Tubby Smith vs John Calipari Last 6 Seasons at UK

[Carl Spackler]

Tubby Smith: 153-50 .754, 6 NCAA Tournaments, 2 Elite Eight Appearances

John Calipari: 149-55 .730, 4 NCAA Tournaments (Would have been 5), 2 Elite Eight Appearances

Another note: In the past 6 seasons UK only has one win vs a Power 5 Conference team in the NCAA Tourney: against UCLA in 2017.  They have lost their other 4 matchups with a Power 5 team, 1-5 dating back to their loss to Wisconsin in 2015.  

 

Doesn't mean Calipari needs to go.  But fans couldn't get Tubby out of town fast enough with a similar record.  

[gchs_uk9]

The problem with these stats (which were in Mark Story’s column in the Herald-Leader) is they fail to take into account the amount of success before the “six years back” time frame. John Calipari has a lot more leverage than Tubby, who was trending down prior to the arbitrary date placed on the numbers. 

[Randy Parker]

5 minutes ago, gchs_uk9 said:

The problem with these stats (which were in Mark Story’s column in the Herald-Leader) is they fail to take into account the amount of success before the “six years back” time frame. John Calipari has a lot more leverage than Tubby, who was trending down prior to the arbitrary date placed on the numbers. 

Exactly.  Cal has bought himself A LOT of wiggle room with the years not included.

[Randy Parker]

It also ignores what what kind of program both men inherited.  And it also ignores that Tubby has not stopped the downward trajectory that began at the end of his time at UK.

[Tomcats1990]

23 minutes ago, gchs_uk9 said:

The problem with these stats (which were in Mark Story’s column in the Herald-Leader) is they fail to take into account the amount of success before the “six years back” time frame. John Calipari has a lot more leverage than Tubby, who was trending down prior to the arbitrary date placed on the numbers. 

Another season close to this past one and we shall see how much leverage CAL has. I suspect  that it’s far less then people think. 

[Randy Parker]

1 minute ago, Tomcats1990 said:

Another season close to this past one and we shall see how much leverage CAL has. I suspect  that it’s far less then people think. 

I don't think anyone would disagree with this.  But some are calling for Cal's head right now.  That's where there is disagreement. 

[Tomcats1990]

11 minutes ago, Randy Parker said:

I don't think anyone would disagree with this.  But some are calling for Cal's head right now.  That's where there is disagreement. 

I’m all in on CAL to turn it around, we have 54 million reasons to hope he changes his ways. I’m just not sure he is going to do the things necessary to be the GOLD STANDARD again. Basketball has really changed recently and CAL isn’t ahead of the curve now.

[gchs_uk9]

47 minutes ago, Tomcats1990 said:

Another season close to this past one and we shall see how much leverage CAL has. I suspect  that it’s far less then people think. 

Agree 100%. However, the initial post said nothing about "another season close to this one." In his entire term, Calipari's had two seasons where they missed the NCAA. One with the Noel injury and then this season. Making the NCAA is non-negotiable. Missing it twice will turn the heat to blazing. He's not at that point right now.

[gchs_uk9]

36 minutes ago, Tomcats1990 said:

Basketball has really changed recently and CAL isn’t ahead of the curve now.

This is an excellent point. Calipari's time at Kentucky has always been on the cutting edge. That isn't the case right now.

[futurecoach]

This year was absolutely horrible, no one should say otherwise. The issue is some of the same people complaining now, we’re trying to act like the previous five years before this one was horrible. Which simply was not true at all, with people literally saying idiotic things even before this season. Which is what led to many disagreements even before this year. 
 

Now this year was a complete disaster. A type of disaster that shouldn’t and can’t happen at UK again. Cal definitely will have to show that this year was an exception and not the start of a new rule with him. 
 

It does make you wonder if there are Duke fans who are tired of coach K, like some UK fans are with Cal and want him replaced.  Literally since 2015, neither team has made a final four, and now both teams missing the NCAA tournament this year. 
 

I bet we see both Cal at UK and K at Duke come back with huge years next season. 

[John Anthony]

.

1 hour ago, gchs_uk9 said:

This is an excellent point. Calipari's time at Kentucky has always been on the cutting edge. That isn't the case right now.

WWW.

[Randy Parker]

14 hours ago, John Anthony said:

.

WWW.

Been beating that drum for a while.  It's absolutely the truth.  

[futurecoach]

So far Cal has shown to turn it around pretty quickly after NIT years. He took over UK after UK was an NIT team and turned them into the John Wall team. After the 2013 team, he got UK to the National Title game the next year. 
 

So he has shown to be able to get us right back to the top again in one season. So hopefully he can do it again, it will be an interesting off season. 

[Irish Cat]

As a UK fan while I've been disappointed, I'm not really worried in the least that next year could be a repeat of this year.  For the most part it seems that teams which rely on upperclassmen have had good seasons and teams that rely heavily on Freshman such as UK or Duke have had subpar seasons. 

I think that this is mainly due to the fact that they lost the ability to workout as a team over the summer and eliminated many of the non-conference easy games which would have allowed them to get some in game confidence.  Not to mention the lack of any home crowd.  There was also very few games if any in which the entire roster was available.  I can't remember exactly, but it seems like Brooks didn't return until after Clarke was out. Hopefully none of those issues will exist next season.  

I feel like this team was starting to turn the corner a bit.  They gave us a glimpse of what they were capable of for short periods but just never seemed to put it together for an entire game.  

 

[HoopJunkie]

Every coach at every job has a trajectory. Next year will prove if this was an anomaly for Calipari. Or if it’s the new normal. It obviously won’t last long. The pandemic is overplayed, but still a valid excuse. Not having an off-season killed them. He’s used to having the new recruits on campus in June so they can live in the gym all summer. But, the recruiting landscape landscape has changed too. He’s not just recruiting against the blue bloods anymore. Now he’s recruiting against the G-League, and the blue bloods. It feels like he’s going for a blend in upperclassman transfers, and pulling some true freshman. Could be the right mix.