Does 23-25 verses ranked teams really deserve a lifetime contract?…

[ExitFlagger]

The last few years Cal’s recruiting has slipped though.



So when is the end game for fixing it? I don’t believe you have a final 4 caliber squad this year either

You'd think an Auburn fan would appreciate the difficulty of going to the final four.

I remember when Roy had about an 8 year final four drought, with a couple really average teams in that streak. Then he went to back to back, followed by his run of titles at UNC. I suppose KU should have fired him and UNC should have steered clear.

 

[AuHoosier420]

You'd think an Auburn fan would appreciate the difficulty of going to the final four.

I remember when Roy had about an 8 year final four drought, with a couple really average teams in that streak. Then he went to back to back, followed by his run of titles at UNC. I suppose KU should have fired him and UNC should have steered clear.

You are missing my point here. I am specifically talking about how UK handled tubby smith and how they are now handling John calipari. It’s just contradicting. Obviously it’s very hard to make the final 4.

 

[Kevin Bryan]

Regardless this is an old convo weve had before, im not gonna change ur mind any quicker than ur gonna change mine. And again not like he was busted for anything illegal anyways.

Imo though its naive to think www didnt have a major hand in cals career success. If not why wasnt he killing it on the recruiting trail and in the tourney before www. One final four run at umass where he happened to have a top 2 pick in camby. What did he accomplish nationally besides that before he signed dejuan wagner?

Cal's last 5 years at UMass:
Sweet 16
2nd round
2nd round
Elite 8
Final 4

If those aren't accomplishments I don't know what are. How many other coaches can you put at an obscure mid-major program like UMass and expect better results? Also, Dejuan Wagner was at Memphis for 1 year and they went to the NIT. lol @ "Has he though? K and duke have been out recruiting cal since……….about the time uk told www to make himself scarce." Now you're just trying to split hairs. Ok, then let's just say Cal has been the 2nd best recruiter in the game since then (highly debatable that he hasn't been the best). Damn, Cal has really dropped off the map since his boy WWW disappeared!!! Certainly you realize how ridiculous that sounds. The reason K climbed into the conversation is because he finally embraced stacking teams with one-and-done caliber playeres after Cal had been doing it for years already. He could've been doing the same thing long before.

 

[Kevin Bryan]

You are missing my point here. I am specifically talking about how UK handled tubby smith and how they are now handling John calipari. It’s just contradicting. Obviously it’s very hard to make the final 4.

There are plenty of UK fans out there that have been wanting to run Cal off for years. Same ones that wanted Tubby gone. Since you spend so much time on RR you should know that by now.

 

[Villian07]

Cal's last 5 years at UMass:
Sweet 16
2nd round
2nd round
Elite 8
Final 4

If those aren't accomplishments I don't know what are. How many other coaches can you put at an obscure mid-major program like UMass and expect better results? Also, Dejuan Wagner was at Memphis for 1 year and they went to the NIT. lol @ "Has he though? K and duke have been out recruiting cal since……….about the time uk told www to make himself scarce." Now you're just trying to split hairs. Ok, then let's just say Cal has been the 2nd best recruiter in the game since then (highly debatable that he hasn't been the best). Damn, Cal has really dropped off the map since his boy WWW disappeared!!! Certainly you realize how ridiculous that sounds. The reason K climbed into the conversation is because he finally embraced stacking teams with one-and-done caliber playeres after Cal had been doing it for years already. He could've been doing the same thing long before.

Good post.

Wagner the player wasnt the tipping point, it was bringing him in by hiring his dad, Milt, who was a childhood friend of www. Cal formed his relationship with www thru the wagners. And after that his recruiting “coincidentally” went thru the roof, when before that he wasnt out recruiting every coach in the history of the game sans wooden.

But ur right about his time at umass, thats a very impressive run at a program of that size.

Just thought the statement about wooden was ironic coming from a cat fan when cal has benefitted from “outside help” as well imo. Even if www didnt have as huge of an impact as i claim/think, its pretty naive to think he had no impact on cals career trajectory, imo. I mean taking derrick rose to playoff games in HS, accompanied john wall on official visits, mkg was his “nephew”, etc. like ive said before, they didn’t throw him on the cover of SI bc hes a good cheerleader or shoe salesman.

But ur also right in that this is old news, super old. Idk what year uk told him to stop “coming around” but i do know hes super tight with Payne as well. Its crazy that most of his younger connection came from louisville players, specifically wagner and kevin walls, bc they were from camden NJ as well. But for some reason, despite winning a title, he was pissed at crum for the way he did or didnt utilize Kevin walls, so he soured on crum/UL before he ever even had any clout. Then pitinos dumb ass banned him from a tourney game the year we won* it all. Plus weve never been nike. But college aged www got his feet wet in college basketball at louisville when he was a sneaker salesman and had childhood friends on the team, and made friends with the other players on the roster like Kenny Payne for example.

And again i have no clue what www does and doesnt do or did and didnt do; but i dont believe it was just nothing. And i have a hard tine beliving if he would have been hanging around any other program, being rumored of funneling them 5star recruits, that uk fans wouldnt be pretty pissed about it as well.

But again i get it, if the ncaa doesnt choose to look, and doesnt allege anything, no ones gonna go jumping on their sword and be like yea that was pretty shady, esp since so many schools have been recently proven to either straight pay their stud recruits or get nike/adidas to do it for em. Besides now with this nil stuff, anything www did would have been Above board anyways.

 

[Villian07]

There are plenty of UK fans out there that have been wanting to run Cal off for years. Same ones that wanted Tubby gone. Since you spend so much time on RR you should know that by now.

I dont get the compairison. Cals accomplished wayyyyy more than tubby, same titles but more FFs, also put together the most talented team possibly ever and the only one to go 38-1 ever.

Tubby was good with pitinos players, took em to the ship. Then a few years later the mantra became 10 loss tubby, bc he didnt bring in as talented kids as uk was used to, and didnt have near the tourney success iirc. I don’t remember very many successful pros during tubbys tenure. Chuck hayes the most successful nba career? Maybe azubukie? Its along time ago so im sure im missing a few.

Cals had 2 bad years out of 10-11 at uk. 2013 noel was a bit overrated and got hurt and goodwin was idk a ballhog if not a total dick.

Then last year with covid, when literally no young/oad team in the nation had any success. Hell none of the bluebloods period had much success sans maybe kansas was decent and ucla made a miracle tourney run as an 11 seed. I think u have to throw lst year out the window imo unless u had a veteran squad ala baylor and zags(sans suggs).

Theyve had a pretty damned talented team every other year, even the year they limped into the tourney as a 8/9 seed and made the title game, they had a very good roster, just young and couldnt win on the road. No road games in the tourney esp the way bbn travels.

Imo ur comparing one bad year from cal to multiple years of decline for tubby.

And i very much thibk uk os a ff contender this year, i mean look around, sans baylor and zona and maybe gonzaga and duke, almost everyone else has a bad loss or two ala nd for uk. UK has so many new faces that havent played together before this year it would not suprise me one bit to see them make another run in the tourney if they can stay healthy and gel.

But winning in the tourney is hard, hell uk with fox/monk/bam was a helluva team jist ran into unc in the EE instead of FF. Honestly should have made the final four the next year as well iirc with pj washington as the stud, bc the bracket completely fell apart, but again the tourney is a crap shoot. I just dont remember tubby going to what 4-5 FFs including 2 runner ups to go with his title at UK. Did he ever make another final four. I know he came close in 2005 bc we made it and yall had an epic game with sprty in the elite eight where yall came up short. No one but illini had a chance to beat unc rhat year anyways, and they couldnt do it either.

 

[Bert Higginbotha]

Okay, folks on the WWW and cheating and Wooden and Gilbert and NCAA rules being applied differently from one school to another:

I used to go to the AAU games with Joe B. Hall, UK coach, in the 1970’s and 80’s. I saw how he recruited, and I had a set of rules that I had to follow, or I could not go with Joe B. so he would not get in trouble with the NCAA.

Every damned coach in Division 1 would be at those games at one time or the other. I met Bob Knight, Coach K., Denny Crum, Digger Phelps, Tubby Smith, etc. I sat beside them as they analyzed their recruits (I loved every minute of it). The process was always the same with all coaches. You pitched your program, your style, exposure to the pros, following, what you could do for the recruit, et.al.

The AAU coaches would also pitch schools to their players if they thought they could gain future employment at a school or future agency for a special player. All coaches know how the system worked and they all worked the system.

Accusations made above are disingenuous. Wooden got big time help from Gilbert. The UCLA players got to live in his mansions and drive his hot cars while they played at UCLA and all the girls that go with mansions and hot cars. The NCAA looked the other way. It was reported often, and the NCAA turned a blind eye to it. The UCLA model never happened at Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, St. Johns, Florida or Louisville or any other school that I am aware, period.

The NCAA historically has ridden Kentucky hard. UCLA, Arizona, Duke, UNC, IU, Kansas and many others not so hard. So, comparing Wooden to Cal is laughable because there are no comparisons.

 

[Villian07]

This is not directed at UK or cal or www obv bc yall werent involved………but is living in a boosters mansion and driving boosters cars soooooo much better than some of these kids that were caught up gettin 6 figure$ to go to certain schools based on their apparel contracts, my school included, whom adidas payed over 200k for the 20th something ranked recruit?

Mansions and cars are nice, but id rather have $$$ in the bank personally. Not saying ucla players didnt have both, idk.

But again i obv wasnt alive during woodens run. I know he benefitted big time off gilbert and off of freshmen not being able to play varsity and being able to keep his studs in school 3-4 years (which i imagine the mansions and cars did help with that very much).

But i also know his tourney success is unrivaled and speaks for itself. not to mention he has an pretty respectable coaching tree so he was obv a pretty good x and o guy as well

 

[Scotty00]

Cal's last 5 years at UMass:
Sweet 16
2nd round
2nd round
Elite 8
Final 4

If those aren't accomplishments I don't know what are. How many other coaches can you put at an obscure mid-major program like UMass and expect better results? Also, Dejuan Wagner was at Memphis for 1 year and they went to the NIT. lol @ "Has he though? K and duke have been out recruiting cal since……….about the time uk told www to make himself scarce." Now you're just trying to split hairs. Ok, then let's just say Cal has been the 2nd best recruiter in the game since then (highly debatable that he hasn't been the best). Damn, Cal has really dropped off the map since his boy WWW disappeared!!! Certainly you realize how ridiculous that sounds. The reason K climbed into the conversation is because he finally embraced stacking teams with one-and-done caliber playeres after Cal had been doing it for years already. He could've been doing the same thing long before.

Don’t post things like this that makes sense, it confuses some people!😂

 

[Villian07]

Don’t post things like this that makes sense, it confuses some people!😂

I credited him good post. I was unaware of the EE, too young to remember camby in college tbh remember him with knicks. Impressive run for sure at umass. Not what made him a household name, but inpressive none the less.

Plus as inpressive as it is, his umass resume alone would never have landed him the UK gig, no chance. Hell yall hired bcg when u coulda went after cal 🤷‍♂️ What changed???

 

[BasketBallJunkie-UK]

we are looking at the last 7 seasons. You know the downturn of UK. Calipari has been average as hell since the 2015/2016 season. You fired tubby smith over this exact thing

Tubby wasn't fired....