Coach Cal has been knocked this season on BGP as not being a very good coach. I am included in the group that has questioned his in game coaching ability. However, over the past couple of weeks, I believe Cal has displayed some of the best coaching of his tenure at UK as he tries to mold this team into a title contender. Here are some changes I have seen:

 

Team Defense - Cal's trademark is defense. That is truly what has made his UK teams so good. This year's team has struggled defensively. UK's defense is getting noticeably better game by game. Hedging picks, rotations, defensive rebounding all are significantly better. Every player is better defensively now than they were just two weeks ago.

 

Substitutions - In recent games, Cal has changed how he substitutes players into games. There is a zero tolerance approach to defensive lapses. You make a mistake on defense, come on over here and sit down to think about it and make sure it doesn't happen again. More minutes are going to the players who give effort and play defense. How those players play defense in that particular game determines how long they stay on the floor.

 

Bam - Cal has put even more emphasis on getting Bam involved on offense and it is starting to pay dividends. Cal also has helped Bam evolve into a much better defensive player who avoids the silly fouls that dogged him earlier in the year.

 

All this was on display in the Florida game this weekend. Cal was fantastic and led the Wildcats to victory. People question Cal's adjustments, he made big adjustments at halftime in this game. The offense was struggling big without Fox on the floor. Cal put all the offensive pressure on Monk and Bam, the two players most capable of scoring. He told Monk to be more aggressive, drive the ball and not settle for jump shots. These moves and the substitution patterns throughout the game that put hard nosed defense first players on the floor. Cal was at his best against Florida and deserves recognition for what he is doing to mold this team and for what he did to get UK the win against Florida.

Edited February 27, 20179 yr by Voice of Reason

Peace be the journey. Cool Runnings.

Did anyone notice the box and one defense yesterday? I know Cal hates playing zone but that's one style of zone I've been saying I'd like to see the Cats try this season. Seen it last night about midway through the second half and we went on a run. Cal knows what he's doing, you just can't do it all at once when dealing with such a young group of kids.

There is so much more to x's and o's to coaching and I think Cal is a pretty good in-game coach.

His magic is in his ability to take kids and mesh them into a team to play unselfishly. he does that really really well.

As for this year's defense, it has been up and down.

My thoughts are they are lacking a true rim protector and Bam does an adequate job but on Cal's best teams he has had a 4 man who can deter rim runs. His 4's this year are rail thin and inconsistent with Willis and Gabriel.

As for pick and roll defense, he guards have just struggled getting through screens. Hawkins does the best job and Briscoe does as well but both of them are physical. Cal even mentioned it yesterday, Fox just does on screens.

The rest is all communication and you have to talk and communicate to get proper rotations. That takes time but they should have that down by now.

Rebounding is effort.

Earlier in the year they were able to get out in transition, particularly with Monk leaking out.

Opponents adjusted and now UK is trying to get their halfcourt offense on track while becoming more consistent.

For them to have any chance at a 6 game run in March, they got to shoot it consistently and get production each night from one of their 4's.

I just don't see it happening over a 6 game stretch.

You don't win 600+ games if you can't coach.

Coach Cal has been knocked this season on BGP as not being a very good coach. I am included in the group that has questioned his in game coaching ability. However, over the past couple of weeks, I believe Cal has displayed some of the best coaching of his tenure at UK as he tries to mold this team into a title contender. Here are some changes I have seen:

 

Team Defense - Cal's trademark is defense. That is truly what has made his UK teams so good. This year's team has struggled defensively. UK's defense is getting noticeably better game by game. Hedging picks, rotations, defensive rebounding all are significantly better. Every player is better defensively now than they were just two weeks ago.

 

Substitutions - In recent games, Cal has changed how he substitutes players into games. There is a zero tolerance approach to defensive lapses. You make a mistake on defense, come on over here and sit down to think about it and make sure it doesn't happen again. More minutes are going to the players who give effort and play defense. How those players play defense in that particular game determines how long they stay on the floor.

 

Bam - Cal has put even more emphasis on getting Bam involved on offense and it is starting to pay dividends. Cal also has helped Bam evolve into a much better defensive player who avoids the silly fouls that dogged him earlier in the year.

 

All this was on display in the Florida game this weekend. Cal was fantastic and led the Wildcats to victory. People question Cal's adjustments, he made big adjustments at halftime in this game. The offense was struggling big without Fox on the floor. Cal put all the offensive pressure on Monk and Bam, the two players most capable of scoring. He told Monk to be more aggressive, drive the ball and not settle for jump shots. These moves and the substitution patterns throughout the game that put hard nosed defense first players on the floor. Cal was at his best against Florida and deserves recognition for what he is doing to mold this team and for what he did to get UK the win against Florida.

 

Its very simple and I tried to tell people this during their rough stretch. There is zero reason to believe Cal wouldn't get things fixed. Every single year he has been at UK that has made the tournament, including last years team. He had his team playing their best come March. We saw the same thing in 2011 and 2014 after having tough seasons, especially on the road.

 

It seems to me he kind of lets his teams play their way to start the year, and see how it works like that. Then he spends the rest of the year tweaking, rebooting, etc as the year goes on. Plus sometimes it just takes these young players having to deal with losses, to realize they have to change to buy in.

 

A lot of people always have given Pitino credit for his ability to get his teams to improve as the year goes on etc. Yet a lot of people don't ever seem to realize Cal does the same thing, because by the time March comes. His teams are usually at its best.

You don't win 600+ games if you can't coach.

 

You do if you have better players than everyone else

You do if you have better players than everyone else

 

You have to coach those players to win that many games. Anyone who says John Calipari is a bad coach is wrong.

You have to coach those players to win that many games. Anyone who says John Calipari is a bad coach is wrong.

 

I'm not one of those guys. If anything I think he's a testament to show you just how hard it is to win it all. He consistently has one of if not the most talented teams in the country, is a good coach, and still only has one championship.

I'm not one of those guys. If anything I think he's a testament to show you just how hard it is to win it all. He consistently has one of if not the most talented teams in the country, is a good coach, and still only has one championship.

 

Great post Bench!

I'm not one of those guys. If anything I think he's a testament to show you just how hard it is to win it all. He consistently has one of if not the most talented teams in the country, is a good coach, and still only has one championship.

 

No doubt it takes talent, great coaching and some luck. Look at North Carolina with Dean Smith. He had so much talent all those years it was silly and he only won two titles in 36 years. And one of the titles happened at least in part because of a bonehead play by their opponent even though he had Michael Jordan.

You do if you have better players than everyone else

 

He didn't at UMass.

You have to coach those players to win that many games. Anyone who says John Calipari is a bad coach is wrong.

 

What's your opinion on the careers of Bill Frieder and Lou Henson? Henson somehow won 779 games in his career. Had Frieder not stupidly left for Arizona St., he might have approached that number as well. Both those guys had some immensely talented teams in their day, only to be hamstrung by their sorry coaching ability. Incredible underachievers.

 

Before you go Big Blue Crazy on me, I'm by no means saying either of them are even remotely on-par with Calipari as far as actual coaching ability. But given the ridiculous talent Calipari brings in on an annual basis, it's fair to say there's some serious underachieving going on with him.

I have some personal insight to this type of situation. My oldest daughter played 2 years at Vincennes University, which as some of you know, is a JUCO/2 year school. Every year they scrimmage at least one 4 year school. Amazing how disorganized and out of synch VU would look during preseason. I mean they would just not look very good. This was pretty much due to the fact that at the JUCO level, you basically have a new roster every single year. Needless to say, by mid season or later, the team would be radically different than they were in preseason and early season. They won 58 games in those 2 years.

What's your opinion on the careers of Bill Frieder and Lou Henson? Henson somehow won 779 games in his career. Had Frieder not stupidly left for Arizona St., he might have approached that number as well. Both those guys had some immensely talented teams in their day, only to be hamstrung by their sorry coaching ability. Incredible underachievers.

 

Before you go Big Blue Crazy on me, I'm by no means saying either of them are even remotely on-par with Calipari as far as actual coaching ability. But given the ridiculous talent Calipari brings in on an annual basis, it's fair to say there's some serious underachieving going on with him.

 

Thank you for that, I needed a good laugh this morning. :lol2: