They beat Tennessee by 28 & follow that up with a 6-point road win at Texas A&M in mid-January.

Following a tough loss at Auburn, they destroy Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse by 18.  Win a couple of somewhat difficult road games by 11 (Alabama) & 10 (South Carolina).  Then roll Florida by 21 at home.

From there they finish 5-4 & of those 5 wins was a much-closer-than-expected win at home vs. Ole Miss & had to outlast Vandy by 6 in the SEC Tournament.

UK fans and non-fans who paid attention...what happened?

I'm at a loss.  I didn't want to ask this the day after the loss, but it's been on my mind.

My initial thought is that we took a while to gel, somewhere around the end of December.  We rolled once we got clicking and then injuries derailed us and we never got it going again after.  The team that played in the post-season looked a lot like the team that lost at Notre Dame.

Still, it seems like quite a drop-off.  I really don't know what it is.

I am convinced that Tyty was never 100% when he came back from his injury and prior to his injury, defenses had to key on him because he controlled our offense. I believe teams realized that they didn't need to key on Tyty, and also realized that the best way to defend Wheeler was to dare him to shoot the ball as opposed to playing up and him and allowing him to use his speed as a weapon.

Is it possible that the riff between Cal and Coach Chin was worse than we saw and knew and it entered the locker room?  The meltdown sure seemed like it was so uncharacteristic for a "close" team.  Just asking.  

25 minutes ago, Tones said:

I am convinced that Tyty was never 100% when he came back from his injury and prior to his injury, defenses had to key on him because he controlled our offense. I believe teams realized that they didn't need to key on Tyty, and also realized that the best way to defend Wheeler was to dare him to shoot the ball as opposed to playing up and him and allowing him to use his speed as a weapon.

The Wheeler thing was nothing new, but the Washington injury I believe was the team's biggest derailment. I think it was VOR that pointed out a few days ago that this was most likely Cal's least talented roster. You need a guy or two that can go and get you a bucket and break down a defense. That said, the offense didn't fall off too terribly bad, but the defense progressively got worse.

I think sometimes egos, worrying about draft status, injuries, attitude,playing time, etc. play a big part in a team tanking late in the season. I also believe very few of these guys truly understand the expectations and history of UK basketball pre-Calipari. Their goal is the NBA. If a championship happens that's nice. Just my opinion and I'm an old timer lol.

7 minutes ago, 9068 said:

I think sometimes egos, worrying about draft status, injuries, attitude,playing time, etc. play a big part in a team tanking late in the season. I also believe very few of these guys truly understand the expectations and history of UK basketball pre-Calipari. Their goal is the NBA. If a championship happens that's nice. Just my opinion and I'm an old timer lol.

I hear you, but I don't buy that much with this team. I didn't get a lot of "me, me, me" from UK this year. TyTy is the only player I feel confident in saying will be drafted as a first rounder, and we are probably talking at the tail end of the lottery (maybe). 

I think the riff between Cal and Chin is more than we know. Nobody seems to know what happened with Robic. I think Cal is feeling the pressure. 

43 minutes ago, Luke Warmwater said:

I think the riff between Cal and Chin is more than we know. Nobody seems to know what happened with Robic. I think Cal is feeling the pressure. 

Matt Jones talked on his show a week ago that Cal has insulated himself from most everyone.

I don't think I know anything about what ya'll are referring to between Cal and Chin.

5 hours ago, 9068 said:

I think sometimes egos, worrying about draft status, injuries, attitude,playing time, etc. play a big part in a team tanking late in the season. I also believe very few of these guys truly understand the expectations and history of UK basketball pre-Calipari. Their goal is the NBA. If a championship happens that's nice. Just my opinion and I'm an old timer lol.

I will say the majority of kids at any big time school don’t truly care much about a teams history. Shoot I would say majority of kids at any school could really care less about the history or expectations at their schools. This isn’t just a UK or Calipari thing. 

8 hours ago, jvdfc said:

Is it possible that the riff between Cal and Coach Chin was worse than we saw and knew and it entered the locker room?  The meltdown sure seemed like it was so uncharacteristic for a "close" team.  Just asking.  

What exactly is the riff between them? Has anything actually been said about this. Or is it just people coming up with their own opinions since Cal and him seemed to disagree on the sidelines a couple of times. Which isn’t exactly something new for coaches to bark at each other from time to time. 

3 hours ago, MJAlltheWay24 said:

I don't think I know anything about what ya'll are referring to between Cal and Chin.

Same here.

8 hours ago, Randy Parker said:

They beat Tennessee by 28 & follow that up with a 6-point road win at Texas A&M in mid-January.

Following a tough loss at Auburn, they destroy Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse by 18.  Win a couple of somewhat difficult road games by 11 (Alabama) & 10 (South Carolina).  Then roll Florida by 21 at home.

From there they finish 5-4 & of those 5 wins was a much-closer-than-expected win at home vs. Ole Miss & had to outlast Vandy by 6 in the SEC Tournament.

UK fans and non-fans who paid attention...what happened?

I would say injuries obviously hurt their chemistry. I know many people have talked about the offense, but the offense wasn’t that bad. It was the defense that all of a sudden struggled at the end of the year. 
 

Even with all that said, I think they were ready for the tournament and prepared. They simply ran into a team that was obviously seeded wrong and much better than expected. UK had them down 6 and had the ball with 3 minutes to go. They lost to a team that is putting one of the most surprising tournament runs of all time right now. 

By UK standards of the Cal era, this was was just a average UK team.  That's pretty much the way they performed all season.