The Goat Pen

well i guess it's New York Knicks time for ole Calipari.

love this graf from the Herald-Leader's story:

Kentucky, which trailed for only nine minutes and eight seconds in six NCAA Tournament games, won the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1998. The eight titles leaves UK trailing only UCLA, which has won 11.

that's been the case for, oh, about 40 years now

Congratulations to Crotch, eCat, Blue, Cats Rule and the rest of the non-Crow UK folks.

"kansas went 2o years after Danny M..."

That's not Mick's fault...

Bill Self used up all his magic against Cal in 2008. Kansas tried to make it interesting right there at the end, but 3 turnovers in the closing minutes in the midst of their run killed them. Not saying they would've won without those to's (and of course UK probably had something to do with them), but it might've made for a barn-burner instead of a smoldering wet haystack if they hadn't blown 3 crucial possessions to close it out...

Just think how good UK will be next year if all their guys come back!

you don't go to UK to come back

the spector of davis won that game with KU missing layupo after layup thinking he was around somewhere.

I don't think anybody beats kentucky though if cal hadn't let off the gas. the first half they had as much skill as any half I've seen all year--could have beaten many a nba team with that defense and transition game. . Cal would be to blame if KU could have converted --especially that steal at halfcourt which they fumbled away--4 point swing down to single possession who knows.

He should have learned the first game you don't take your foot off their throats.

love my cats

Cal took the heat for "letting off the gas", but that was the youth and inexperience. Watched this team do that time, after time, after time this year. That's where the critics are right on the one and done criticism. This group didn't know how to put a team away that had some fight left in it. But, they were too talented to give it away, too. It was going to take either a more talented team or a team close in talent with a little more experience to beat them and UNC was the only team in the nation that could fit that description this year.

God, the air tastes sweeter this morning.

Congrats to the UK fans here...

Oh, and Wolken nails it...http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/04/03 ... -game-1-3/

The Kentucky name, the tradition, the banners, the Big Blue? They were all meaningless. Players didn’t care about any of that. College basketball had changed a lot in a decade, but Kentucky was still clinging to the past. Calipari, with a renegade reputation and an NBA-centric approach, had begun to leave those kinds of programs in the dust.

That's bullshit. Anybody that follows a school that doesn't have the name, the banners, and the tradition, and is trying to compete knows that those things DO matter to the players.

After scoring tickets on the street Saturday, we left for the game around six in a drenching thunderstorm. had to run through the rain to get there. Umbrella helped but not much. Crowd was about 3 to 1 for UK. Tense game in the second half, you knew KS would make a run at it. All in all it was a thrill to be part of it. Now if Cal gets the class he's recruiting we can do it all again next year in CATLANTA!!!

I predict Cal will land the Nerleens kid, Shabazz and the dude from UConne who is transferring. That team will be better than this year's version...

Fifer wrote:After scoring tickets on the street Saturday, we left for the game around six in a drenching thunderstorm. had to run through the rain to get there. Umbrella helped but not much. Crowd was about 3 to 1 for UK. Tense game in the second half, you knew KS would make a run at it. All in all it was a thrill to be part of it. Now if Cal gets the class he's recruiting we can do it all again next year in CATLANTA!!!

i'd like to believe that fifer...noel = davis; shabazz = mkg; bennet = jones; harrow = teague; goodwin = lamb....but i don't see who's gonna replace miller--it would have to be jones, mkg, or lamb, and i don't see any of those 3 returning

but we'll be damn good...

hedge wrote:I predict Cal will land the Nerleens kid, Shabazz and the dude from UConne who is transferring. That team will be better than this year's version...

Regardless if how anyone feels about the players coming off the gas (against, seemingly what Cal is coaching...which seems a bit odd, because it didn't look that way on the sidelines) these kids all made plays (offensively and defensively) when it mattered in the game last night. They did that all season. You can't lose MKG and Davis and just "replace" them with new blue chippers. Those kids are special and are not cut from a common cloth of other AAU stars.

Freshman don't normally play with a collective agenda. Enjoy this team and don't be foolish enough to think it will be easily duplicated...even if every blue chipper Cal coveted signed a LOI for next year.