10 hours ago, futurecoach said:

That theory always seems to be proven wrong come tournament time. Plenty of teams that struggle early and lose game, figure it out and ended up playing better than almost everyone by tournament time. UNC was the perfect example of that last year. Same with UCLA the year before. 
 

With that said it definitely would be nice not to have to wait all year and hope they figure it out.  
 

I do think they have the pieces, but Cal needs to figure out his rotations and exact roles. There definitely is not rhyme or reason for some of the things they have done so far. 

Neither of these teams were the champs, but both finished above UK.  Which to me proves the competition also gets better as time goes on.

11 hours ago, Randy Parker said:

Our guard play is very frustrating.  Wallace is easily our best backcourt player, even with the expected freshman mistakes.  Wheeler, Fredrick, & Reeves just aren't getting it done.  

I'm really begining to wonder if these guys are any better than D. Allen.

Couple observations frome someone who is not a fan of either UK or Gonzaga.

 

1     MIchigan State showed this a little, but Gonzaga showed a blueprint of how to abuse Oscar defensively.  Now you must have a big man that can drive from the top or the wing but Oscar cannot defend this very well.

2.   Gonzaga came out and pretty much said we will dominate the paint and they did.  With a couple minutes to go the points in the paint was 44 to 20 Zags.  They flat out drove the ball and UK had no answer from the weakside.  A couple times Gonzaga got  Oscar and Fredricks defensive matchups with the other supposed to be providing weakside help and boy that was ugly.

3.    Rebounding started I believe 12 to 1 in the Zags favor and finished at 39 29 Gonzaga.  

4.    Twice I saw Fredricks driving and kicking out to someone to shoot (once was Wheeler).  One was a turnover the other a pass that the shooter caught but caught reaching for it so was not able to go up and shoot.  This is not his game and never will be.  The UK offense causes me a lot of confusion because I am just not sure how they are taking advantage of the players skill sets.  Almost looks like players have to fit the system instead of the system adjusting to the players you have.

5.   Cal is a Hall of Fame Coach.  He should be trusted to right the ship.  For the UK die hards, is this something you feel he is too stubborn to do by making changes to his offense and playing some zone to cover up how slow they are defensively?

16 minutes ago, cincyswords said:

Couple observations frome someone who is not a fan of either UK or Gonzaga.

 

1     MIchigan State showed this a little, but Gonzaga showed a blueprint of how to abuse Oscar defensively.  Now you must have a big man that can drive from the top or the wing but Oscar cannot defend this very well.

2.   Gonzaga came out and pretty much said we will dominate the paint and they did.  With a couple minutes to go the points in the paint was 44 to 20 Zags.  They flat out drove the ball and UK had no answer from the weakside.  A couple times Gonzaga got  Oscar and Fredricks defensive matchups with the other supposed to be providing weakside help and boy that was ugly.

3.    Rebounding started I believe 12 to 1 in the Zags favor and finished at 39 29 Gonzaga.  

4.    Twice I saw Fredricks driving and kicking out to someone to shoot (once was Wheeler).  One was a turnover the other a pass that the shooter caught but caught reaching for it so was not able to go up and shoot.  This is not his game and never will be.  The UK offense causes me a lot of confusion because I am just not sure how they are taking advantage of the players skill sets.  Almost looks like players have to fit the system instead of the system adjusting to the players you have.

5.   Cal is a Hall of Fame Coach.  He should be trusted to right the ship.  For the UK die hards, is this something you feel he is too stubborn to do by making changes to his offense and playing some zone to cover up how slow they are defensively?

Guaranteed 100% there will be no changes made to anything, has never happened.

1 hour ago, nikeman49 said:

There are great shooters that need structure in offenses, screening and ball movement with purpose, Fredrick and Reeves both need this and Cal can’t provide that

I'm not buying this one second.  You're not a good shooter if you can't hit clean looks from driving and kicking, which neither of these guys have been able to do in the two meaningful games.  Cal definitely is struggling, but I'm not pinning Frederick & Reeves on him.  They hit the shots against crap teams, but they haven't shown an ability to hit them against decent teams.

47 minutes ago, 4 Quarters said:

Neither of these teams were the champs, but both finished above UK.  Which to me proves the competition also gets better as time goes on.

No doubt all teams get better. Which some teams improve more than others, and click at the right time. Especially if you have the talent, which UK does. If they improve at a good rate, and click at the right time they will be fine. 
 

In my opinion they actually do have the pieces. The best player in college basketball, a player in Toppin that is just going to keep getting better now with getting regular minutes this year. Wallace is a stud already and will only get better. Wheeler is one of the leaders in assists in the country. The big thing is getting something more of at least more consistency from guys like Fredrick, Reeves, and Livingston. If at least two of those three can step up and give consistent  good play, they will be fine. However, they haven’t got much at all from those three in the two big games so far. So we will see if that eventually changes or not. 

9 minutes ago, nikeman49 said:

Guaranteed 100% there will be no changes made to anything, has never happened.

The funny thing for me is until BluegrassPreps I never followed Ky very close.  Now I follow them with interest.  Not rooting for them but high interest.

29 minutes ago, cincyswords said:

For the UK die hards, is this something you feel he is too stubborn to do by making changes to his offense and playing some zone to cover up how slow they are defensively?

I have not seen a lot of variety in Cal's offense over the last few seasons.  What I used to like about him is that he wasn't a system coach.  He would adjust his style to fit the abilities of his players.  The perfect example of this is his second year, the Brandon Knight year, when he completely changed his offense because Knight & Lamb provided a very different backcourt from Wall & Bledsoe the year before. 

As it stands now, he seems to be running the same lame offense that really isn't much of an offense.  And he's been doing it for a few years now.  The best offense he runs that caters to his talent is feeding Oscar in the paint.

20 minutes ago, futurecoach said:

No doubt all teams get better. Which some teams improve more than others, and click at the right time. Especially if you have the talent, which UK does. If they improve at a good rate, and click at the right time they will be fine. 
 

In my opinion they actually do have the pieces. The best player in college basketball, a player in Toppin that is just going to keep getting better now with getting regular minutes this year. Wallace is a stud already and will only get better. Wheeler is one of the leaders in assists in the country. The big thing is getting something more of at least more consistency from guys like Fredrick, Reeves, and Livingston. If at least two of those three can step up and give consistent  good play, they will be fine. However, they haven’t got much at all from those three in the two big games so far. So we will see if that eventually changes or not. 

The best player in college basketball. I'm assuming you're speaking of Oscar, he might have been the third or fourth best player on the floor last night.

Out coached the entire game embarrassing!  

1 hour ago, Randy Parker said:

I'm not buying this one second.  You're not a good shooter if you can't hit clean looks from driving and kicking, which neither of these guys have been able to do in the two meaningful games.  Cal definitely is struggling, but I'm not pinning Frederick & Reeves on him.  They hit the shots against crap teams, but they haven't shown an ability to hit them against decent teams.

Both of these guys shoot better with feet under them and not moving around during break opportunities and drive and kick situations.

11 minutes ago, nikeman49 said:

Both of these guys shoot better with feet under them and not moving around during break opportunities and drive and kick situations.

If you only shoot well when you have stand still opportunities with your feet underneath you, you aren't a good shooter at this level of basketball.

These guys are and should be much better than that.  They also had several good looks in their two losses, they just didn't knock them down.

1 hour ago, 4 Quarters said:

The best player in college basketball. I'm assuming you're speaking of Oscar, he might have been the third or fourth best player on the floor last night.

Current player of the year, and while dealing with foul trouble still put up 20 points and 15 rebounds. Doing this while literally this being his first full week back after being off a month with a knee injury. 

23 minutes ago, MJAlltheWay24 said:

If you only shoot well when you have stand still opportunities with your feet underneath you, you aren't a good shooter at this level of basketball.

These guys are and should be much better than that.  They also had several good looks in their two losses, they just didn't knock them down.

This! I mean Fredrick even had a wide open look with feet planted and not even having to move, and wasn’t even contested and air balled it. They have had some good looks and simply haven’t made them in the two big games. 

1 hour ago, futurecoach said:

Current player of the year, and while dealing with foul trouble still put up 20 points and 15 rebounds. Doing this while literally this being his first full week back after being off a month with a knee injury. 

I won't disagree, but there were players that had better games, that help put him in foul trouble.  UK can not win with Oscar on the bench and I'm not saying that because he was player of the year last year.