Squid goes down!!

[junglehusky]

 

[Calhoun's Court]

I don't care what his record says this guy doesn't belong in the same room with Jim Calhoun.

He is just a snake oil salesman.

 

[SubbaBub]

Don't kid yourselves. That was a great basketball team that lost last night full of great players. If any one or two of them were on UConn's team this year, we'd have made a run at the FF.

Squid is the best used car salesman in the history of CBB. I mean that in the best way possible. In an era where many programs, especially ours, can get these kids to the lottery. He convinces them to come in and compete with last year's McDonald's AA, at reduced playing time. Cash payments notwithstanding. That is about as good as can be done bringing in talent.

The problem is that he is not that good a basketball coach. Oh, he's not terrible but, his kids generally don't improve under his tutelage and most are lottery picks coming in, so he's not providing value there either.

He's also not a good game coach, if he can't out talent you by a good margin he generally loses.

What he does do well is motivate his guys. There is no doubt that they were the most shocked people in the building last night.

Sooner or later this one and done gambit will fade because the kids will realize the vig the Cal extracting from their talent or the NCAA comes calling.

He might decide to bolt this year, but I think he got less than 3 years left at UK.

 

[TheChamps990411]

The problem is that he is not that good a basketball coach. Oh, he's not terrible but, his kids generally don't improve under his tutelage and most are lottery picks coming in, so he's not providing value there either.

He's also not a good game coach, if he can't out talent you by a good margin he generally loses.

What he does do well is motivate his guys.

Great analysis of Squid. Its exactly how i see him. I always laugh at how BSPN especially Pukie V goes on about how he gets guys into the NBA. I think its safe to say Anthony Davis would be the player he is if he had committed to Prairie View.

 

[UCweCONN]

I wonder which bandwagon Drake is jumping on now?

 

[David 76]

Boy, if you didn't see his problems in the last minutes of last night's game or against us last year, I don't know what to tell you. If Ollie did what squid did, people would be screaming for his head.

 

[uchusky32]

He didn't coach last night. Out of a time out Harrison shoots an airball 27ft 3?. Either he wasn't interested in what Squid was saying or Squid wasn't saying . That's how they got beat. HOF? For recruiting? That's about it.

 

[IMind]

How many vacated final fours does he need to get into the hall of fame?

 

[David 76]

How many vacated final fours does he need to get into the hall of fame?

I'm hoping it's 3!

 

[Devland]

I for one was happy for Calipari. He had the opportunity to have a nice Easter dinner at home with his family. lol

 

[CallMeBruce]

Calhoun wouldn't have cared about the Harrison twins' egos, and Ulis would have seen far more minutes.

Want proof: in 2004, Marcus Williams was taking more and more minutes from Taliek until he flunked off the team.

Any coach that was willing to, you know, coach!, would have given Ulis a lot more minutes over the course of the season.

I don't know about this. Williams was generally playing 10-20 minutes a night for most of the season, but his minutes actually went down prior to flunking off the team. In his last three games, he played 5 minutes, got a DNP, and played 3 minutes. There could have been other circumstances, and it's possible he was being phased out because they knew he wasn't going to be eligible, but I don't think the facts support this. I think Brown continued to get a pretty long leash from Calhoun that year, even when he was being outplayed by Williams.

 

[tzznandrew]

I don't know about this. Williams was generally playing 10-20 minutes a night for most of the season, but his minutes actually went down prior to flunking off the team. In his last three games, he played 5 minutes, got a DNP, and played 3 minutes. There could have been other circumstances, and it's possible he was being phased out because they knew he wasn't going to be eligible, but I don't think the facts support this. I think Brown continued to get a pretty long leash from Calhoun that year, even when he was being outplayed by Williams.

Fair enough. My sense is what I wrote, but I certainly did not look up the facts and I'll take your word for it. Wouldn't be the first time I was wrong, and won't be the last.

And to be clear, I don't remember Brown playing poorly in the beginning of the year. So that may play a part.

I will say, though, that I suspect JC would have played Marcus Williams if that was what he thought he needed to do to win. If Calipari thought the Harrisons were what he needed to win, he's dumber than I thought. Ulis made that team run when he was in.

 

[johnhuskies95]

Fair enough. My sense is what I wrote, but I certainly did not look up the facts and I'll take your word for it. Wouldn't be the first time I was wrong, and won't be the last.

And to be clear, I don't remember Brown playing poorly in the beginning of the year. So that may play a part.

I will say, though, that I suspect JC would have played Marcus Williams if that was what he thought he needed to do to win. If Calipari thought the Harrisons were what he needed to win, he's dumber than I thought. Ulis made that team run when he was in.

I don't know of a college site like NBA.com that shows substitution patterns for a team to confirm this, but I think Calipari's biggest mistake is that he played the Harrison's as a tandem pretty much the whole season. I think they would've been a lot better if one was paired with Booker and the other was paired with Ulis.

 

[tzznandrew]

I don't know of a college site like NBA.com that shows substitution patterns for a team to confirm this, but I think Calipari's biggest mistake is that he played the Harrison's as a tandem pretty much the whole season. I think they would've been a lot better if one was paired with Booker and the other was paired with Ulis.

I think you're right. The Harrisons aren't going to be great pros, but they are solid college players. Play Andrew with Booker and Aaron with Ulis and you probably have a better substitution pattern.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Not for nothing, but both Harrisons shot like crap this year. I just don't see where they're producing so much value. Definitely got worse since last season.

Actually, I guess they didn't really decline, but neither player had a particularly good year.

 

[UConnWingman]

jeff goodman is reporting he received the necessary votes to be 'elected' in, which is ludicrous

You would think that the NCAA would actually give a crap about this sort of thing.

 

[alfonse]

We were laughing when they showed him yelling at his players during the game what was the genius coach yelling at them? "Grab the ball!" He also used his arms to motion on how to grab it. Nice to see a coach talking fundamentals. That is something you yell at the 4th grade team your coaching, not the team full of NBA first round picks

 

[DarthGrumpy]

The media has been enamored with this guy since his UMass days for whatever reason. Amazing but there's no doubt he should be in the discussion despite our disrespect here.

Because most of the college media folks are former basketball players and if you saw what he used to have delivered to Camby while he was at UMass you would understand. They all wish he was their coach in college. And no, it was not pizza that was delivered, unless the pizza delivery guys got upgraded their rides to Lincolns and the delivery guys were actually women wearing about 3 pepperoni's worth of clothing.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

You would think that the NCAA would actually give a crap about this sort of thing.

The NCAA cares about 1 thing - MONEY! Since Coach Cal delivers a lot of MONEY to the NCAA, everything else is irrelevant.

 

[selles]

I don't know of a college site like NBA.com that shows substitution patterns for a team to confirm this, but I think Calipari's biggest mistake is that he played the Harrison's as a tandem pretty much the whole season. I think they would've been a lot better if one was paired with Booker and the other was paired with Ulis.

I think that's right. The real problem with the Harrisons is that there are two of them.

With one Harrison you have a really nice college player, but having two together diminishes the benefit of their strengths (because they overlap) and magnifies their weaknesses. Take 1 off the roster and substitute a quicker perimeter player with a shot and this Kentucky team might well have been equal to the hype.

 

[ZenConn]

What are these Final Fours with UMass and Memphis that they speak of? I don't see it in the record books anywhere.