[Hoot Gibson]

I like what you have written LWC, nice job. There is more to being a great coach than just X's & O's, just as much as there is more to coaching than just bringing in 5* recruits. I'd love to see a better balance. I'd like to see the in-game adjustments get better. I'd like to see the most critical minutes of the game be managed better. Bottom-line, I'd like to see the kids put into position to win games.

A guy like Pitino not only took one of the best teams in NCAA history to the promise land in 1996, he also took a group of no-names deep into the tournament. That was all done by making adjustmenst and not relying on the exact same style that you have always played. I went through that for years with Huggins at UC. The Bearcats played one way and that was the only way. They never altered their defensive style or played to the natural strengths of the offensive abilities of the players at hand. I have seen Cal's history be this same way. He refuses to play a zone, even when he acknowledges that he is only playing 6 guys. He insists on playing the dribble drive, when he has players on the floor that are not capable of doing it well (This is in his history, not just at UK). He relies on the exact same plays in the exact same situations every time.

As for your comment about the Final four, I agree. The Cats during Cals time will make it to the Final Four and should do it quite a few times. But it will be based on talent being so much better than other teams. There will be many UK teams like last years talent, where all you have to do is roll the ball out onto the floor and the Cats will win 30 games. My fear is when the Cats get into a "dog-fight", they won't have the leader that wills them to win!

:Thumbs: Some of the most talented teams in the history of NCAA basketball never won championships because of bad bench coaching. Three that come to mind are Steve Fisher's Michigan Fab Five teams (Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson), Guy Louis's Houston Phi Jamma Slamma teams (included Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, and Michael Young), and Jerry Tarkanian's 1990-91 Runnin' Rebels (undefeated regular season with 4 NBA first round draft picks and 1 second rounder).

Although Tarkanian did manage to blowout Duke for one NCAA title, he always relied on signing talent over player development and Xs and Os. Tark's coaching shortcomings were exposed when he accepted the head coaching position at San Antonio in 1992-93 and was fired after only 20 games and a 9-11 record. John Lucas (who had also never coached in the NBA) took over two games later, posted a 39-22 record and led the talented Spurs team into the playoffs.

I think that Calipari is a Tarkanian-type coach, although at UK he will not need to resort to recruiting the many "troubled" type of players that UNLV signed. If he can come close to matching Tark's winning percentage at UK, Cats' fans will tolerate losing some winnable games along the way.