Did the coaching philosophy change post 15 or did he just not gotten that interior shot blocker that he had at the beginning of his era here?
It’s a very good question, and this where I know we won’t agree. I don’t think recruiting is, or was, the issue with Cal. I don’t think recruiting is, or was, the issue with Pope. I’ve probably typed 8,000,000 words about this subject on this website and I find that no one cares how specifically I can back that up, so I’ll just say this: we can disagree about what the issues are. You can hold the view that it’s recruiting. I can hold the view that it is gameplanning, strategy and teaching. We wind up in the same place —- it isn’t working. I really want to believe in Pope, but I have to believe in the data even more. I don’t believe Pope can coach teams that regularly finish top 25 in KenPom defensively…I said a week ago that I was confident we would finish top 10 in defense with JQ. However, today Pope was still doing the same things with ball screens that were doing without him. And didn’t adjust. I don’t see how it can work.
The teams Cal had from 19- 24, are nothing compared to the dominance Cal put out there from 09-15. You could build an all star team out of his 22 and 24 teams and they wouldn’t compete with his 10, 12, or 15 teams.
I’m a massive fan of 2022 because I love Oscar. That said, if you believe in KenPom efficiency numbers, they were not a national title contender because of ——- you guessed it, defense. Yet again. That team had a defensive efficiency ranking of 36th, which by the way, is worse than this year’s team which is 30th. We could say maybe it would have been better if the untimely injuries didn’t occur that season.
You have to remember......that's not a hard and fast rule.
Well, I agree with you to an extent. I’m not one of these people who say “Cal can’t coach” or any of that nonsense. He’s an excellent coach and a brilliant mind. The problem is just what you said — he didnt change the gameplanning, strategy etc. College basketball is what changed. Go take a look at the efficiency numbers on KenPom from your top 10 teams and start looking year-to-year how they have increased. There’s a reason for that —- as coaches began to optimize their offenses and defenses AND the portal gave them the opportunity to predictably fill specific roles for roster construction, the need for more elaborate defensive attention increased. Was Calipari’s recruiting the same in 2019 that it was in 2012? No, but it also wasn’t going to be possible to keep at that level and I’ll detail why if you want. He still had elite classes, with Rivals still having Kentucky as the #1 rated high school class in the 2020 and 2023 recruiting cycles. How did those subsequent teams perform? The 2020 recruiting class wasn’t good enough defensively and were abysmal offensively. The 2023 recruiting class was his worst defensive team by a landslide. Note that none of the national champions in the last decade even had a top 5 recruiting class, so it’s interesting that we think that is the prominent aspect to begin with.
Right I agree with you. But that’s a chicken/egg dynamic there. You have to have the ABILITY to defend at that level to win those games and increase those efficiencies. You won’t have to work hard to convince me about 2022 though — always will defend that team. I still believe injuries stopped us short of special things there. The metrics say we weren’t a good enough defense though.
Hey man. You won me over on that 2022 team —- not that it need much to convince me haha. So one team in the last several years I can at least agree was a true contender and at best, one team could have potentially been a passable defense. It just wasn’t good enough —- it’s not to hate on Cal. He fell off. That’s okay —- people get washed up. Pitino looks like he may be washed up —- happens.
Eff him. Can't stand cal. Never seen any coach do less with more
LOL, I don't understand your response here. We were comparing 2009-15 Cal to 2020-24 Cal to illustrate the differences with Cal, why would you reply with the bolded sentence? That makes no sense.
Stopped reading after the first sentence, because we weren't comparing teams, we were comparing the difference between Calipari from 09-15 to Calipari in his last 5 years.
I'm proud of you.I'm a moron that thinks Cal is going to do special things, because he was good at UK 10 years ago, so I'm going to go to UK message boards and show everyone how dumb I am!
I see you know how to inject and paste made up quotes but I'm not proud of you all. A complete embarrassment to the league.
We were first in block% in 2024 and ranked in the 100's in defensive efficiency.
lol, Do you miss saying that the last 4 years Cal was here only to flame out in the 1st rd of the tourney?
