Pitino says that the UK defense was one of the best that he's seen in 40 years!
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Nice compliment but Ricky can only speak in superlatives. Every player and every game is the most SOMETHING he's ever seen. It's part of what makes it tough to respect anything he says. -
I have respect for what the guy says. He brought us from the darkest years in our history back to the top and he's had three different schools in a FF and won it all with two of them. For me, it's easy to respect what he says. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled with where we are today but he's very knowledgable and a great college coach.Comment
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Rick's penchant for hyperbole is duly noted, but I don't think what he said today was a stretch or means of saving face. I don't want to really study our defensive numbers because then, out of curiosity, I would compare them to '96 and realize this team's on a different level relative to their era...as in the only way to compare the two fairly. That's my thought, anyway.
I LOVED the '96 team and that era in general, but daggone this team is historic defensively RIGHT NOW. If only the Twins can get back on their game, maintain that, and we can develop a little more offensively.Comment
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Hard to talk too much about the offense after a game like that. Rivalry game, on the road, facing a team that's probably the second best in America defensively--that was a "just get out of here alive" game.
I thought in the second half we did some really good things offensively. But you aren't going to put up huge numbers against that team. The turnovers that plagued them in the first half really havn't shown up for Kentucky much at all this year. I tend to think that's just a byproduct of how Louisville plays.
We need better individual games out of guys like Andrew and Dakari. Would've made a world of difference today.
But generally I think we're okay offensively. Probably won't ever be great, but we don't need to be. If they maintain this pace defensively it's going to take a nearly perfect game to beat them.Comment
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And when you play defense like this it's going to take away from your offense.
You can't guard like Kentucky does and be a roaring engine on offense. It's physically impossible. If you go all in like that and contest everything, every pass and shot, you're going to suffer on offense simply because you've given so much physically on the other end.
We'll have games like UCLA and the like where we play really well. But I think it's going to be a situation where we grind a lot of games out.
But that's how 2012 won too. They weren't a tremendous offensive team. They had better three-point shooters but really didn't have much of a post game to speak of. Davis did most of his work on lobs. And that team had a point guard who most people wanted benched until about March.
To say this team can't win a title without its offense improves--I don't agree with that.Comment
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Our shooting percentages were very good today. The game was close because we gave the ball up 18 times to their 9, and we got used on the offensive boards.Comment
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Thought 2nd half the O did good. First half was tons of standing around. I hope over the next 9 days the team has a chance to work on our zone offense. You know we are about to get zoned to death in the SEC.Proverbs 25:24Comment
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Maybe Rick is a great college coach but I think John Calipari is a better college coach and I do respect what Pitino did for the program when he was here but he is no longer here but Cal is here and he can recruit better than any college coach that I have ever seen.Comment
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UofL fans are questioning why Pitino doesn't get "More Aces and Kings" like Cal does so all he has to do is roll the ball out. What these idiots can't comprehend is Cal gets his "aces and Kings" because guys can play early in his system and can improve enough in 1-3 years to make them attractive to the NBA. Cal's "system" does most of the recruiting for him. Pitino still has a complicated system where he has to expend a huge amount of time and effort teaching it, and it takes years to play well in it. Cal teaches drills, then he's able to apply those drills to game time situations. Cal is like the Rosetta Stone to learning French while Pitino is the equivalent to French 101, 102 103 and 104.Comment
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Whether we care for the OAD system or not, Calipari has made it work for him. Both Pitino and Roy Williams have commented that they couldn't coach with their methods doing what Calipari does. That doesn't mean Williams or Pitino won't try to get that NBA first round high school kid. It means their systems aren't set up for so many at one time. I really, really think that Calipari would rather have a mixture of upper classmen and those highly talented frosh. When you sell the dream of getting to the big show quickly that's difficult.
JMO....I would love to see college ball go back to the time of a four year player. (no, I won't go back to freshman not eligible). It isn't going to happen, for many good reasons, as long as the NBA allows early age entry. Hard to convince a kid to stay to get an education so he can land a good job when he can spend nine months and make a couple million a year. Especially when I remember Derrick Anderson, Sam Bowie, Winston Bennett, Rex Chapman all getting injuries that could well have ended it all even earlier. Can anyone blame Greg Oden? I don't even hold bad karma for Daniel Orton....not with his knee history.
Calipari has done wonders at UK. Final fours, a national title. Billy Donovan did it with a group that stuck together. Calipari did it with a whole different line up each time.
Pretty good results.Comment
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We have a lot of upper classmen this year. We have two juniors if you count Alex Poythress and several sophomores and a group of wonderful freshmen. What those kids did last year by coming back was in my opinion what made us such a deep Number 1 team this year. It would have been tough if we had to rely on our freshmen alone.Comment
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Did anyone see Rick and Cal on the Rome show? I can't hate on Rick and personally i think that both Cal and Rick think us fans are crazy. Rome said it best, it was like having Pacino and Deniro together like the movie HEAT (which happens to be my favorite movie of all time) lol lol lol lolComment
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