Kansas vs. Kentucky: Game Thread

[KentuckyWild2020]

This team doesn't have 8 to 10 talented players.

It probably has more like 3 and 1/2. Couple other guys who are system players and vets so they hold the line out there.

This team is certainly more talented than Cal has made them, and he's over-complicated the heck out of the thing, but we don't have hardly any ballers out there. A couple, really, with Oscar and Wallace. Toppin and Reeves can do some amazing things but only sometimes.

When the five who play together well all are out there buying in like we saw against Vandy and Georgia and Tennessee then they can be okay, but this team would be stomped by almost every good Calipari team.

This isn't an apology for Cal because he caused this. And as I said we should never be in the shape we're in. But this team is flat not talented in a way where somebody should say, "Man, they should be stomping teams!" or whatever. They're just not built like that.

I do question how Calipari and his staff evaluates talent. I think he just gets what he can get in the top whatever and hope it works, doesn't recruit for a particular system in my opinion.

I also wonder if he is afraid to tell a player straight up it may take more than a few years to get to the NBA level if he does come to Kentucky?

For instance Hopkins may have been told one thing coming in and once that didn't happen, he left.

K. Whitney for example, who evaluated him? What his his purpose at Kentucky? Was he just recruited to play top of the key on defense? Anything else he was just straight garbage in my opinion. Was it because he had a high school ranking that brought him here in the first place?

Anyways thank the basketball Gods Oscar fell in our lap, might be looking like Louisville this year, hard to even imagine that but also a real reality lol lol....

I miss the days of good Kentucky basketball even when they lost. Every year hoping to just make the NCAA tournament is getting old for sure....

[KentuckyWild2020]

Thiero is an interesting case. His dad played for Cal at Memphis and Cal is good friends with the family. You'd think Cal might lean a bit in Thiero's favor, instead he seems to be punishing the kid.

I don't understand it at all. I know not so long ago Hood's father was bashing Calipari on social media. Then you have other players like Gabriel and others speaking out while others have transferred and left the program all together, makes you wonder sometimes.

I have a client who has works security at Rupp for over 15 years, he's also season ticket holder dating back to the Memorial Col. days. The way they walk recruits in now a days isn't about the tradition of Kentucky, it's about all the posters of the NBA players that came through Kentucky, really ticks him off...


Cal is hard to figure out that's for sure....

[Joneslab]

For instance Hopkins may have been told one thing coming in and once that didn't happen, he left...

I've heard the Hopkins family wasn't happy from the start last year.

One problem you bring in when you run the program on the backs of all these potential NBA players: infighting, families getting involved in the team, etc.

I'd be willing to lay down good money that Kentucky has had more turmoil from families, more infighting, and more just outright sniping behind the scenes than any other program the last decade.

And that doesn't necessarily mean the team's gonna be bad. Sometimes talent can outweigh all that crap. But notice how often Cal talks about "noise" and "poison" and etc. What I think happens is that all the promises he has to make on the recruiting trail bubble up and come back to bite him once the season starts.

These are the breaks when you fashion yourself as an NBA farm team.

[KentuckyWild2020]

I've heard the Hopkins family wasn't happy from the start last year.

One problem you bring in when you run the program on the backs of all these potential NBA players: infighting, families getting involved in the team, etc.

I'd be willing to lay down good money that Kentucky has had more turmoil from families, more infighting, and more just outright sniping behind the scenes than any other program the last decade.

And that doesn't necessarily mean the team's gonna be bad. Sometimes talent can outweigh all that crap. But notice how often Cal talks about "noise" and "poison" and etc. What I think happens is that all the promises he has to make on the recruiting trail bubble up and come back to bite him once the season starts.

These are the breaks when you fashion yourself as an NBA farm team.

I can agree with that which is probably why Cal has these rotation problems, trying to keep everyone happy.

Easy for me to say he sucks finding the right lineups but i also bet there's are days he just wants to isolate and turn it all off, i bet they come at him from every angle 24/7 365......

[40bill]

I agree that Cal goes after the best, then leans on them blending together some way. You dont see many guys today that want to win as a team like Davis and MKG.
I also agree that when you design a program to showcase talent in a way to get to the next level QUICK, it doesn't lend to discipline and patience especially in this time of the transfer portal.

The true question may be if we see a time of program dominance over years like UCLA, Duke and Kentucky enjoyed. Not when guys like Vanderbilt, W Gabriel, Diallo and others can grab a million dollar ring as well as kids like Davis, Bam and Booker.

I tend to think those days may be done.

[KentuckyWild2020]

John Calipari says his legacy isn't about the records. His legacy is about helping his players for the rest of their lives.

This from the same guy who took the job and said he would surpass UCLA and Wooden..

It is what it is, finish strong make the tournament and see what happens...

[KentuckyWild2020]

I agree that Cal goes after the best, then leans on them blending together some way. You dont see many guys today that want to win as a team like Davis and MKG.
I also agree that when you design a program to showcase talent in a way to get to the next level QUICK, it doesn't lend to discipline and patience especially in this time of the transfer portal.

The true question may be if we see a time of program dominance over years like UCLA, Duke and Kentucky enjoyed. Not when guys like Vanderbilt, W Gabriel, Diallo and others can grab a million dollar ring as well as kids like Davis, Bam and Booker.

I tend to think those days may be done.

Down the road if another coach comes in and can recruit some top notch talent, good possibility Calipari's memory at Kentucky gets erased real quick. He has had some great talent and has underachieved as a whole in my opinion. Then again, maybe the recruits have not been as good as advertised and rated to highly, maybe my expectations are unrealistic, i don't know.

On the other side of this, if Meeks comes back and we don't lay a egg against Wisconsin, could be sitting here with 3 NCAA Championships....

Regardless, just going to suck it up and let it run it's course, Cal will eventually retire and move on in my opinion, i just don't want a 80 year old John Chaney situation at Kentucky lol lol......

[Joneslab]

The true question may be if we see a time of program dominance over years like UCLA, Duke and Kentucky enjoyed. Not when guys like Vanderbilt, W Gabriel, Diallo and others can grab a million dollar ring as well as kids like Davis, Bam and Booker.

I tend to think those days may be done.

Definitely gone.

And really if you think about it, there haven't been any other situations like that in the half-century since UCLA.

Duke in the early '90s and Florida in the mid 2000s are the only two back-to-back champions in almost 50 years.

The sport of (men's) basketball is way too balanced. Somebody mentioned (I think it was you) just last week how basketball is a team sport. It is...but man basketball has so many individual concepts. This is why it's always been compared to jazz music: one guy can make a world of difference in this sport.

That's a large part of why the college basketball field is so even every year. The NCAA Tournament is a brutal gauntlet where luck absolutely plays a part in who wins.

[Lighthouse]

I would love to see a coach at Kentucky who would recruit kids who want to play here because it's Kentucky. One thing Cal has accomplished that is not good for our program, is recruit kids who could care less about our program. I'm sure this wish is a thing of the past also.

[Joneslab]

I would love to see a coach at Kentucky who would recruit kids who want to play here because it's Kentucky. One thing Cal has accomplished that is not good for our program, is recruit kids who could care less about our program. I'm sure this wish is a thing of the past also.

I don't think this is true.

When you see them openly weeping after the games you see that many of these guys do want to be at UK. Check out the video of Bam, Fox, and Monk after their NCAA loss. Heartbreaking stuff. I'd put those guys desire to be in that uniform up against almost anyone's.

One thing about your point here is that it simplifies the situation when in fact it could be a both/and rather than an either/or. It's possible--and in fact this is what I think is happening--you have a situation here where many of these players both have a dream of playing in the NBA and playing for UK.

I wouldn't even say it about this team as dysfunctional as they've been. The Tennessee game, where you had guys jubilant after the game and assistants weeping on the sideline with a coach who was pretty much in tears in his postgame press conference is proof that all these guys want to be here and they want to win.

However what does happen sometimes is you get the desire for the NBA outweighing the desire to be at Kentucky. That's happened. It definitely was going on in the COVID year.

[Dwight Schrute]

I would love to see a coach at Kentucky who would recruit kids who want to play here because it's Kentucky. One thing Cal has accomplished that is not good for our program, is recruit kids who could care less about our program. I'm sure this wish is a thing of the past also.

This is a trope that is nonsense.

[Joneslab]

The main problem there is we don't know who wants to be at UK and who doesn't. It's really hard to tell so you pretty much have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Terrence Jones is a good example of this. Guy was a mess for awhile but then he became integral to Cal's best team here.

You just never know. I liked Gerald Fitch...but I've heard Fitch was a really problematic person off the court and he made it to UK basically by accident.

Dipping back further into the past: Ralph Beard by all accounts was a good man and a heck of a player. But that guy was involved in one of the most egregious college gambling scandals of all time.

You never know with these guys. Might as well just assume they want to be here. Anything else is cynical.

And, you know, the great irony about this particular team: we only have one bona fide NBA player on the dang roster. Having more guys capable of playing in the NBA would shore up a lot of our problems.

[Dwight Schrute]

The thing is people assume because they look out for their futures and their careers that a guy doesn't care about the university. Then you hear John Calipari potentially has $30M of former players lined up for a new practice facility.

[40bill]

It's possible for us of a certain age to glorify days gone by a bit too much. NBA salaries (all sports) are at a place none of us could have dreamed thirty years ago.....much less the players of 78 that some of us remember well.
The addition of social media should also be considered. Players of the 70s, 80s....likely through the 90s only saw a bit of criticism in newspapers, and during the Hall years that was heavily overseen.

While I wish kids did play for love of the school, how many would continue to love the school or the fans when their every miscues was pointed out during the game, and weeks after?

Gotta wonder how much deep love guys like Wheeler have for the fans or the uniform.

But yes, I believe at one time kids did play for an Indiana or Kentucky because of the name of the team more than individual stats.

[GOCAT15]

The thing is people assume because they look out for their futures and their careers that a guy doesn't care about the university. Then you hear John Calipari potentially has $30M of former players lined up for a new practice facility.

Everyone gets stuck on if these kids care about the school or not, but do you really think that the Untouchables all came here because it was "Kentucky" or because they liked Pitino and his style of play? Did all of Cal's recruits bail on Memphis to come here because it was "Kentucky"....nope, just like they didn't commit to Memphis because of the school, it was because of the coaching staff.

You just have to hope to get some local talent that is homegrown but unfortunately is pretty rare these days that can compete at this level. I'm sure all of us are going to be rooting for Reed probably as much as any player in Cal era, at least I know I will be, but he is an anomaly.

I just don't think we are any different than any other big name school, kids aren't going to Duke and Kansas because of the names on the jerseys, it's because of the coaches. As much as I hate the NBA factory concepts, I sure would love for Cal to somehow get a new facility built with funds from all of his billionaire ex players to show how much they do care about the school they may have only played at for one year.