bugatti

I don't believe anyone thinks Pope is a bum and peers are always gassing up other peers. I and many others aren't drinking the Kool-Aid (yet) given the lack of a proven track record beyond some solid improvements with the two Utah teams he's coached. I'm optimistic, but traditionally coaches that have had his level of success move on to a lower-tier Power 5 school. Not the elite of the elite. I think much of that is the college basketball environment we live in today where coaching college basketball is not as prestigious as it once was.

The refs took it to the Lakers again last night, causing them to lose a first-half double-digit lead. Despite Jokic picking up two fouls five minutes into the game, you could feel by mid-second quarter the inevitable was going to happen. It was cracking me up before the series started people were giving LAL a legitimate shot to win this series. Did people not watch these teams throughout the year? The cohesiveness of that starting five is on a whole different level than anything else in the league. I could see the Lakers stealing game 4 with a hot shooting effort with no pressure on the line. But if they exchange haymakers early on, the Lakers will fold like a cheap tent and it'll be 1-2-3-Cancun and LeBron will arrive at the press conference in a cast and float his retirement.

Obviously, for UK fans we remain optimistic the Mark Pope era is a tremendous one. But I ain't drinking the Kool-Aid yet. We can convince ourselves this was a great hire, but if 60 days ago I were to tell you Calipari's time at UK is coming to a close and Mark Pope is on deck, I would have been laughed out of the building. He may knock it out of the park. He may fall flat on his face. We shall see.

As evident by the entire UK roster and virtually every other roster flipping because kids want to be in a better situation for playing time and/or profit? That is the "college game." A jersey is just something players put on while on this multiple-year and multi-school journey.

Update. It was awesome.

LeBron was frigging balling in the fourth quarter. He then missed as wide-open of a shot as he had all game and that was all she wrote. You get an A game from LeBron, AD, and D-Lo, and it is still not enough. That has to be psychologically demoralizing with it now being 10 in a row the Lakers have dropped to the Nuggets. Hamm and LeBron both complaining about the refs. Rich, coming from the team that gets to the line as much as they do. It wreaks of desperation because as the Denver faithful like to remind the Lakers, they are their daddies. Jokic is a blast to watch. AD had as much success as you can against the Joker, but in each game he breaks the code and finds a way to win. I hope people are appreciating the greatness we are witnessing with his game. 27, 22, and 10 last night. Ho hum.

Not sure I’ve ever seen as dramatic of back-to-back games as I just witnessed. To start, the Knicks overcame a Jordan flu type game type performance from Tyrese Maxey by reeling off eight points in about 20 seconds to steal the game. In the nightcap, the Nuggets rallied from a 20 point second half deficit with a buzzer beating jumper by Jamal Murray over the outstretched arms of Anthony Davis (Kentucky on Kentucky crime). Insane. If you believe college basketball is better than this I don’t know what to tell you.

As for 2024-2025 UK. Who knows? I'm crossing my fingers.

Spot on. With the portal, I think you could argue Calipari was incredibly successful with it, and if anything didn't utilize it enough. A lot of productivity (All SEC, All American) came from the portal.

For fun, I went back to 2018 to see where UK stacked up against others in FG%. The two outlier years for shooting % were this season (6th in the country) and the goofy COVID season (284th in the country). Averaging out the other years, UK is at 53 out of 363 teams. That would put them around the 85 percentile mark for this duration. Other variables could be considered such as 3 pt %, FT%, level of competition, skill level of own players, etc., but saying UK is traditionally terrible when it comes to shooting the ball is not supported by the data. And these measurements have supposedly been the dark years of UK basketball under Calipari. But perception often becomes reality with these things. My guess is if I did all of Cal's years at UK, they would be much higher than 53rd.

Like last year's class... As I've said, I have no clue what to make of recruiting classes any longer. Unless you strike gold with a Freshman, teams with the most impactful transfers will rise to the top.

This morning I bought tickets for game 2 of the Suns/Wolves series.

If Boston does not make it out of the East, that would be an all-time epic fail. Seldom do you go into the playoffs with a team at minus odds, but here we are. The West is as wide-open of race as I can remember. Going into last night, I would have said the only teams you could cross off would be Sacramento and Golden State (since eliminated). New Orleans may be without Zion (shocker!) so they are on the scratch-off list. So seven teams with a legit shot. That's insane.

Do players still use smokeless tobacco? I assume some do, but figured that was a bygone practice given how in tune pro athletes are with their health today. But yeah, spitting just to spit has always been one of life's great mysteries.

I caught myself watching half an hour of the WNBA draft last night. I am willing to say casual fans are as likely to name as many of the young ladies drafted last night than the young men that will be drafted in June.