Bluegrassrivals

The last two great point guards to play for John Calipari, ended simply with just playing for John Calipari.

Calipari's last two all-star recruits, Tyreke Evans and Derrick Rose have certainly gone on to make something of themselves in the NBA. However they will never be able to say that they won an NCAA tournament title.

This may be the case for Calipari's newest star, John Wall.

Coming into the season Wall was as embraced and honored as an ice cream truck on a hot summer afternoon.

The excitement levels for Kentucky basketball were at an all-time high after their disappointing early exit in the NIT last season, failing to make the NCAA tournament for the first time in 18 years.

Wall made sure that the Kentucky faithful understood he was only staying for one year and that his individual goals were above Kentucky's.

What Calipari has done at Memphis and now at Kentucky, is use the top talent for himself and his resume while giving these stars the stepping stone needed to become eligible for the NBA.

John Calipari isn't building championship teams. He's building his resume and his win total.

John Wall hasn't been given the proper cast this year to win the ever so dreamed about NCAA tournament title. How do you expect a team that starts three freshman to have enough experience to win six games in a row on neutral sites against top competition?

Instead of Calipari focusing on his top recruit that he seems to land year in and year out, he should be focusing on making players on his team stay another year, or two, or even three.

All of his team's are too young because he grabs the best talent and doesn't worry, because he knows he can do it again in the next off-season. Yes grabbing top talent will get you wins, lots of them, but it will not get you championships until these players gain experience.

Who won last year?

UNC (very experience all-around)

Who won the year before that?

Kansas (PG was a junior and beat Calipari's Memphis team)

My point is clear enough.

Just like Wall's predecessors, he will not win an NCAA title because he is too young and so is the rest of his team. However, he will achieve his goal of becoming a top draft pick in this years NBA draft thanks to Mr. Calipari and his yearly scheme of building a stepping stone for these top players; not a championship basketball team. ................


NOW NOW.

lol. Thoughts?

Third times CHARM!!!!!

they will win it this year

This team is better than Cal's Memphis teams and the field is mildly weak this year. I'd take talent over experience anyday.

Probably the written work of our good friend, Pat Forde.

All those Memphis teams didnt have 4 1st round draft picks though. I also thought SV didnt have a chance against Ballard! So Cornell could blow out UK, hope not that.

Looks like Wall is on a team playing pretty well with a pretty decent shot of winning the title to me. I was surprised Ohio State didn't win by more Sunday.

I would almost bet my life that Forde wrote that. Man I hate the SOB.

UK's going all the way.

You have to go with UK...this team has way more talent then Cal's older teams and plus this team is a much better shooting team...free throws is the only thing that can beat this team...PERIOD

The way UK is playing right now, its their tournament to lose.

Aslan Wrote:This team is better than Cal's Memphis teams and the field is mildly weak this year. I'd take talent over experience anyday.

I totally agree with you!

I hope you are wrong my friend. I really do thing that nothing can nothing other than UK can keep them from winning it all. I think that Wall gets the team there and the team will respond.

Some people will say anything.

evans and rose didn't have a cousins, patterson and bledsoe either did they? they didn't have five starters who could throw up 20 points with ease.

Ky is playing like the number one team in the nation. If we continue to play like we are, no one can stop us. However, it just takes one bad game and your going home.

EOE Wrote:Third times CHARM!!!!!

That's exactly what I thought when I read the first paragraph...lol.

Third times a charm.

Hay, this is Kentucky not Memphis.:popcorn:

Scotty doesn't know Wrote:I hope you are wrong my friend. I really do thing that nothing can nothing other than UK can keep them from winning it all. I think that Wall gets the team there and the team will respond.

Can one of the mods make my quoted post sound a little more coherent. I must have been tired or something.

Scotty doesn't know Wrote:Can one of the mods make my quoted post sound a little more coherent. I must have been tired or something.

Or high. :dontthink

How can you complain, even if UK does not win the title? This was a great year with only 2 loses and very fun to watch. I would take a year like this every year.Just remind yourself what it was like having to watch Billy G coaching at UK!

Rocky Top Wrote:Hay, this is Kentucky not Memphis.:popcorn:

I'm not sure what that means. Memphis over the previous five years was a better program than UK.

sstack Wrote:How can you complain, even if UK does not win the title? This was a great year with only 2 loses and very fun to watch. I would take a year like this every year.Just remind yourself what it was like having to watch Billy G coaching at UK!

It's not over, but I agree, this has been a great year to have. Interesting comment about BCG though. Definitely UK is a better team than the UK team over BCG's two years, but that has all to do with the players that are at UK. I've seen many of the same questions of Cal that I heard of BCG when it comes to in-game situations. This is a team that has came within two games of having a perfect record, yet, their were questions on this site about why Cal only plays a M2M D and never tries to Zone (same issues that fans had with BCG). Why guys sat on the bench under Cal for prolonged periods (just like the complaints of BCG and PPat, Miller or Meeks from last year). There are other things that have been similar in nature, but yes, Cal has turned this program around due to the talent that he has secured, which could even make Bruce Pearl a great coach :biggrin: What I want to see is has Cal learned how to coach a tough game. He failed in the championship game two years ago to figure out a way to put Kansas away and let the game come down to FT shooting. He had similar issues at UMass. He was without an answer to USC earlier in the season and we got beat by a team that in no way should have beat us. Can Cal coach the big game? That's what I hope. We know he's a great recruiter. We know that his teams outclass their competition year in and year out. Now we get to see if he can actually learn from his past and actually be able to outcoach the opposition and win a close game down the stretch when it really means something. I sure hope he does.

How many close games has Kentucky won? Enough to prove that we are talented enough to win it all!

Sure you have to win six to be champs, but not over the course of 5 days! Coach Cal has done a great job keeping his team focused and I've been impressed!

Best part is tonight we'll get to showcase just how loyal our fan base is, I predict we'll have 3/5s of the fans there and that is with our opponents campus being less than an hour away!

i think uk wins it all this year.. wall's goals are for the team i do believe and not for personal gain.. he seems to step up when the team looks to him for a play but he doesn't try to do too much.. i love the way he plays the game and he gets his team mates involved in the game a lot.. i will take talent over experience every time!