Freshman Cason Wallace hit five 3-pointers and scored 19 points in Wednesday’s loss. (UK Athletics Photo)
After Wednesday’s loss at Missouri, Kentucky coach John Calipari was asked what is making it so difficult to figure out the right lineup for this year’s team. Here is what he said.
“Well, we’re different because we got Oscar (Tshiebwe). You could say well, let’s just come down and have everybody out on the floor. You have Oscar. So you got to play a little different. The issue becomes if they don’t play a couple of the guys on the floor. Now Oscar’s got three guys around him. That’s an issue for us.
“So we’ve got to figure out some of it. I told them at halftime, ‘Come down and throw him the ball.’ And we still, I thought some of them, what happens (is) he’s open. It’s a dogfight in there. So if you go like this and then try to pass it to him. That guy’s fighting to get around. He’s fighting to keep them behind.
“There were opportunities to throw it in and do that, but again, you know, we had like five wide-open shots and didn’t make them. That takes the wind out of your sails, and you don’t have to make them all, but how about for one-for-five or two-for-five? So, but we’ll see.
“Look, I haven’t lost any faith. I’ve been through tough stuff. And I knew this would be a hard game, but I thought we would play better. I knew they would play better because they just beat Illinois and they’re making shots and they’re being aggressive and doing some good stuff. I liked the fact that they were going to spread the court on us, because I thought we could get run downhill and get threes. And we did and we missed them all.
“I thought this was the game we wanted to play, but they did a good job in the end ,they ground it out like my teams do. You get that lead and now we’re gonna grind it, we’re gonna shoot late in the clock. Get a back door. Make a tough three. They were good today. I give all the credit to Missouri.”
3 Responses
No one I know is taking shots at these players other than Calipari.
How many still have "faith in" this coach?
FIGURE IT OUT!!!??? We are in conference play…the only thing you figure out from here is how to deal with injuries. The fact that Wheeler is Calipari’s pet will be the downfall of this season. Tshiebwe and Wallace are the only two kids who are playing with any confidence. Wheeler is playing with arrogant disdain because Wallace is showing him up. Wheeler is determined to try to prove he can be an NBA player and we all know how that is going to end. Wallace will be a lottery pick, Oscar may be an early second rounder and Calipari will be all smiles. How long will BBN have to suffer with this NBA pimp?
Those who make big bucks handicapping these games have an impressive track record, and typically, a given team will beat the spread and fall short of the spread about the same number of times when the handicappers understand that team’s strength, relative to the field. In addition, the average deviation between the projected line and the final margin hovers near zero for almost all teams.
However, there are always a few exceptions, especially in the early part of a season, and it takes these professional handicappers a little longer to assess the strength of those few teams. In this group, a few teams many consistently beat the line while a few others consistently fail to cover the line.
This season, UK has cover 4 times and fell short 8 times. That is concerning, but when you add to this the detail that it has fallen short in each of the last 6 games, alarm bells should be going off. In addition, UK’s difference between the line and the final margins has been increasing during this 6 game run, -6 ½, -4 ½, -7, -8, -17 ½, and -17.
This is an alarming trend. It indicates a team that is falling off the edge. It indicates a team in a free fall. Objects in this type of free fall eventually crash and burn.
I have not seen an opening line for tomorrow’s game against Louisville, but I expect the line will be UK by 23 to 27 points. If UK’s trend of declining performance against the spread continues, then the difference between the line and actual margin tomorrow could fall into a range that will be sufficiently low to place this game in at least some reasonable doubt for the Cats.
If UK does not beat UL tomorrow by at least 20 points, and I would like to see a 30+ point thrashing, there has been no correction to this free fall, and if this is a single digit game, or the heavens forbid, should UL win tomorrow, the free fall continues and we all may witness the actual crash and burn.