College Basketball

[RedEyedGhost]

Crap, can't believe we let this slip to page 6...

I blame it on most schools having finals, and the lack of quality games.

It is odd that when Lute's wife of (nearly?) 50 years dies he takes off 6 games, but when he gets divorced from his new wife he takes off the entire season. There's been some speculation that she was having an affair with Miles Simon - '97 player and current assistant coach.

Some big upsets today with Xavier and Oregon going down.

KU has been playing fantastic in their past two games. They brutalized a pretty good Ohio team today. We're still not at full strength but everybody is playing - here's hoping we can make it the rest of the season free of major injuries.

UK's fans are imploding and already calling for Gillispie's head. How you doing rhom'? I think you're probably the most rational UK fan on the intrawebs - so if you're losing it I'll be very worried! Here's hoping you get healthy soon

[aeu]

It is odd that when Lute's wife of (nearly?) 50 years dies he takes off 6 games, but when he gets divorced from his new wife he takes off the entire season. There's been some speculation that she was having an affair with Miles Simon - '97 player and current assistant coach.

I hadn't heard that. How old is current Mrs. Olson?

[RedEyedGhost]

I hadn't heard that. How old is current Mrs. Olson?

Lute is 73

She is 50

Simon is 32 (I believe)

[aeu]

Just...wow.

That has gotta be some baseless internet rumor. I mean, Simon has to be the stupidest man alive to go for something like that. You would think it would kill any chance of him having a coaching career, no?

Of course, he could be madly in love and not thinking rationally...

[RedEyedGhost]

Just...wow.

That has gotta be some baseless internet rumor. I mean, Simon has to be the stupidest man alive to go for something like that. You would think it would kill any chance of him having a coaching career, no?

Of course, he could be madly in love and not thinking rationally...

I hope it is just crazy internet chatter, because that would be an unbelievably horrible thing to do to the person who brought in as a player and than as an assistant coach. However, stranger things have happened, and with the dearth of information, the suddenness of the LOA, and the length of the LOA it all seems to add up to something abnormal

[H von T]

Of course, he could be madly in love and not thinking rationally...

Fear the cougar.

Florida's preconference schedule of shit games continued today. The Gators beat Ga. Southern to move to 10-1 against absolutely horrible competition. The only decent team we've played is FSU and they pounded us. I understand the team is very young, but it'd be nice if there was at least one interesting game before the conference games start. And this year the SEC will be mediocre at best and won't be all that relevant anyways. Sigh.

[RedEyedGhost]

Fear the cougar.

I hear they bite.

[aeu]

I hope it is just crazy internet chatter, because that would be an unbelievably horrible thing to do to the person who brought in as a player and than as an assistant coach. However, stranger things have happened, and with the dearth of information, the suddenness of the LOA, and the length of the LOA it all seems to add up to something abnormal

Yeah, there's something fishy going on, that's for sure. Lute has filed for divorce as well. When I read that, I immediately thought "Someone's must be having an affair". But with Miles Simon??? Damn...

[RedEyedGhost]

If somebody would have told me the Big 12 would have the #1 conference RPI this close to the start of conference games, I would have laughed in their faces. The Big12/Pac10 Hardwood challenges was one of the best things our conference has done in a long, long time. I don't think we're the best conference, but we're a heck of a lot better than I thought we'd be (ex. Nebraska improbably beating Oregon).

Yeah, there's something fishy going on, that's for sure. Lute has filed for divorce as well. When I read that, I immediately thought "Someone's must be having an affair". But with Miles Simon??? Damn...

I hope it's not true, but I doubt we'll ever know the full truth (unless the divorce gets really nasty). Lute's not going to come out and say, one of my ex-player screwed my wife - too embarrassing. Simon wouldn't say, "I screwed my head coaches wife." - his coaching career would be virtually over.

[Rhom]

Crap, can't believe we let this slip to page 6...

Uggh... I agree. I've wanted to post periodically... but didn't have much to offer on general perspective. A couple great games coming up this week. Georgetown and Memphis???? Its rare that you get that quality non-conference game outside of the contrived pre-season tournies. Generally a good week of ball games all around.

It is odd that when Lute's wife of (nearly?) 50 years dies he takes off 6 games, but when he gets divorced from his new wife he takes off the entire season. There's been some speculation that she was having an affair with Miles Simon - '97 player and current assistant coach.

I also thought it was odd about the Bobbi thing and this new wife. I hadn't heard the thing about Miles Simon. Crazy stuff. Biggest rumor of that type around here was speculation that Ashley Judd had a relationship with Tony Delk. Well... that and the rumors that Pitino was dating cheerleaders and that his mysterious low back pain a couple years ago was actually a secondary syphillus infection.

UK's fans are imploding and already calling for Gillispie's head. How you doing rhom'? I think you're probably the most rational UK fan on the intrawebs - so if you're losing it I'll be very worried! Here's hoping you get healthy soon

Some seem to be calling for his head. There's a fairly sizable rational camp that I fall into that isn't necessarily going that far... but is certainly questioning his capability in some sideline capacities. Its the sort of thing that you'd need to watch the games for, but UAB on Saturday was a great example... for 30 minutes we played lights out basketball and were hitting shots at a rate I hadn't seen in a couple years and everything was right with the world. Then "Crazy Mike" Davis made a couple of coaching adjustments and Gillispie never responded. We went 6 minutes without any points and 8 minutes without a field goal and turned a 14 point lead with 10 to play into a 3 point loss. What ingenious coaching strategy did "Crazy Mike" employ you ask? A zone defense. Coupled with multiple ball-screens on the opposite end of the floor to spring open an amazing hot Robert Vaden for 28 second half points. Gillispie has publicly stated that his teams do not use a zone defense... apparently his teams also are utterly cluesless on how to play against a zone defense. How do you shoot 57% from the field and 12 of 25 from the arc and lose??? He failed to make defensive adjustments when Vaden got hot and then failed to make offensive adjustments when his team struggled to move the ball against the 1-3-1 zone.

If you'll recall from earlier in this thread, I mentioned that some people justified the Gardner-Webb loss as some sort of "master plan" of BCG's to give his team two extra weeks of uninterrupted practice. I called hogwash back then. He has certainly dealt with many off-court problems like injuries, the "Momstradomous" fiasco with Alex Legion, and the general lack of talent left over from the previous regime. My concern is that, to this point, he has not shown the ability to "do more with less." He is a terrific recruiter to this point, my only concern is that if these issues continue to be a problem... that may suffer as well.

Kentucky has made every tourney since they came off probation in 92 and has never lost in the first round in any of those years. That's 15 straight years of never being worse than number 32 in the country. At this point, an NIT bid would be a blessing. The season is still long and a lot of things can change, but one of the things that will have to change for the Wildcats is Billy's coaching. This next stretch will be huge for the Cats, at Houston then home against Tenn Tech, San Diego, Florida International and then wrap up the non conference with Louisville on Jan 5. If the season is to be salvaged, the Cats need some good momentum against teams they should be able to beat.

[Rhom]

Okay... I'm with GRRM...

Life is meaningless and has no purpose.

[Guest]

Okay... I'm with GRRM...

Life is meaningless and has no purpose.

Yeah, I didn't watch that one, but that must have been a tough one to take. Do you guys still have a couple key people out? Is Meeks still a Wildcat and is he injured?

As far as the Simon rumor at U of A, I believe that is a nasty rumor but you never know. I have a buddy in AZ who is a pretty avid sports radio listener and he hadn't heard anything about it.

I actually think this O'Neil thing will be a great move for U of A. I think Lute is great at running a program and recruiting and getting people to the NBA, but I've never believed he was an elite teacher of the game or motivator.

I have an old friend who is a HS basketball coach who has been to a number of college practices, including U of A. He said Lute doesn't do a ton of coaching. He was there when Garner and Walton were seniors. He said his style was more to pull those guys aside and tell them to get the team going.

He also said he went to a Utah practice with Majerus and he coached the hell out of every detail, picking guys apart for being two feet out of place when setting a screen on a set play. Kind of interesting to contrast those two styles.

[Rhom]

Apparently the team has not been watching My Name is Earl. Karma is a bitch.

We got Meeks back last night. (Surprising as hell too... there had been zero talk about his imminent return until the day before the game. Jasper had been speculated for about a week... but no Meeks.) And Patrick Patterson injures an ankle at practice on Monday. So we get our outside game back... and lose the only inside game we have.

Injuries are still killing the Cats, but so are the Cats. Our biggest problems are turnovers and rebounds. At one point, we were outrebounded on the offensive end 18-0 last night. If we can actually field a line-up of Jasper, Bradley, Meeks, Crawford, and Patterson for a couple games in a row... I think we could actually begin to make progress.

Gillispie continues to play head games with the kids too. There's obviously something wrong with him and Crawford. The story is that Joe dogs it in practice, so BCG doesn't start him. Well, coach, you lose some credibility when that kid comes in a couple minutes into the game, plays the most minutes, and leads the team in scoring. /sigh

At any rate, the KU/GT game last night just before the embarassment was entertaining to watch. Thought for sure it was headed to OT there for a bit till Tech fumbled the game away.

[RedEyedGhost]

Gillispie has publicly stated that his teams do not use a zone defense... apparently his teams also are utterly cluesless on how to play against a zone defense. How do you shoot 57% from the field and 12 of 25 from the arc and lose??? He failed to make defensive adjustments when Vaden got hot and then failed to make offensive adjustments when his team struggled to move the ball against the 1-3-1 zone.

I think he gets this from Self. We still have troubles when teams switch from playing man all game into zone at the end. Their offenses also require a "zone buster" at the top of the key. Julian Wright provided that for us last season, and we're kind of missing that this year.

If you'll recall from earlier in this thread, I mentioned that some people justified the Gardner-Webb loss as some sort of "master plan" of BCG's to give his team two extra weeks of uninterrupted practice. I called hogwash back then. He has certainly dealt with many off-court problems like injuries, the "Momstradomous" fiasco with Alex Legion, and the general lack of talent left over from the previous regime. My concern is that, to this point, he has not shown the ability to "do more with less." He is a terrific recruiter to this point, my only concern is that if these issues continue to be a problem... that may suffer as well.

Legion's mom is batshit crazy. I feel bad that Patterson had to room with him.

Yeah, I didn't watch that one, but that must have been a tough one to take. Do you guys still have a couple key people out? Is Meeks still a Wildcat and is he injured?

As far as the Simon rumor at U of A, I believe that is a nasty rumor but you never know. I have a buddy in AZ who is a pretty avid sports radio listener and he hadn't heard anything about it.

I heard the rumor from people living AZ

Gillispie continues to play head games with the kids too. There's obviously something wrong with him and Crawford. The story is that Joe dogs it in practice, so BCG doesn't start him. Well, coach, you lose some credibility when that kid comes in a couple minutes into the game, plays the most minutes, and leads the team in scoring. /sigh

At any rate, the KU/GT game last night just before the embarassment was entertaining to watch. Thought for sure it was headed to OT there for a bit till Tech fumbled the game away.

That sucks about Patterson. Is he alright?

Self and Gillispie are big into effort in practice = playing time, and it has been very frustrating at times. It's lead to a couple of transfers, but with Self's phenomenal recruiting those transfers opened scholies up for even better players.

There have been some pains along the way, but I believe our program is in a fantastic position right now (especially this year). Self has the second highest winning percentage in KU history @ .800 (Roy had .805). Now that Self has his players, his scheme, basically his team in place KU basketball is fun to watch. I never thought I could enjoy defense so much! (Not that mind numbing defense they play in the big11.) There were bumps in the road (same kind of things you guys are going through now), but Self got it taken care of and I believe Gillispie will too.

Two great games tonight! Duke-Pitt and OU-Gonzaga, with Duke losing and OU winning it helps the Big 12 in wrapping up that #1 non-con RPI. That still blows my fucking mind. Before the season started I thought we might run the table in conference this year, not any more! I think we'll get 2-3 losses, and there should be some great games. The Big 12 is starting to get some love nationally as well. link1 link2

And after the OU-Ganzaga game Steve Lavin called the Big 12 the nation's best conference.

[Rhom]

The Big Twelve has certainly come up out of nowhere to be a very tough place to play. A couple years ago when the Big East realignment hit, that looked to be the super conference of the next decade but it has really disappointed. The Big 11 will get an identity change in football this year with Rich Rod bringing the spread to Michigan, basketball needs something similar to happen.

As far as I know, Patterson is okay. He rolled his ankle the day before the game and came up a little lame the day of. I think he's scheduled to play on Saturday.

I stole this next bit from www.aseaofblue.com. (A great blog to check out for reasoned and rational Kentucky Basketball fan analysis.) It was posted by a guy there under the name of MartinGolf9, but I thought it was interesting enough to copy+paste and send out. He writes:

In looking at the North Carolina program and their record when they had a down year I thought it may be interesting to look at both them and UCLA to see how long it really took to bring the programs back to where they are truly an elite team again.

The last 10 years for North Carolina looked like this:

Year Record Season Ended

97-98 34-4 Final 4

98-99 24-10 1st Round

99-00 22-14 Final 4

------------------------

00-01 26-7 2nd Round

01-02 8-20 End of Regular Season

02-03 19-16 NIT Quarterfinals

------------------------

03-04 19-11 2nd Round

04-05 33-4 NCAA Champions

05-06 23-8 2nd Round

06-07 31-7 Elite 8

UCLA's Last 10 years:

Year Record Season Ended

97-98 24-9 Sweet 16

98-99 22-9 1st Round

99-00 21-12 Sweet 16

00-01 23-9 Sweet 16

01-02 21-12 Sweet 16

02-03 10-19 End of Regular Season

--------------------------------

03-04 11-17 End of Regular Season

04-05 18-11 1st Round

05-06 32-7 NCAA Finals

06-07 30-6 Final 4

I use both of those examples to show that after a team had been worn down with a lack of recruiting great talent it took at least 2-3 years to truly turn the program around and get it back to where it should be. In our case people are talking about next year and what the team will look like next year, but if history serves with truly elite teams like UNC, UCLA and UK, it will take more like 2 to 3 years to truly get the talent level back where it should be.

I think BCG will get it turned around but we must give him the time he needs. Even rushing to judgment next year would, in my opinion, be too soon to tell anything. So I ask you, How Long are you willing to wait for the UK program to get turned around?

*Note: The dashes indicate a coaching change

Its certainly reassuring to look back at the last decade for a couple other big schools and see that there is a blueprint for success.

[Guest]

Big win for Pitt. I've noticed something about Pitt. For about the last seven years or so, they've been a really solid up-and-coming program that has been a high seed in the tournament. But two things: They've never made it deep in the tournament, and they've never really had anyone succeed in the pros in any way. I can't think of any Pitt player that's done squat in the NBA.

Gonzaga should be better. This should be their most talented team top-to-bottom that they've ever had. I'll reserve judgement unil they get healthy. That was Heytvelt's first game back, and Bouldin is messed up and was totally playing hurt last night.

[Greywolf2375]

Big win for Pitt. I've noticed something about Pitt. For about the last seven years or so, they've been a really solid up-and-coming program that has been a high seed in the tournament. But two things: They've never made it deep in the tournament, and they've never really had anyone succeed in the pros in any way. I can't think of any Pitt player that's done squat in the NBA.

Gonzaga should be better. This should be their most talented team top-to-bottom that they've ever had. I'll reserve judgement unil they get healthy. That was Heytvelt's first game back, and Bouldin is messed up and was totally playing hurt last night.

Mark Blount & Aaron Gray aren't enough for you? I remember Jerome Lane becoming a name and pretty much getting drafted because he broke a backboard. That's not enough impact?

Was disappointed seeing Duke lose, but I wasn't too surprised. Shooting 53% from the FT line will not get it done against the good teams, and even some of the mediocre ones. Somehow that has been a weakness of theirs for the last 5 or 6 years. The game also started to show that Dukes smaller line up means they need to work more as a team for rebounding.

[Guest]

Mark Blount & Aaron Gray aren't enough for you? I remember Jerome Lane becoming a name and pretty much getting drafted because he broke a backboard. That's not enough impact?

What teams are those guys even on? Gray is a rookie right so he may be the first that I would have taken notice of, but who does Blount play for? My point was, they have no one that a casual NBA fan has ever heard of. I'm not attacking Pitt, I just think there's an inverse relationship to how good of a college program they've been for the better part of the last decade.

[Greywolf2375]

What teams are those guys even on? Gray is a rookie right so he may be the first that I would have taken notice of, but who does Blount play for? My point was, they have no one that a casual NBA fan has ever heard of. I'm not attacking Pitt, I just think there's an inverse relationship to how good of a college program they've been for the better part of the last decade.

I agree - that was sposed to be sarcasm, sorry. They are and have been a team that works well together in the college game, but don't translate well to the pros. While Duke has had many more players get to the pro's, in a lot of ways they are similar. They have a good college team concept, but don't necessarily fit well to the NBA game.

[Guest]

I agree - that was sposed to be sarcasm, sorry. They are and have been a team that works well together in the college game, but don't translate well to the pros. While Duke has had many more players get to the pro's, in a lot of ways they are similar. They have a good college team concept, but don't necessarily fit well to the NBA game.

I am a very sarcastic person myself and I'm sorry and embarrassed that I didn't get yours.

Who was that PG that was really good for Pitt a few years ago? Knight?

I watched a NW game last night, Washington State. If you guys haven't seen them play yet, they are eithter the best or worst thing you've ever seen depending on your preference. Admittedly, they were playing The Citedel, but they had held them to something like 22 points a good ways into the 2nd half. They work their ass off on D and are very well coached. The Pac-10 is going to be brutal because of them.

I agree that the Big 12 is surprising (except for OSU). The Ducks lost to Nebraska last weekend and Nebraska looked good. They have this 300 lb Aussie center who was immovable.