Kentucky tops teams that have underachieved with great recruiting classes
- Thread starter Cardiotonic
- Start date
Recruits are noticing it too. Heard they just lost another recruit. Once scamapari's recruiting level is in line with most programs (estimated 2 years) they'll be mid major caliber.
Read the entire article. He goes on to say that there are a few teams that should be considered as underachievers more than UK like UNC and Kansas.
Another title would have been nice but it's hard to complain about 4 final fours in 7 years.
The last few seasons when UK loses in the final four/championship game I laugh so hard because this is what the almighty (in UK fans minds) deserve. Calipari chokes (except when he had A. Davis) when the game is on the line, it's becoming comical now. Yes Cal has beaten us, whoop de doo, do I hate it? Yes, but at some point we'll beat in the tourney, and when we do, all the UK fans will say is "we'll get them next year" with who all's coming comment.
Last edited:
All but one of 68 coaches chokes in the tourney every year. It's what makes a title so hard to win. It's why Dean Smith won 2 titles in 37 years at a top 2 program. It's why CRP won only 1 title at UK despite being stacked full of NBA players for 6 straight years. It's why Bill Self has only 1 title at KU. It's really, really hard to win titles. UK and U of L have 11 combined titles in 200 years of playing basketball. That's a lot of choking.
Meh...I can see the point if you are reaching for some smack talk, but IMO, it's a silly take. Titles are hard to come by, no matter how many McD's AAs you have on board. Everything is relative, and pretty much any program would be happy with those 4 year (according to the article) results. It would be like Dan McDonnell being called an underachiever for not winning a CWS, despite playing in 3 of them in 8 years...and having the RPI #1 program this year. I could actually understand it more if UK fans were taking this stance; I think they believe they should win it all every year.
That's my stance too. Some of our fans take that apocalyptic all or nothing stance but I think it's silly.
For clarity, coach K has been at Duke for 36 years and for a vast majority of those his teams have been littered with elite talent. He's won a title slightly less than once every 7 years, and that figure is amazing on a historical level. Cal has one in his 7 years at UK. The lesson as you point out above Steelers, is that titles are really hard to win. People laud Izzo for being such an amazing coach, and he's had one in 22 years with no shortage of talent that is usually experienced talent. The tourney is a crapshoot.
I'll give you 4 straight John,but not 6.His last 4 teams were definitely stacked.The previous 2 had some NBA talent,but not stacked.Derek Anderson's knee injury in 97 could've (I know could've) been 2 straight and Tubby takes those NBA players and wins another.You have to say that he had the formula right at UK at the end there,right?
It's only choking if someone believes they are going to win and don't. Since every kittie thinks they are going to win every year, there's a lot more choking going on in lessington than the rest of the country...
"It's only choking if someone believes they are going to win and don't. Since every kittie thinks they are going to win every year, there's a lot more choking going on in lessington than the rest of the country..."
Excellent point. I think the fans of most college bb teams, most years, "HOPE" that their team will win it all; rarely do they expect it. UK fans, OTOH (for the most part) not only expect it, they feel they're entitled to it. Not because their team has outworked the other teams, not because their coach is a superior tactician. No, they feel entitled to it because they're UK and because they've accumulated the most talent (they're the first ones to tell you that). So, in my book, they are THE biggest choke artists in recent college bb memory.
Excellent point. I think the fans of most college bb teams, most years, "HOPE" that their team will win it all; rarely do they expect it. UK fans, OTOH (for the most part) not only expect it, they feel they're entitled to it. Not because their team has outworked the other teams, not because their coach is a superior tactician. No, they feel entitled to it because they're UK and because they've accumulated the most talent (they're the first ones to tell you that). So, in my book, they are THE biggest choke artists in recent college bb memory.
I'll settle with you there. Ironically he definitely overachieved with the 1991-92 team, only to have a historically bad coaching gaffe cost UK a Final Four. I'd say that from 93-97, a 5 year span, 1 title was the bare minimum expectation. We got incredibly lucky to face an outgunned 4 seed in the 97 title game, and even without DA there is no way we should have lost that game. We carved through the rest of tourney that year with relative ease. 1996 to me was just like 2012, anything less than the championship would have been a disappointment.
As to your last sentence, a resounding yes - I think if Rick was still at UK, he could potentially have 4 or 5 more titles right now. He had the program on the top of the mountain for sure. There is no question he is an all time great, a top 5 coach in NCAA history. And even with that kind of praise, he has 2 titles in over 30 years of coaching. I realize some UK fans think we should be hanging a banner every year, but those fans are dumb, period.
Sorry it has been proven you are a Canuck not a lessington hillbilly...
Just by luck the analysis was the last 4 years, not 5, thus ignoring the National Title. ONe thing generally about UK and UofL is that both don't choke in the tournament when they have good teams. They generally make it far enough considering expectations...and even generally overachieve when seeded lower. I cannot remember Duke "overachieving". KU is the ultimate underachiever when it comes to expectations come tournament time.
John, again the Final Fours are inadequate as an indicator of performance. You're consistently seeded to that point in the tourney.
There is in fact a higher standard for LPT. When you have twice as many blue chippers as the next highest team and you get seeded into the Final Four or at least the Elite Eight, you have to show more titles.
"Underperformance" is a relative term. If you have significant advantages, making the Final Four is not enough...
There is in fact a higher standard for LPT. When you have twice as many blue chippers as the next highest team and you get seeded into the Final Four or at least the Elite Eight, you have to show more titles.
"Underperformance" is a relative term. If you have significant advantages, making the Final Four is not enough...
I can live with this so long as you are willing to tag your coach with the same underachieving label during his UK tenure.
CRP Tourney seeds at UK
2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 1
One title, One national runner up, One Final Four
Calipari seeds at UK
1, 4, 1, 8, 1, 4
One title, one national runner up, 2 Final Fours
Cal has had a lot of highly ranked freshmen during his tenure, I will admit that. However, as you said in the Marcus Lee thread, high school rankings don't mean much except in the case of a few can't miss guys every year. CRP had lots of NBA talent that actually stuck around for multiple years, so IMO the talent argument is a wash at best. Both guys do it differently, both guys have had major success doing it their way.
You are talking about 1990 thru 1997 versus 2010(?) thru the present. The game has simply changed and so have the players so as far as I'm concerned those coaching comparisons just don't hold much water. Both coaches have been successful with their own recruiting philosophies.
One coach appeared to micromanage everything before the McGee/Powell sex scandal broke and the other appeared to run very loose programs based on past transgressions. In the end, both are still in the Hall of Fame regardless of the path they took to get there. That's the truth.
Significant advantage in talent? Often times yes.
Signficant advantage in experience for the NCAA tournament? Always no.
I will agree that we have under achieved based on the pure talent that we have had
You have another significant advantage with your schedule... Almost all of your last 20 games each year are against dismal SEC teams. You try to schedule a few good teams in the preseason, but you always end up with one or two games against Top 10 teams, and maybe one or two more if we include the Top 20. The other 25 games are against unranked teams.
The selection committee is supposed to take schedule strength into account when seeding the tourney. But that seldom happens to the degree it should. LPT should never be seeded higher than 3rd or 4th IMO because its basketball schedule sucks overall. And that 3/4 seeding would be in your best years.
Your over-seeding helps explain in large part how you can make so many Final Fours. Let's give U of L a one-seed every other year and see how we fare. Championships are only won by beating other good teams on the last weekend of the season.
"Elite program", my a$$...
Last edited:
Explain to me how it's UK's fault that the other teams in the SEC are weak. Wasn't that the knack against us and why we kept seeking to get better by joining other conferences. In their case, they were already in a P5 conference so there's no reason to leave.
Now you want them to schedule a harder nonconference schedule and us to weaken ours by dropping them and playing somebody else. If you would just listen to yourself sometimes you might get dizzy with all the spins you do.
Now you want them to schedule a harder nonconference schedule and us to weaken ours by dropping them and playing somebody else. If you would just listen to yourself sometimes you might get dizzy with all the spins you do.
I'm not that enthusiastic defending anything related to your school, but the "underperformance" issue isn't as simple as looking at tourney seed. You're surely not saying that Pitino had rosters over several years laden with the talent that you've had since 2010? It's not even close.
Yes, he had your roster built to that point by the time he left--so much so that Tubby won it all his first year. But Pitino was winning with players like Epps, Mills, Padgett, Pope, Prickett, Sheppard, Brassow, Ford, and Martinez. Those guys would be riding your bench now if most of them were even on the team.
And just getting to a high seed with those guys was a pretty fair accomplishment.
"Elite program", my a$$...
Last edited:
So are you riding an LPT white horse now?
Here's a rundown of the lesser teams on LPT's OOC schedule last year... Kentucky State, Albany, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Wright State, Boston University, South Florida, Illinois State, and Eastern Kentucky. Plenty of room there to play some better teams. Even some teams they THOUGHT were gonna be good like UCLA and tOSU kinda sucked.
There's also nothing "power" about SEC basketball except in name only. LPT has chosen to stay in a football conference for decades. Can they be blamed for the SEC basketball schedule this year? Maybe not. Can they be blamed for having to play an SEC schedule year after year? Hell yes.
And clean up after your horse.
"Elite program", my a$$...
You need to take your arguments to ESPN....insider
Jeff Borzello ESPN Staff Writer........He's one who wrote the article!
Last edited by a moderator:
Nice try, but this has nothing more to do with the topic than your not knowing Kade McClure was not a reliever.
He had six nice innings yesterday though! And I felt relieved!!
Yeah. There have been a few misses but any school would be glad to "complain" about 4 Final Fours and a championship.
Back at you.. Haha you are on the wrong thread and everyone with sense knows that I said McClure pitched in relief 2 innings in the ACC regular season and started all midweek games. Run along, you're batting about a buck 50 here lately.Nice try, but this has nothing more to do with the topic than your not knowing Kade McClure was not a reliever.
He had six nice innings yesterday though! And I felt relieved!!
This goes back to your own argument about how talented freshmen really are. I'd assume you probably don't watch many UK games unless they are vs U of L, but I can assure you that as Juniors and Seniors, Epps and Delk were light years better than any backcourt Cal has had at UK. Trying to throw together a bunch of freshmen and starting from scratch every year negates any raw talent advantage Cal might have had. Hell, his UMass team in 1996 would have wrecked any of his UK teams outside of the Davis team, and that UMass team was Camby and a bunch of "guys."
I'll reiterate that I understand Cal has made this bed so we have to live with the results, but if you tell me he has underachieved here, then by the same metrics Pitino damn sure underachieved at UK.
Yeah, that's what you said.
And try to start spelling his name right. It probably matters to his mother.
Again, "underachieve" is a always a word used with respect to something or someone else. The standards are different in each situation. It's more complex than just seed, player's age, ability, etc. Any one of those attributes can't tell the whole story.
It's a fact that Pitino Lite has in general:
"Elite program", my a$$...
It's a fact that Pitino Lite has in general:
- highly seeded tourney teams
- a lot of blue chippers
- an easy path through the regular schedule, at least the last two-thirds of it
"Elite program", my a$$...
This is it.The talent assembled at UK over the past 6 seasons does not resemble the 3-4 year over abundance of talent at Camelot when Pitino was there.And yet,it was known as Camelot.
We also made the final four as a four seed(2011) and beat maybe the two best teams in the tournament(UNC, Ohio St) and as an 8 seed(2014) and beat a host of potential final four teams if seeded properly, including Louisville who was playing some of the best ball in the country at that time and out played us the majority of the game.
You're making the same mistake John has made... With stats, you don't pick a data point to make your case.
There's no question that the higher your seed, the greater your chance of making a Final Four. John himself quoted the stats for one-seeds, something close to 50 of 120. Go to the top four seeds, and it's probably like 9 outta 10.
You definitely are helped unfairly by a higher seed than you deserve, whenever that happens.
"Elite program", my a$$...
The years that we were seeded at #1 since coach cal has been here are 10, 12, 15. Would you argue the seed on any of those
09-10: John Wall, Boogie Cousins team. Lost in elite eight to WVU. 35-3
11-12: Anthony Davis, MKG team. Champions. 38-2
14-15: undefeated regular season. Final four. 38-1
09-10: John Wall, Boogie Cousins team. Lost in elite eight to WVU. 35-3
11-12: Anthony Davis, MKG team. Champions. 38-2
14-15: undefeated regular season. Final four. 38-1
I would sure argue that the 2010 team was overseeded. The best teams on its schedule that year were Tennessee at #14 and Vandy at #26 based on their RPI at the end of the season. WVU ended #4 and was far and away the best team LPT faced in 2009-2010. And not surprisingly, they won.
The 2015 LPT team played a weak schedule as well. Its best opponents were #3 Kansas, #11 UNC, #21 U of L, and #22 Providence. One SEC team was barely Top 20, Arkansas at #20. Wisconsin finished at #4 while Kansas flamed out the first weekend of the tourney.
You don't know how good you are until you play good teams esp. at season's end. LPT is consistently a casualty of its own schedule.
"Elite program", my a$$...
