Final from South Bend.

Final the offense just went stagnant for a good part of the 2nd half had a lot of good looks at the basket just couldn’t make a jumper and it seemed to effect them on the defensive end as well. The Cats have the week off until a big game next Saturday vs Ohio State. 

Notre Dame now 11-0 in their ring of honor games over the past 11 years.  UK didn’t do themselves any favors tonight. 

So Matt Jones wasn’t joking when he said “Mark Stoops has a hire approval rating than John Calipari.”

After Ky’s seven straight wins over middle school teams, they were defeated by a 3-4 JV team. If not for the WVa transfer, they would be worse than last year’s team. Wheeler is no threat to score and can’t play defense, Mintz is busy running in and out of the game so he has no rhythm offensively or defensively, Brooks has now turned into a 3 pt shooting artist, Ty Ty doesn’t have a clue and probably won’t get much better, Cal is just being Cal with no out of bounds plays and playing strictly man defense, no time out late to set up an offensive attempt, just basic Ky basketball that everyone evidently is just going to accept. I can’t wait to hear it’s early, Cal is trying to get his rotation set, getting ready for conference play, no reason to push the panic button, and all of the nonsense with Cal defenders.

43 minutes ago, nikeman49 said:

After Ky’s seven straight wins over middle school teams, they were defeated by a 3-4 JV team. If not for the WVa transfer, they would be worse than last year’s team. Wheeler is no threat to score and can’t play defense, Mintz is busy running in and out of the game so he has no rhythm offensively or defensively, Brooks has now turned into a 3 pt shooting artist, Ty Ty doesn’t have a clue and probably won’t get much better, Cal is just being Cal with no out of bounds plays and playing strictly man defense, no time out late to set up an offensive attempt, just basic Ky basketball that everyone evidently is just going to accept. I can’t wait to hear it’s early, Cal is trying to get his rotation set, getting ready for conference play, no reason to push the panic button, and all of the nonsense with Cal defenders.

You may not want to hear it, but all those things are true. The only time it really hasn’t been true was last year. 
 

With that said I definitely am not a fan of his rotation this year. Which I agree with you on Mintz, he needs to be playing much more. 

Imo Cal should only have an 8 guy rotation. Should always have 3 guards in, I hate when he basically has three bigger guys in, when he plays Hopkins. The way this team is set up, 3 guards should always be in. 
 

You can start Wheeler, Washington, Grady, Brooks, and Oscar. However the only 3 guys I would play off the bench is Mintz, Allen, and Toppin. Toppin can be the sub for either Brooks or Oscar because I think he could be the 5 and then just truly space people out. Then Mintz and Allen subbing in for the guards. With Mintz playing much more, and using him or Washington at the point more when Wheeler isn’t doing much to help offensively. 

Just a terrible loss.

Notre Dame did two things. Sagged off the perimeter begging UK to shoot (they did, poorly, from outside) and focused on not letting Oscar get getting going on the glass. Through much of the game they executed ok in the half court, which is promising, but those final 10 minutes or so are not going in the Naismith Hall of Fame. 

58 minutes ago, futurecoach said:

You may not want to hear it, but all those things are true. The only time it really hasn’t been true was last year. 
 

With that said I definitely am not a fan of his rotation this year. Which I agree with you on Mintz, he needs to be playing much more. 

Is Mintz not playing as consistently due to his illness of the past few weeks?  I’m not certain.  But outside of Tshiebwe, no one looked impressive tonight. 

Just realized Collins only played 3 minutes tonight.  Any reason why?  

I feel like the defense was absolutely atrocious tonight. ND players cutting right across UK's faces, back door cuts. It was ugly and I hope Cal focuses on that during whatever film sessions they might do this week. So bad.

They had a great play for the look that Grady had 3/4 the way down. Very unlucky. Next trip down, you get Oscar deep and he gets a great look too. Unfortunately neither of those shots fell.

Thats a bad loss.

1 hour ago, futurecoach said:

Imo Cal should only have an 8 guy rotation. Should always have 3 guards in, I hate when he basically has three bigger guys in, when he plays Hopkins. The way this team is set up, 3 guards should always be in. 

That stretch in the first half with the 3 big was rough. It went 4 mins without a whistle with 3 subs sitting at the table for at least 3 mins.

I would totally play 3 guards all the time. I think those three guards struggle defensively, including Grady so he uses more length. Just a guess.

Wheeler makes me cringe every time he pulls up to shoot. Anyone not named Washington, Oscar or Grady that puts up a perimeter shot early in the shot clock needs to sit on the bench for extended lengths. Just way too many bad shots taken early in the shot clock. 

Cal preaches D, so when any of them get beat because they aren't paying attention it needs to be an immediate teaching moment on the bench. Guys can make mistakes as long as they are making the right play and it just doesn't work. However, taking bad shots or lack of effort on D needs to be used as bench motivation. 

This loss was disappointing, we'll know more about this team over the next 3 weeks. Was it what we should expect or a one off aberration of a game?

41 minutes ago, Jumper_Dad said:

This loss was disappointing, we'll know more about this team over the next 3 weeks. Was it what we should expect or a one off aberration of a game?

I'm not impressed with us.  We've beaten a bunch of pansies and lost to an ACC powerhouse and ACC bottom feeder.