Also just to clear things up. There is no tone with that post. I am not upset or anything. Just want to clear that up before someone reads tone into it. 
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It's genetics that these guys are even able to play at this level, but making it to the NBA is a little more than that. You have to have the genes but you also have to have the mindset, the toughness, the skillset. Those things can be taught and I think this staff has done a good job with a lot of these guys. Particularly players like Lamb and Harrellson and Liggins and Darius: guys who aren't prototypical can't-miss NBA players.
A lot of people claim that Cal only recruits one-and-dones. Take a look at Devin Booker's high school rankings. Eric Bledsoe's. Doron's. Those guys weren't even close to one-and-dones when they came to UK. Could another coach have got those guys to the league and won all those games behind them? Probably. But the list is very small: Coach K, maybe Self, maybe a couple of others. Maybe.
And Wiltjer and Harrow have done well outside of UK but that's kind of a false argument simply because we don't know what Kyle Wiltjer at 21 years old would have done at UK. The last time we saw him he was 19 and his family was lamenting the fact that he was too weak and had never put in the necessary work in the weight room.
Ryan Harrow needed a change of venue. That had way more to do with the fanbase than anything Cal did or didn't do.Comment
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And I think you have to be a very good coach to make Final Fours consistently.
Some fans don't want to hear that. But that's because the bar is always being raised.
It's like dating a beautiful woman. Over time the beauty wears off and some guys don't even see that girl as beautiful anymore. He's been with her for too long and all he sees is the warts.
With Cal we take for granted things that ten years ago we would've maimed and plundered for. Final Fours being one.
There were absolutely epic battles on Wildcatfaithful about Tubby's lack of Final Fours. Fans set the Final Four as this incredible barrier, and Tubby's entire tenure was judged unfavorably because he couldn't get to one with a team he built. It was often said that if he could take just one team he recruited to the FF that would prove something.
Cal's taken four of five. Should have won at least one more. Shouldn't have even been there with a couple of those teams.
But four Final Fours in his six years here, five Final Fours in the last eight years...that's startling to think about and really can only be matched in the modern era by Coach K, Billy Donovan's two titles, Jim Calhoun probably, and Roy Williams' run late at Kansas and early at Carolina*. Not long ago, we would have done virtually anything to achieve that kind of thing.
(*Cal's closest cousin in the coaching ranks is 2005-2010 Roy Williams.)Last edited by Joneslab; 05-20-2015, 07:06 PM.Comment
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Well like I said no way to prove it. Some guys make it Cal gets credit, some guys don't make it and well its just the way it is. Devin Booker came in as a shooter, he shot the ball well (as advertised) he is going to the NBA on potential. Did you see him trying to play D against Wisconsin? He was eaten alive! Goodwin didn't change one bit under Cal, one of the lowest basketball I.Q.'s I have seen in a while. He went on potential.Comment
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That was one game. Generally I think Booker was a better defender than I thought he'd be. He was punished by two pros--big pros--against Wisconsin. No shame in that and it happens to guys even in the NBA.
But I don't think anybody had Devin Booker going in the top ten of the draft, which is where it looks like he might go. I said this elsewhere but I saw a recruiting expert on Twitter say that he didn't think Booker and Ulis were good fits at Kentucky because they were four-year guys.
I'm not saying Cal should or shouldn't get credit for that. It's always the player first who put in that work. But I'm also not going to chalk it up to simply genetics and give the UK coaching staff no credit at all. It's a mix.Comment
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Cal knows that saying stuff like that bothers the fanbase. I don't get why he has to say it, like, every time the opportunity comes up, that the goal is not to win titles. He doesn't have to broadcast it.
He talks about how important basketball is to us, how we're crazy (which, has anyone ever thought that was backhanded?), how we use our mortgage money to buy tickets. So how can he just be nonchalant with saying it's not their goal? Ahhhhh, Cal, why do you do this? Love you, man, but just don't like it.
PS Please stay here until you retire.Comment
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Honestly, i think some of the GM's in the league have sipped on the KOOL AIDE the past few years in regrads to Cal's guys. It's almost as if guys like Lamb,Booker, Darkari, and a few others get a free pass simple because they are looked at as guys who had to sacrifice numberS in college. Liggins,Miller, and Harrellson are the exception but at the same time, are any of these guys UNDER CONTRACT for a NBA team at this point? Personally i think all 3 are good enough to make a roster and it's all about finding the right situation for each. Still, is Calipari putting guys in the NBA the same way that Martin will be putting J. Brown in the draft next year?They are going to get drafted regardless based on future potential.
I still think Cal is the master at getting young guys with potential mentally prepared for the next level in a short time period, advantage Calipari hands down......Last edited by J.Jennings; 05-20-2015, 10:31 PM.Comment
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Let's back up a minute and talk about Booker. With his jump shot and ability to get to the rim pretty much anytime he wants in control, i think the scouts in high school where wrong with his abilities and his rankings. I don't think Calipari taught him all that in a year and the recruiting expert on Booker was WRONG!! Booker is all day long NBA material in my opinion...Comment
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Easy to see why with some of the success the top tier guys have had. Everybody's looking for the next Wall or Davis or Cousins. Even Jones and Bledsoe and Knight have had extremely impressive careers. NBA execs take notice of that sort of thing.
But there have also been guys who have benefited just because they came to UK and played under Cal. Duke has gotten some of that same treatment over the years.
Marquis Teague and Daniel Orton were probably the poster children for this.Comment
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My beef isn't with Cal or the fact that we have lost some unexpected players to early exits, it's with Cal's sometime shady X's and O's game. Still, hard to sit here and say that Calipari is trash because look what he's done since he's been at Kentucky. I like Calipari because i think he's real, he wins, he recruits, and he's Italian lol lol. If he can just tighten up and get on top of his A game in the crunch he goes from top 3 to hands down the best there is in the college game hands down..
Since you referenced Cal to the "beautiful girl" after the new wears off. Instead of a makeover or a new girl, maybe Cal just needs a little motr makeup???Comment
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The biggest tweak Cal could make would be to convince guys to stay.
But he won't do that. And he shouldn't do that because that's not what he recruits on. He recruits on the message that when they want to go, they go.
But if some of these guys were to stay at Kentucky this thing would be insane. Obviously that will never happen. It's not how he operates and unfortunately it's not the '90s anymore. Cal's own success and his own message holds him back from being truly legendary.Comment
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It may be dumb for you but you're a lot younger than I am, and it's a lot different now, but when I was in HS playing ball and into my young adult life, I would had given anything to have been a part of any UK team. It's different now, but that's the way it was then, and I think it was a good thing,.
John 3:3
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