The Goat Pen

Mary Willingham was features on HBO's Real Sports tonight

7 players from the Championship team took no show African American Studies classes and their schedules were given to them by the athletics department.

The NCAA has no balls

If I have to hear my girlfriend bitch about the social dramas associated with this damn garden club one more time, I am going to scream. She has a career (the only one out of that group who has a real job...and this goes for the ones who don't even have children), and it is a great career. You wouldn't think that she would get worked up about a bunch of desperate housewives acting like middle school girls, but she most definitely is. You would think she lost a fucking loved one on Flight 370. Good grief. It's time to put this call on speaker phone and break out the scotch.

A damn garden club...

eCat wrote:Mary Willingham was features on HBO's Real Sports tonight

7 players from the Championship team took no show African American Studies classes and their schedules were given to them by the athletics department.

The NCAA has no balls

Those kids needed to learn to play defense, start off games with intensity, play hard for forty minutes and close out games. They learned enough in other classes.

See, this is why I said UK got their dream bracket. Here are the kinds of headlines out there about their upcoming game with Louisville. And the same was true of Wichita St. And this is regarding the 8 seed. UK is in the catbird seat, no doubt...

"Fear and loathing: Kentucky worries Louisville faithful

Cardinals fans are feeling the pressure of facing the last team they wanted to see in the tournament."

they just had to beat a #1 seed to get there

Still have 12 of 16 left.

"they just had to beat a #1 seed to get there"

Again, I think that was exactly the type of motivation this year's UK squad needed to get over the hump. And you don't even need to talk about motivation for the next game, although the same is true for Louisville, and they do have the revenge factor of their recent tourny loss to UK as maybe a little extra. Obviously I don't want to see UK win it all this year (or any year, the only mitigating factor being knowing eCat, Crotch and Blue) b/c of the extra recruiting edge an NC always provides (not that UK needs any extra these days), but I could easily see it happening...

they played an amazing game against Wichita St. and a good game against Florida

My concern is however - they are freshmen AAU ballers.

If we continue to play at this level I think we are a championship caliber team

but I'm just not convinced after watching this team all year we will show up and play smart ball every game.

I will say this - I've never seen a team want to win a game as badly as WSU did against UK, and for UK to withstand that was pretty gratifying.

However, if by some miracle UK did manage to get to the title game, it would be a huge story - and it would absolutely kill the remaining basketball purists out there who think OADs are killing the game.

yeah, well, probably the most dubious No. 1 seed in the tourney in years considering Wich. St. hadn't played a ranked team all year. It was the perfect setup by the selection committee. Give the Shockers a chance to show what they had against a team that could be dangerous but had basically been a flop all season. And give UK a chance at redemption with an entirely reachable goal of beating a No. 1 seed that really isn't.

UK won that game by hitting all its FTs in the final moment which is as clutch as it gets in March. Now they get to play archrival and defending champ Louisville in the We're-Just-Glad-To-Be=Here round. A win here puts the Wildcats into Everything-From-Now-On-Is-Just-Gravy territory. But 2 wins this week is easily within UK's capabilities. I don't know if those kids have the wherewithal to put together 4 more wins but I can see them getting to the FF, which would make this season not so forgettable.

While I'm not a purist, I do collect some joy from seeing teams struggle that rely heavily on OADs. If this UK team, arguably the embodiment of everything that's wrong with college hoops today (the team, not the program), wins it all, it will truly suck for everyone, esp. the UK fans because Cal will likely jump ship, secure in his legacy that he, too, wasn't a OAD in terms of titles.

OTOH, UK could be run out of the gym by UofL, making it two straight seasons that were forgettable for the Wildcat faithful. Such is the abrupt and harsh nature of March...

A team that wins to go on a deep tourney run is called a Cinderella

A team that loses early is called a "Duke"


...Jimmy Fallon

Saint wrote:yeah, well, probably the most dubious No. 1 seed in the tourney in years considering Wich. St. hadn't played a ranked team all year. It was the perfect setup by the selection committee. Give the Shockers a chance to show what they had against a team that could be dangerous but had basically been a flop all season. And give UK a chance at redemption with an entirely reachable goal of beating a No. 1 seed that really isn't.

UK won that game by hitting all its FTs in the final moment which is as clutch as it gets in March. Now they get to play archrival and defending champ Louisville in the We're-Just-Glad-To-Be=Here round. A win here puts the Wildcats into Everything-From-Now-On-Is-Just-Gravy territory. But 2 wins this week is easily within UK's capabilities. I don't know if those kids have the wherewithal to put together 4 more wins but I can see them getting to the FF, which would make this season not so forgettable.

While I'm not a purist, I do collect some joy from seeing teams struggle that rely heavily on OADs. If this UK team, arguably the embodiment of everything that's wrong with college hoops today (the team, not the program), wins it all, it will truly suck for everyone, esp. the UK fans because Cal will likely jump ship, secure in his legacy that he, too, wasn't a OAD in terms of titles.

OTOH, UK could be run out of the gym by UofL, making it two straight seasons that were forgettable for the Wildcat faithful. Such is the abrupt and harsh nature of March...

you know its easy to knock Cal about not being a very good X's and O's coach and I've even thought that at some point, but you look at teams that rely so heavily on a OAD - Kansas, Duke, - I'd even put Syracuse in that category - all good coaches who tanked both in the tourney and during the season (Cuse was falling apart at the end). So the moral of the story is, if you sell your soul for a OAD, be prepared to have your coaching acumen questioned while the kid(s) learn to actually play the game.

Pitino is a great tourney coach. UL is a 4 seed and had an argument to be a 1 seed , and on top of that its a rivalry game that quite frankly, I think UL wants more right now - so I'm not going to be surprised if UL puts together a very good game against us. I just can't let myself believe that UK will put together another game the caliber of the WSU game.

I hope UK gets to the FF and loses a close one to, say, Zona, with all the freshmen playing great. Up their stock and get them gone, but without an NC. Last thing I want is UK to actually have some experienced talent on their team to shepherd (or goatherd) the newbies...

I don't know if Cal is a good coach or not. I don't know if any of them are. I guess they have their moments when what they do works and some that don't. Most guys who succeed as college head coaches are good administrators as well as judgers of talent and personalities. It helps to understand some core elements of success on the court or to be an innovator, but I don't think any coach is where he is strictly because of game management.

As far as Cal goes, I think this "dribble-drive" thing is the biggest bunch of hype I've ever heard. It's a way of saying, he gets players who can penetrate and attack like they do in the NBA and has dubbed it with a redundant but catchy moniker.

Mostly, I believe, Cal is a salesman and a damn good one. He's a closer and a damn good one. He'll eventually get to the place he's wanted to go because he's coaching in the era that suits him best. Just like Dean Smith would be slumping around at a mid-major today trying to win 15 games a year, Cal wasn't going to succeed in an earlier era when it wasn't just about collecting the best players each year, trying to coach them for 3 months and then starting over.

Saint wrote:I don't know if Cal is a good coach or not. I don't know if any of them are. I guess they have their moments when what they do works and some that don't. Most guys who succeed as college head coaches are good administrators as well as judgers of talent and personalities. It helps to understand some core elements of success on the court or to be an innovator, but I don't think any coach is where he is strictly because of game management.

As far as Cal goes, I think this "dribble-drive" thing is the biggest bunch of hype I've ever heard. It's a way of saying, he gets players who can penetrate and attack like they do in the NBA and has dubbed it with a redundant but catchy moniker.

Mostly, I believe, Cal is a salesman and a damn good one. He's a closer and a damn good one. He'll eventually get to the place he's wanted to go because he's coaching in the era that suits him best. Just like Dean Smith would be slumping around at a mid-major today trying to win 15 games a year, Cal wasn't going to succeed in an earlier era when it wasn't just about collecting the best players each year, trying to coach them for 3 months and then starting over.

all dribble drive is - is telling a highly touted point guard (or backcourt tandem) that you're going to let them be the decision make on the court and decide when to slash or shoot - Its a recruiting strategy

I was just talking to a customer, trying to bullshit him b/c we can't get him a truck today, I told him "we have a fine-tuned system around here, if anything goes wrong, it throws the whole thing out of whack" and he said "You couldn't fine-tune a fart"...

And he was wrong about that.

Saint wrote: As far as Cal goes, I think this "dribble-drive" thing is the biggest bunch of hype I've ever heard.

Exactly

crotch wrote:

Saint wrote: As far as Cal goes, I think this "dribble-drive" thing is the biggest bunch of hype I've ever heard.

Exactly

not to a 17 year old kid with NBA aspirations

Actually, the dribble-drive is a base offense predicated on four ball-handlers/shooters and a single post man who sets up on the opposite block of the ball for lobs. It's an three-option offense - penetrate to the rack, kick out for the three or lob for the dunk. When the ball is kicked out, if a three is not taken, the process starts over with penetration for a bucket, a kick-out or a lob (the big must move to the opposite block on the drive). At Memphis, with Rose, CDR and company, Cal's team ran it. At UK, the 2012 and 2010 squads ran it best. Thought they'd be much better at it this year with the three-guards that can drive and shoot, but they've been more stagnant on offense more than any other year (save last season's abomination). Lot of that was probably stand around and watch Randle do his thing, but that's no excuse.

Put that Kool-Aid down!