Which one is more important at UK? Me and some of my buddies were freezing our tails off at work today and we was talking about how coach Cal really isnt a good coach and how he normally gets out coached but with the great talent of his teams,they seem to always find a way to pull it out. I know it is cool to see a top 5 recruiting class each season but does it matter to go 28-2 and lose the big games or lose games getting to the big one.
So my question which is more important? Will Cal be at UK as long as he is recruiting top players and never getting to a final 4?
Cal coached a **** of a game last night. He was getting the ball right where he wanted it to be.
Tailback44 Wrote:Which one is more important at UK? Me and some of my buddies were freezing our tails off at work today and we was talking about how coach Cal really isnt a good coach and how he normally gets out coached but with the great talent of his teams,they seem to always find a way to pull it out. I know it is cool to see a top 5 recruiting class each season but does it matter to go 28-2 and lose the big games or lose games getting to the big one.
So my question which is more important? Will Cal be at UK as long as he is recruiting top players and never getting to a final 4?
-.^ Cal is a great coach. recruiting is part of coaching. Could u imagine how hard it is to take a bunch of star players and have them play as a team? Some times other teams play better. You cant put that on the coach. He is a great coach and great recruiter.
Anyone want me to get started on this one????
Umm - Memphis / Kansas Final Four; Kentucky / UMass Final Four; Kentucky / West Virginia - Elite 8
Recruiting is obvioulsy key. Cal is a very good coach, but he has had the most talented teams in the NCAA for the last decade and I'd argue his losses in each of his biggest games to being outcoached in the most significant of times. In the three examples above, his teams were lost on the court. Great coached teams rarely ever get lost or not know what to do down the stretch of big games.
As for the question of Cal's tenure, only time will tell. At some point and time, he will accrue enough talent that stays long enough and just can't lose.
Wildcatk23 Wrote:-.^ Cal is a great coach. recruiting is part of coaching. Could u imagine how hard it is to take a bunch of star players and have them play as a team? Some times other teams play better. You cant put that on the coach. He is a great coach and great recruiter.
Yeah, I guess it would be every coaches problem to try and take the best talent in the country and not under-achieve, versus taking a team that does not have the talent of another teams second five, yet still be successful. Show me when Cal has taken a team that didn't have one of the best players in the country and far exceeded anyone's expectations.
Stardust Wrote:Yeah, I guess it would be every coaches problem to try and take the best talent in the country and not under-achieve, versus taking a team that does not have the talent of another teams second five, yet still be successful. Show me when Cal has taken a team that didn't have one of the best players in the country and far exceeded anyone's expectations.
Having the most talent doesn't give you the best team. You have to have experience step up and take control. Cal cant make these players make buckets. If cals team wins a championship then will you call him a great coach?
Stardust if you want to zing Cal on coaching I wouldn't use those games as examples.
Memphis wins the National Title if Chalmers doesn't hit a huge shot with someone on him. I mean it was a up and down game from the start. Both teams were hands down the best that year IMO.
UK and UMass? Really? You saying he got out coached when he went up against one of the best NCAA teams of all time and hands down the best UK team ever? I know he best thme earlier in the year and that MissSt beat them but man, the 96 Cats were unbelievable.
Last year we knew UK had problems form the perimeter. Everyone did. And we all knew if we had a bad shooting night we could lose. Well, we had that night agasint WVU. Yea Huggins through on a 1-3-1. SO? The way we was shooting a 2-3 would have worked as well. Fact is UK was cold and it affected them emotionally. It affected their defense. They couldnt keep up with the momentum that WVU had.
I mean When he wins he looks great but when he loses he got out coached. He might but in those three games what could anyone else had done?
Wildcatk23 Wrote:Having the most talent doesn't give you the best team. You have to have experience step up and take control. Cal cant make these players make buckets. If cals team wins a championship then will you call him a great coach?
Umm, No coach can, can he?
You are absolutely right about having the best talent does not make you a great team. In the college ranks, having
talent and
a great coach makes you a great team. And there are a great number of examples of
Greatest talented teams that smoked in-season competiton, only to lose to better coached teams in the last minutes of basketball games. Cal has fit this in his career.
Memphis wins the title if Cal can direct his players in what seemed like the 40 timouts and fouls over the last four minutes of the game, to move the basketball to avoid fouls. Chalmers would have never got the chance to hit that big shot if it was not for the great coaching decision to put the Tigers on the free throw line on virutally every posession down the stretch. What was Cals answer on each of those timeouts? I'm not sure, but I sure remember watching those kids run around the floor with looks on their face like the had no clue.
The UMass's team if you recall was 35-2, and better than UK's final record that year, had beaten UK earlier in the season, and that season they were being ranked as one of the greatest teams of all time and I beleive was the #1 ranked team in the nation and the #1 overall seed in the tourney. (I will see if I can look it up, but I am positive they were the odds favorite in that game). Pitino's press completely stifled UMass, and a UMass had no answer down the stretch when Camby was so frustrated because the Minutemen could not get him the ball, yet UMass continued to try and force it to him instead of taking wide-open 15 footers in the last 10 minutes of the game (just watched this game on Netfilx 2 weeks ago). All those timeouts down the stretch, yet Cal could not get them to change what they were doing on the floor.
WVU is what it is. Sorry, but we have to accept, WVU was better prepared for their defense, than we were in finding a way to get the ball on the inside. A 1-3-1 is broken by making entry passes to the corner baseline, and then your 2 bigs flash to the top and bottom of the box. I don't recall UK's players ever getting to that position.
Amun-Ra Wrote:Stardust if you want to zing Cal on coaching I wouldn't use those games as examples.
Memphis wins the National Title if Chalmers doesn't hit a huge shot with someone on him. I mean it was a up and down game from the start. Both teams were hands down the best that year IMO.
UK and UMass? Really? You saying he got out coached when he went up against one of the best NCAA teams of all time and hands down the best UK team ever? I know he best thme earlier in the year and that MissSt beat them but man, the 96 Cats were unbelievable.
Last year we knew UK had problems form the perimeter. Everyone did. And we all knew if we had a bad shooting night we could lose. Well, we had that night agasint WVU. Yea Huggins through on a 1-3-1. SO? The way we was shooting a 2-3 would have worked as well. Fact is UK was cold and it affected them emotionally. It affected their defense. They couldnt keep up with the momentum that WVU had.
I mean When he wins he looks great but when he loses he got out coached. He might but in those three games what could anyone else had done?
Stardust Wrote:Umm, No coach can, can he?
You are absolutely right about having the best talent does not make you a great team. In the college ranks, having talent and a great coach makes you a great team. And there are a great number of examples of Greatest talented teams that smoked in-season competiton, only to lose to better coached teams in the last minutes of basketball games. Cal has fit this in his career.
If he wins a title is he a great coach?
Wildcatk23 Wrote:If he wins a title is he a great coach?
You can misconstrue my comments all you want, but my point has been consistent ever since I have posted about Cal. His teams struggle in games that mean the most when they are pressured to perform. That is great coaching to take the talent you have and not only win the games you should, but win the games that you shouldn't. So, does a great coach have to be someone who wins a national championship, absolutely not. But how can you defend that when a coach has the BEST talent, they can't get over the hump. Cal teams have been the better team on many occasions, but have not pulled out the games that they were supposed to win.
I seem to remember that on this very site, there was no one that gave WVU or USC a chance last year against the Cats, but we had some reason why we could not win those games that we were supposed to win.
They was great teams because they had a great coach, And yet you still never would admit he was a great coach if he wins a title.
Cal is a great recruiter, maybe the best recruiter ever. But he is not a great coach. Like Dust said, he's lost games when it means the most, and he had the better team. We were better than WVU at every position last year but still managed to lose. In Cal's last game at Memphis I watched him choke away a 9 point lead with a minute or so left. How someone can validate he is a great coach is beyond me. Great coaches aren't made in winning 30 meaningless games in the regular season. There made winning the most important games in the post season. Which Cal has done few times, with the best team in most cases. There's no reason UK shouldn't have won the title last year and Memphis the year before that. The Mavs won the most regular season games this past decade but none of the coaches for them were considered great because they didn't win when it actually mattered. When Cal wins when it matters then I will consider him a great coach.
To answer the question, it's a combination of both. If I had to pick one though, I'd go with recruiting.
Coaching. He'll always have a top 10 recruiting class. I think the top highschool players are realizing that getting a championship is more important than their guaranteed NBA contract when they decide to go.
Like Dusty said, I think eventually he'll have players that can't lose, and will win the National Championship. If that's not the case and we keep going to the Elite 8 and Final 4 after 6-12 years, I think he'd resign. But, as we all know, we'll have at least 1 title by then.
Aslan Wrote:Cal is a great recruiter, maybe the best recruiter ever. But he is not a great coach. Like Dust said, he's lost games when it means the most, and he had the better team. We were better than WVU at every position last year but still managed to lose. In Cal's last game at Memphis I watched him choke away a 9 point lead with a minute or so left. How someone can validate he is a great coach is beyond me. Great coaches aren't made in winning 30 meaningless games in the regular season. There made winning the most important games in the post season. Which Cal has done few times, with the best team in most cases. There's no reason UK shouldn't have won the title last year and Memphis the year before that. The Mavs won the most regular season games this past decade but none of the coaches for them were considered great because they didn't win when it actually mattered. When Cal wins when it matters then I will consider him a great coach.
To answer the question, it's a combination of both. If I had to pick one though, I'd go with recruiting.
:Thumbs:It would be argued that that the Memphis players choked by the Cal supporters. But in all of those timeouts, Cal was not able to convey the calmness, or ANY changes to those players that allowed them to be successful down the stretch of that game.
Wildcatk23 Wrote:They was great teams because they had a great coach, And yet you still never would admit he was a great coach if he wins a title.
Jim Harrick won a National Championship with UCLA. Sorry, but Harrick was NOT a great coach. He had the best talent of college basketball players in the nation that year. He went to Georgia, where he still had very good basketball players, but they were terrible! Winning a National Championship does not translate into being a great X's and O's guy!
It is amazing that UK has had one of the greatest X's and O's coaches in Tubby Smith and one of the greatest recruiters in John Calipari. imagine if we could make them one person, they would be unbeatable.
I honestly believe that if this NBA lockout happens, UK would be unbeatable. Could you imagine if Cal had two recruiting classes together? WOW!
I think Cal is a good coach AWAY from the game. That sounds ridiculous but he is good at recruiting, good at handling the ego's, good at teaching X's and O's in practice and breaking down game film but his two HUGE weaknesses is that his teams tend to be AWFUL at free-throw shooting and he does not make good adjustments in-game.
Ive said this forever now! cal is the "godfather" of recruiting! you cant beat him. However there is many coaches that I would rather have directing my players.
Good coaches have their team back in the game with 2 minutes to go down by 10.
Good recruiters have power house classes like we do at UK now.
Both have their ups and down, it could seriously go either way.
I like where UK stands, and I love our coach. That is all that needs to be said..
I mean who else out there are we going to get that can do a better job than Cal anyways?
Only a handful comes to mind when you talk about good/great coaches. Tom Izzo, Jim Beiheim, Coach K, possibly Bill Self, and then you have Cal.
Ballers Wrote:Good coaches have their team back in the game with 2 minutes to go down by 10.
Good recruiters have power house classes like we do at UK now.
Both have their ups and down, it could seriously go either way.
I like where UK stands, and I love our coach. That is all that needs to be said..
I mean who else out there are we going to get that can do a better job than Cal anyways?
Only a handful comes to mind when you talk about good/great coaches. Tom Izzo, Jim Beiheim, Coach K, possibly Bill Self, and then you have Cal.
I am going to get jumped for this but I will say it anyway. I would not put Jimmy B in that class. One title with the talent he has had? Izzo and Coach K are head and shoulders above the crowd.
Ballers Wrote:Good coaches have their team back in the game with 2 minutes to go down by 10.
Good recruiters have power house classes like we do at UK now.
Both have their ups and down, it could seriously go either way.
I like where UK stands, and I love our coach. That is all that needs to be said..
I mean who else out there are we going to get that can do a better job than Cal anyways?
Only a handful comes to mind when you talk about good/great coaches. Tom Izzo, Jim Beiheim, Coach K, possibly Bill Self, and then you have Cal.
Jim Calhoun doesn't come into the picture?
Coach Cal is a great recruiter, not much of a coach, he always gets outcoached against quality coaches. As Stardust already noted see UK/UMass 1996, Memphis/Kansas 2008, UK/WVU 2010.
Ballers Wrote:Good coaches have their team back in the game with 2 minutes to go down by 10.
Good recruiters have power house classes like we do at UK now.
Both have their ups and down, it could seriously go either way.
I like where UK stands, and I love our coach. That is all that needs to be said..
I mean who else out there are we going to get that can do a better job than Cal anyways?
Only a handful comes to mind when you talk about good/great coaches. Tom Izzo, Jim Beiheim, Coach K, possibly Bill Self, and then you have Cal.
What about Pitino as a Great Coach? What Pitino did with the No-Names may have been the best coaching in the Country ever. What he did with the 96 & 97 teams was phenomenal in taking maybe the greatest array of talent and winning the title and a Final Four.
Everyone hates on Rick now because he left the Cats and made his way back to Kentucky, but wears Blue. But Cal is the COACH who brought UK Basketball back to the National stage and put the best players in the High School ranks in Blue and White. I will forever be indebted as a Fan to Pitino. His teams should be boo'd when we match-up, but the HONOR that he brought back to the BLUE should never EVER be forgotten!
As for X's & O's, he learned from his loss to UMass the first time around and developed a gameplan that beat UMass by pure coaching in the Final Four. He without a doubt outcoached John C in that game.
Stardust Wrote:What about Pitino as a Great Coach? What Pitino did with the No-Names may have been the best coaching in the Country ever. What he did with the 96 & 97 teams was phenomenal in taking maybe the greatest array of talent and winning the title and a Final Four.
Everyone hates on Rick now because he left the Cats and made his way back to Kentucky, but wears Blue. But Cal is the COACH who brought UK Basketball back to the National stage and put the best players in the High School ranks in Blue and White. I will forever be indebted as a Fan to Pitino. His teams should be boo'd when we match-up, but the HONOR that he brought back to the BLUE should never EVER be forgotten!
As for X's & O's, he learned from his loss to UMass the first time around and developed a gameplan that beat UMass by pure coaching in the Final Four. He without a doubt outcoached John C in that game.
I didn't think about Pitino. What he did with that 88 team at UK was one of the best coaching jobs ever.
Stardust, your all over this lol.
Not that im comparing coach cal to coach K, But it took coach k 11 years to win his first title at duke. He lost in 4 final fours before jumping over the hump. Was he not a great coach at the time? In 1986 UL beat TOP ranked duke in the final. In 1988 kansas beat duke in the final four. 1989 duke was once again blew out by seton hall making an early exit from the tournament. In 1990 he was dominated by UNLV by 30 points...,. Then he got his championship and is now considered one of the greatest coaches of all time. Losing big games dont make u any less of a coach. Do you here any of these games when you hear coach k's name? NO, but you here the big games is 92 and so on. As soon as cal gets a championship under his belt that gets to stay there. Wont be long and u will have to admit hes a great coach.
Weather you have the best talent or the worse. Some times the other team just wins!
Wildcatk23 Wrote:Not that im comparing coach cal to coach K, But it took coach k 11 years to win his first title at duke. He lost in 4 final fours before jumping over the hump. Was he not a great coach at the time? In 1986 UL beat TOP ranked duke in the final. In 1988 kansas beat duke in the final four. 1989 duke was once again blew out by seton hall making an early exit from the tournament. In 1990 he was dominated by UNLV by 30 points...,. Then he got his championship and is now considered one of the greatest coaches of all time. Losing big games dont make u any less of a coach. Do you here any of these games when you hear coach k's name? NO, but you here the big games is 92 and so on. As soon as cal gets a championship under his belt that gets to stay there. Wont be long and u will have to admit hes a great coach.
Weather you have the best talent or the worse. Some times the other team just wins!
I'll put it to you this way, Coach K could have won with last years Cats, because he would have beaten the 1-3-1.
You can love the President because he is who you like, I only have to respect him and hope he does right by my Country, but I do not have to like him and they way he runs the nation and not bring it to it's knees. The same can be said about Coaches :popcorn:
Stardust Wrote:I'll put it to you this way, Coach K could have won with last years Cats, because he would have beaten the 1-3-1.
You can love the President because he is who you like, I only have to respect him and hope he does right by my Country, but I do not have to like him and they way he runs the nation and not bring it to it's knees. The same can be said about Coaches :popcorn:
In 1986 Duke won 37 games, the highest total for a single season in the NCAA.
Krzyzewski’s 1982 recruiting class of Bilas, Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie and David Henderson still ranks as the highest scoring single class in college basketball history
He had a similar recruiting lass and ended up with the same record as CAL did last year.... I showed you numerous games coach k didnt win. And it doesnt make him any less of a great coach.
LOL, Like I said, you can view him as a great X's & O's coach, but I do not. I hope he puts banners in the rafters and we get to keep them. But to date, Cal has proven that he is a great Recruiter and has won with GREAT talent! He has taken that Great Talent against teams inferior talent wise, and has lost due to X's & O's.
You can make the comparisons to Coach K, Coach Rupp, Coach Wooden, or whoever you want, but you cannot change the fact of what I have said about CAL!
^ ITs your Opinion. We disagree