Kentucky vs St Peter's Game Thread.

[DA#23]

Had to work last night and thankfully missed this one. I don’t know what to say other than Oscar deserved better. He was a joy to watch all season and I wish nothing but the best for him.

Not sure where we go from here…but I suspect it’s going to become quite a bit worse before we start to improve.

[Dwight Schrute]

A lot of questions but next year’s team could be pretty good. Remains to be seen what NIL accomplishes in terms of getting players to return that have no business going pro, but it could be a different ballgame.

Right now though? I’m pissed.

[uglyduckling]

Other thing that sucks is that it's only the second day of the tournament and I have ZERO interest in watching. Yesterday I was amped, had 3 games streaming on one of my screens at work and now MEH.

[KCKUKFan]

Other thing that sucks is that it's only the second day of the tournament and I have ZERO interest in watching. Yesterday I was amped, had 3 games streaming on one of my screens at work and now MEH.

Same.

Sucks.

[Joneslab]

Other thing that sucks is that it's only the second day of the tournament and I have ZERO interest in watching. Yesterday I was amped, had 3 games streaming on one of my screens at work and now MEH.

Same.

I'll still watch, but like you said it's not anywhere close to the same. That Murray St./San Fran game last night was epic and I was just watching it thinking, "Why, Cal, WHY?"

[KCKUKFan]

A lot of questions but next year’s team could be pretty good. Remains to be seen what NIL accomplishes in terms of getting players to return that have no business going pro, but it could be a different ballgame.

Right now though? I’m pissed.

What's really gonna be brutal is if Oscar, Sahvir, TyTy, Keion, Lance, etc. etc. leave anyway and we have to start from scratch.

I'm not going to even consider it at this point, because it just gives me anxiety.

[Joneslab]

I was interested in Cal's first comments in the presser last night: "I couldn't get guys to shoot balls."

It's odd and super frustrating that here we were on March 17th and the coach couldn't impart his gameplan to his players--particularly players who are 25 years old.

Some sort of weird breakdown occurred with this team at some point. Not sure why...nor really does it matter why. It all points back to the head coach.

[Joneslab]

What's really gonna be brutal is if Oscar, Sahvir, TyTy, Keion, Lance, etc. etc. leave anyway and we have to start from scratch.

I'm not going to even consider it at this point, because it just gives me anxiety.

Cal has been in scramble mode in the spring/summer for the past six years. No reason to think this off-season will be any different.

[DA#23]

^ He lost the team.

I think KC’s fears about departing players will come to fruition. Will he keep all of the staff together? How do you stop the inevitable bleeding?

Just a really impressive fall from the sky in the last 3 weeks. From possibly getting the fourth 1 seed to doomsday

[Joneslab]

I saw where Jonathan Givony had a pretty brutal beatdown of Cal and Cal's system last night on Twitter. He re-watched the whole game and had several thoughts. It's definitely well worth your time if you have the stomach to read anything about that cursed game.

Givony's takeaway was basically that no successful coach in the world (Givony is a walking encyclopedia of foreign basketball) plays the style Calipari plays. It's so bottled up, so contained, that it makes driving lanes super difficult and allows the defense to basically sag and slough.

We've talked about some of that in the past right here on WCN. However (and Givony has more basketball knowledge in his pinky than I do in my whole noggin) I will say that offensively this team was clicking until Grady and TyTy went south. So I think the system was working. In fact in the analytics Kentucky was super high offensively all year.

Putting Grady and TyTy's collapse to the side for a second, the problem with this team remained defense. There were things that teams did in almost every game this year that we just could not figure out.

[Matt Dillon]

I really don't understand the logic of making fun of a program that's in a better position than the one you cheer for.

I've often wondered about that myself.

[surveyor]

Unfortunately unable to watch last night but followed score on my phone. Had high hopes for this team. They seemed to genuinely like playing together and Oscar's gentle demeanor belies how tough he is on the court. Certainly didn't expect this. I feel bad for the guys because they were a likeable group.

[KCKUKFan]

I saw where Jonathan Givony had a pretty brutal beatdown of Cal and Cal's system last night on Twitter. He re-watched the whole game and had several thoughts. It's definitely well worth your time if you have the stomach to read anything about that cursed game.

Givony's takeaway was basically that no successful coach in the world (Givony is a walking encyclopedia of foreign basketball) plays the style Calipari plays. It's so bottled up, so contained, that it makes driving lanes super difficult and allows the defense to basically sag and slough.

We've talked about some of that in the past right here on WCN. However (and Givony has more basketball knowledge in his pinky than I do in my whole noggin) I will say that offensively this team was clicking until Grady and TyTy went south. So I think the system was working. In fact in the analytics Kentucky was super high offensively all year.

Putting Grady and TyTy's collapse to the side for a second, the problem with this team remained defense. There were things that teams did in almost every game this year that we just could not figure out.

After the Notre Dame game, Cal opened up the offense for the first time since early in the Herro team's year.

And then, inevitably, he started tightening the screws down the stretch like he always does and the team looked perplexed.

[Joneslab]

After the Notre Dame game, Cal opened up the offense for the first time since early in the Herro team's year.

And then, inevitably, he started tightening the screws down the stretch like he always does and the team looked perplexed.

I saw somebody say this last night.

I just don't think it's true. What evidence is there that he actually did this?

It looked to me like we were running virtually the same stuff against Kansas that we were running last night. The difference is that the individual players broke down, and when they started breaking down Cal had no idea how to throw them a lifeline.

Note that I'm not saying Cal's system is all that great or anything. As we all know, it's pretty basic--among some of the most basic stuff that's run in all of college basketball. I just don't think "Cal changed and we were awesome and then he changed back and we collapsed" is correct.

[Joneslab]

I will say that Cal's insistence on putting Brooks and Toppin out on the wing and having them be facilitators of the offense at times hardly ever worked.

Which is kinda what Givony's saying. By putting guys out there who can't shoot, you clog everything up.

But where I would disagree with Givony is in the fact that we were playing those same guys all year in those same spots. And offensively I thought this was definitely in the top half of teams Cal has had here.