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re: Kentucky fans, help me understand what happened to Calipari
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:37 pm to Lucado
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:37 pm to Lucado
I like good basketball, so I don't watch A&M play. I have no idea why Cal has been unable to adapt to current basketball and he needs a good set of assistants. Actually coaching the game doesn't seem to be his forte these days. He does remind me an awful lot of Fisher, but nobody in Arkansas wants to hear that.
This post was edited on 4/10/24 at 1:38 pm
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Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:37 pm to Jon Ham
quote:
Close losses to lower seeded teams happens. Can’t let the one and done nature of the tourney weigh too heavily though on a coach’s overall evaluation. If the last 3 losses in the NCCA tourney were sprinkled throughout Cal’s tenure, instead of coming in a row, people’s perception would be much different.
It is a bit funny to read Arkansas fans talk this way after the Muss era in which the regular season did not matter one iota and all that mattered was how you did in the tournament. Now the tournament is a crap shoot and you can't let it weigh too heavily on evaluation.
I do agree with you, though.
This post was edited on 4/10/24 at 1:39 pm
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:39 pm to Temple of the Dog
Everyone would take an Elite 8 run over a regular season conference championship or conference tournament championship. Doesn’t mean you ignore the regular season though in evaluating your coach’s performance.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:40 pm to Jon Ham
Fair enough
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:42 pm to bamameister
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So Arkansas just hired a 65-year-old dog that refused to learn new tricks in Kentucky
Pretty much
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:43 pm to Jon Ham
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Everyone would take an Elite 8 run over a regular season conference championship or conference tournament championship. Doesn’t mean you ignore the regular season though in evaluating your coach’s performance.
Everyone in Fayetteville. Could it be that Arkansas hasn't won an SEC Championship this century? Could that be affecting your math?
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:44 pm to bamameister
I'd take an Elite 8 over anything in the regular season.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:48 pm to Jon Ham
quote:
Everyone would take an Elite 8 run over a regular season conference championship or conference tournament championship. Doesn’t mean you ignore the regular season though in evaluating your coach’s performance.
Cal also hasn’t won a SEC Regular Season Championship since 2020 either.
I think he’ll be fine at Arkansas but it’s being a bit naive to suggest Kentucky fans only wanted him out because he didn’t make a Final Four every year.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:49 pm to Temple of the Dog
quote:
I'd take an Elite 8 over anything in the regular season.
Sure, we all just love it when our favorite team hasn't won its conference championship in a quarter of a century.
I got a question, why wouldn't any self-respecting, SEC championship basketball team, not do both in a quarter of a freakin' century?
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:51 pm to BluegrassBelle
quote:
I think he’ll be fine at Arkansas but it’s being a bit naive to suggest Kentucky fans only wanted him out because he didn’t make a Final Four every year.
Agreed - not really a fair narrative. Cal has won nothing at Kentucky in the last 4 years. Quite literally nothing.
Doesn't mean he isn't a good hire elsewhere, but 0 SEC Titles, 0 SECT Titles and 0 second weekends in the NCAAT (led alone a Final Four) is a legitimate reason for angst at a place like Kentucky. And he was going to get another year in 2024-2025, too.
This post was edited on 4/10/24 at 1:53 pm
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:53 pm to Tideroller
Spurrier said it best… You lose about 10% of your fan base a year. Calipari made it longer than most.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:54 pm to Tideroller
As a Georgia football fan his career reminds me a lot of Mark Richt in football. Like Richt, his early success and recruiting prowess bought him a lot of time. Unfortunately, like Richt, he got lazy and was just going through the motions at some point. It takes a very shrewd AD/president to identify the lethargy and then do something about it. Dawg fans remember all the talk about Richt becoming a CEO,” studying more football” in the offseason, etc. Ultimately, once you lose your edge, it’s hard to get it back. Like Pitino, the cultural fit likely wasn’t perfect, but Pitino won enough and was never around long enough for that to matter. It all caught up to Cal eventually.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 1:57 pm to TailbackU
quote:
Spurrier said it best… You lose about 10% of your fan base a year. Calipari made it longer than most.
Yep, and his first 10 years were downright incredible.
- 10 seasons
- 1 national title
- 1 national runner up
- 4 final fours
- 7 elite eights
- 9 NCAA Tournaments
- 5 SEC Championships
- 6 SEC Tournament Championships
Just an unreal run.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 2:12 pm to ColoradoAg
quote:
So he is Jimbo Fisher 2.0
I wouldn't go quite that far just because the whole sign a frick ton of talent and then tell them to go do athletic stuff with the ball is a lot more effective in basketball than it is in football. In the sense that the game seems to have passed him by and he's just not all that interested in changing much about his approach to it, I think there are certainly similarities. IMO Cal's Arkansas tenure will be more disappointing and expensive than painful and disastrous though. He's not going to set the program on fire and then dump gasoline on it or anything. I just don't see him winning any hardware either.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 2:34 pm to Tideroller
quote:
What changed? Is he recruiting the wrong players? Lax discipline? Bad schemes? Something else? To me this is like if Saban started losing to Group of 5 teams or something, help me understand.
He lost three key people who compensated for his glaring and abrasive personality: DeWayne Peevy, John Robic, and Kenny Payne.
Peevy was an excellent go-between between Cal and the UK Athletics department and the Administration. He kept Cal on good terms with them and I would also say with deep-pocketed donors.
Robic was the game film/ game prep/ X and O guy that Cal has never been.
Payne was the "player whisperer" who smoothed out the Cal-speak to the kids, was basically on-call for them, and helped Cal and the players stay connected healthily.
These guys all departed for various reasons around 2019-20 within several months of each other (I think). Cal was never the same.
That's my take (Matt Jones has a similar take).
If Arkansas is to be effective under Cal, they better surround him with people that can tolerate his ego and temper it to those in and around the program.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 3:01 pm to Tideroller
quote:
What changed? Is he recruiting the wrong players? Lax discipline? Bad schemes? Something else? To me this is like if Saban started losing to Group of 5 teams or something, help me understand.
One thing that differed with Cal vs his biggest competitors like Coach K and a few others was their ability to recruit great players and retain most 2-4 yrs. 75% of Cal’s players left after 1season. He seemed to like it that way and often talked about telling players that they had to take their opportunity now and go to the draft. Result was a a lot of really good teams that did not have tourney minds.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 3:14 pm to Temple of the Dog
Some coaches are great in the regular season and some are great in the tourney. Although the latter is considered the greater accomplishment, the former does more for prestige and recognition.
It was nice having good tournament runs under Muss, but the regular season sucked and were irritating. When our baseball team dominated the regular season, and then laid an egg in the tournament, it was still a fun season.
Even though Muss was better in the postseason over the past few years, I think we have a better chance at winning a national championship with Cal. Muss was stubborn in certain ways, also, and I just don't think he is capable of putting together a great college team, because he's too pro oriented.
It was nice having good tournament runs under Muss, but the regular season sucked and were irritating. When our baseball team dominated the regular season, and then laid an egg in the tournament, it was still a fun season.
Even though Muss was better in the postseason over the past few years, I think we have a better chance at winning a national championship with Cal. Muss was stubborn in certain ways, also, and I just don't think he is capable of putting together a great college team, because he's too pro oriented.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 3:22 pm to redeye
It's easy. Barnhart (the KY AD) and Calipari fell out a couple of years ago and basically Barnhart froze out Calipari from NIL. Also, it didn't help that Calipari fell out with a major booster over the booster's wife using one of the players at her political campaign rallies for Governor. It all comes down to NIL, however. Barnhart knew that without NIL equal to competitors, Cal (and UK) was screwed. He was willing to use that leverage when Cal started looking around for other jobs. In the end, I think Cal may have wanted to move to tOSU, however, his discussions with Arky were solely to pressure Barnhart into opening up the NIL spigot. Instead, Barnhart took the opportunity to (indirectly) force him out since once word got out that he had talked to Arky, he could never come back as UK's coach.
Posted on 4/10/24 at 3:24 pm to Tideroller
quote:He was more interested in watching Little House on the Prairie reruns and walking his dogs than watching tape or coaching.
What changed? Is he recruiting the wrong players? Lax discipline? Bad schemes? Something else? To me this is like if Saban started losing to Group of 5 teams or something, help me understand.
He had several recruiting misses in a row like Devin Askew but generally he got burned out. He started skipping press conferences, interacting with the donors... 15 years is a long time to be in one place.
This post was edited on 4/10/24 at 3:28 pm
Posted on 4/10/24 at 3:58 pm to Temple of the Dog
quote:
I'd take an Elite 8 over anything in the regular season.
Agree, the post season matters.
Since 2019 Coach Stoops has more post season wins than Cal. Cal has had 9 opportunities per post season to get a win, 10 if you count getting bounced on a Thursday of the SEC tournament by Mis ST (yeah, that happened).
Still trying to figure out which group is happier:
Hog Fans
Cats Fans
Nashville Chamber of Commerce
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