There was more to the story but this was the only thing I've been able to find after the initial reporting. The vibes for that game were horrible all around.
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Competing for NCAA title
- Thread starter docholiday51
- Start date
I consider losing in the first weekend irrelevant to seriously competing for a title. The NCAA tournament has way too much variance and randomness. It's an absolutely horrible way to determine a champion, but it's the most fun and interesting way to do it which is why everyone loves it. To make any big picture assessment of how good a team is based on a single elimination tournament is a fool's game, and I've always said that. I said it about 2022 Kentucky, Virginia losing to UMBC, or Duke losing against Lehigh.
I said it elsewhere in this thread, but I think we would all agree the 2011 team competed for a title. That team was a single shot away from losing to Princeton in the first round. A single shot going your way or not doesn't change how good a team that was.
People put way too much weight on the NCAA tournament when evaluating the success of a season or how good teams were.
The 3 were so good, the Hagans situation and cal would have been tough to overcome
Probably fair. I don't know what this board was saying about it then. We were in Nashville for the SEC. There wasn't much talk about it there. Probably because of other issues too. We were first told it was a possibility of a cancel by the hotel front desk. We went ahead and drove home on Thursday morning.
I’m pretty sure you are correct in your assessment. The tide started to turn after 9-16 and St. Peter’s happened when people wanted to discredit Calipari.
That season will always be the great unknown, but they had what it took to reach the promised land.
I think the answer to this question really just depends on what your criteria is for competing for a championship.
Are you someone who feels like the teams in the Elite 8 are the only teams truly competing for a championship? Or would you extend that to teams in the Elite 8 + 1/2 seeds?
Kind of a nuanced question because hindsight is obviously 20/20. I’d say the 2022 team was much better than the 2014 team for example, and if you played out the tournament 100 times I bet the 2022 team wins more often than the 2014 team. But obviously that’s not what happened those years.
I’d say we’ve had multiple teams that were good enough to make runs to the final four (last year and 2022) but I really only felt the 2022 team had a chance to win it all at any point during the season.
Are you someone who feels like the teams in the Elite 8 are the only teams truly competing for a championship? Or would you extend that to teams in the Elite 8 + 1/2 seeds?
Kind of a nuanced question because hindsight is obviously 20/20. I’d say the 2022 team was much better than the 2014 team for example, and if you played out the tournament 100 times I bet the 2022 team wins more often than the 2014 team. But obviously that’s not what happened those years.
I’d say we’ve had multiple teams that were good enough to make runs to the final four (last year and 2022) but I really only felt the 2022 team had a chance to win it all at any point during the season.
It’s easy to say now “we weren’t competing for a championship in 2022” and “we did compete for a championship in 2011 and 2014” since we made the Final Four those years. But again, that’s all in hindsight and based on the results of how the tournament played out, which obviously has a high amount of variance.
If Duke, Auburn, or Alabama got upset in the 2nd round this year, would we say they didn’t have a team that was competitive for a championship? I don’t think that would be fair because we all know all three of those teams could win a championship
If Duke, Auburn, or Alabama got upset in the 2nd round this year, would we say they didn’t have a team that was competitive for a championship? I don’t think that would be fair because we all know all three of those teams could win a championship
Yep, exactly. The reason why it matters to me is I’m way past Cal at this point. Some people are not. To me, I look at it the same way I would a rival fan trying to step all over our flag. It’s fair to say things were going downhill fast with Cal but we don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water and pretend we fielded absolute junk in the 2022 season, the 2020 season etc. The standard is rightfully high at this school but there is a fair amount of respect that a 2-seed should get who had the impressive regular season that team did. To me, TyTy (traitor withstanding) not getting hurt is always gonna be a big “what if” in the Cal era. People forget just how unstoppable we were before he dived for that loose ball.
Huh the Big 12 was vastly a superior conference compared to the SEC in that time span.
And to me this thread was about competing for a national title. Obviously, they hung the same number as we did but they also had more teams that you could say were legit competitors for titles in that time span.
Which in a one and done tournament, is exactly what you want. Too much randomness in the tournament. Only way to ensure success is to be in that title conversation as much as possible.
If anything the mere fact they were in it that many times and only came out with one should tell the people that complained about Cal only winning one something.
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Yep. 2017 and 2019 were obviously not the tier those other teams were. And I guess it could be debated one way or the other one whether or not they were legit title contenders.
I was getting ready to drive down to Nashville that Wednesday and then my moms friend who is a doctor her said she thinks everything is about to get crazy, and she was right
If Bill Self had his run from 2008-2021 here instead of Kansas he would have been run out of town long before he won his second title. Which, you’re right, should tell some people here something. But it won’t.
This is why I always tell people when it happens go nuts because you just never know when it's going to happen again.
Right after that game, I drove 2 hrs 30 mins to Lexington to get in line for the celebration tickets lol.
Right after that game, I drove 2 hrs 30 mins to Lexington to get in line for the celebration tickets lol.
The people acting like regular season doesn’t matter also do not understand they are making the argument for North Carolina or UCLA being the gold standard of college basketball. At Kentucky, we argue everything matters including being the all-times win leader, not just who won the most titles or who won the most NCAA tournament games, which would be UCLA and UNC respectively.
I guess I would just say you have to be at least a 2 or maybe 3 seed to seriously compete for a title. That accounts for about 87% of all champions.
Maybe?
He won the title in 2008.
He had Final 4 appearances in 12 and 18.
He had a 1 seed in '08, '10, '11, '13, '16, '17, '18, and would have had one in '20. In '20, they were the top Kenpom team by a large margin.
The worst Kansas team during that stretch might've been the 2021 team. They had a 3 seed but barely eeked into the Kenpom top 30.
During Cal's tenure at UK, he had '13, '20, '21, '23, and '24 all on par or worse with than the worst Kansas team according to Kenpom rankings. That includes two missed tournaments.
Also, there wasn't a clear drop-off in competitiveness. Kansas has consistently been competing for 1 seeds throughout the entirety of Self's dry spell.
I never thought any post-COVID Cal team had a chance. He changed and I started to hate watching games. I know there were a few good regular season wins, but I always felt like it wasn't going our way.
So the answer is no, not since 2019. Although I don't think that team would have won the Title, but they should have gotten to the Final Four.
So the answer is no, not since 2019. Although I don't think that team would have won the Title, but they should have gotten to the Final Four.
I loved that year. Monk played almost like an alien and Fox was special. Kentucky wins it all if it gets by UNC
I disagree with that.
2017 we were one of the 4 best teams, were screwed out of a 1 seed, lost in OT on a buzzer beater in E8 game to a top 5 team despite where in the 1st half even the announcers were saying the one ref was obviously not calling the game fairly.
2019 we again lost in OT in E8, with a top 10 team, in another game with questionable whistle (the refs just sealed it, not calling any fouls on the aggressive Auburn team the final 10min.
2020 we were considered one of the 8 favorites going in to tournament play, IF Hagans was going to have his head on straight, with the best backcourt in the country and an all-SEC center.
2022, the middle 1/3 of the season we played as one of the best 2 teams in the country, until injuries hit derailing the last 1/3 of the season.
The 2017 team was our last true title contender because Fox and Monk didn’t require coaching and could “Go Make a Play” as CCC would say.
2019 was one of the weakest FF’s I remember with Virginia winning it all.
But CCC managed to lose to Auburn in the elite 8 without their best player Okeke. CCC settled for a rock fight after we ran Auburn off the court a few weeks earlier.
2019 was one of the weakest FF’s I remember with Virginia winning it all.
But CCC managed to lose to Auburn in the elite 8 without their best player Okeke. CCC settled for a rock fight after we ran Auburn off the court a few weeks earlier.
As many other have said, 2017 was national championship good. I said it before the game against UNC that whoever won that game would be the national champions. We got screwed. That team was more than good enough and our three best guys were freshmen.
2020 was an interesting team. On paper it’s a no but they did improve a tremendous amount and were coming on strong. I don’t think Ashton Hagans had what it took to take us all the way but Quickley and Maxey would’ve helped.
2020 was an interesting team. On paper it’s a no but they did improve a tremendous amount and were coming on strong. I don’t think Ashton Hagans had what it took to take us all the way but Quickley and Maxey would’ve helped.
Can one of the guys that say 2017 and 2019 weren't contenders defend their position and then tell me what they think about the 2010 or 2003 team or 1999 team or 1992 team?
I think 2019 could've absolutely won the title. If Auburn hadn't fouled eventual Champion Virginia with under a second to go from 3 they would've likely won it all. Remember when we played Auburn they didn't have a foul called on them the last 9 minutes of the game.
2022 beat the champion and runner-up, one at their home court and one on a neutral court by over 20 points each. Injuries derailed that team.
Anyone arguing 2017 wasn't a title tier team is insane. I know you weren't, just my first paragraph was directed at your post
.2020 was on fire and won the SEC by 3 games. Maxey and Quickly were beasts, as was Richards that year. I know a lot is made of Hagans not traveling to Florida for that 18 point comeback win. But he was with the team in Nashville and they were all joking around.
Really all the luck we had go for us in the 2010-2015 era turned to bad luck in the 2016-2022 run. 16 wasn't never making a final four. 2018 had a bracket collapse and choked against KSU. Final four at best. 2023 could've made the sweet 16 but KSU again got us. That was their ceiling. Last year could've made the final four, as Alabama did with almost the exact same metrics, but it's actually good it didn't. Cal would still be here.
I fell better about this team than any team Cal put on the floor since the 2015 team. They have the ability to beat any team in college basketball but then tend to have a game where any team with aggressive guards can beat them.