this?

[lilproUK98]

What still stings for me about the Wisconsin game has nothing to do with getting the ball to Townes. It's that--and it may have been total BS--Cal claimed they watched no tape on Wisconsin because we had the better team. Either the dumbest or the most arrogant thing I've ever heard from a high dollar coach. Chances are they actually did watch tape--so why say this?

Cal watches tape of every opponent. I'm sure Robic does as well. Most of that game comes down to the razor thin margin for error we tried to win that game with. The shot clock violation may have altered the outcome, but we played that game so tight, that we paralyzed ourselves. That Wisconsin team had revenge factor, a great coach, and really good players. It was the one team that scared me and many other UK fans. Unfortunately, we met them in the worst spot IMO, the semifinals.