bugatti

35 minutes ago, TheDeuce said:

 

There are reports that he's in the portal, but I don't know if there's been anything "official."

10 hours ago, Tranquility Base said:

Not officially.   But with Enfield headed to SMU, probably won't be long.

My conspiracy theory is he will withdraw from college, not get drafted, and LeBron will force the Lakers to sign him as a free agent.

1 hour ago, theguru said:

I watched it!

At this point I am definitely more into the women's games. 

As I said a couple weeks ago, the women's tournament is much more compelling. I get the level of play is not the same, but you know more players, the coaches are interesting, and there are some great story lines. That used to be in the men's corner, but with the NIL evoluation and lack of coaching stars, the women's game is more interesting.

The other Elite 8 game is awesome as well.

Iowa is giving 1.5, but any points the Hawkeyes are giving are strictly because of Clark. LSU has a superior team.

I think I'm rooting for Iowa, but I always find myself rooting for LSU. I love me some Angel Reese. And Kim Mulkey - who might be one of the worst humans on earth - has somehow become a sympathetic figure in the last 48 hours. And I can't deny she's a polarizing figure I'm fixated with. She's captivating (sometimes for all the wrong reasons) and she scares the piss out of me.

Good for NC State. Talk about a University that never wins at anything athletically. A few blips now and then with a solid football season, but that is about it.

2 hours ago, 9068 said:

If what you say is true that tells me how weak the NBA really is.

Not following you there. All the elite talent is one and done, going the G League route, or are international. The depth of talent in the NBA is at an all time high. It’s just this year’s crop of Freshmen are historically bad. This has been forecasted for a few years now.

13, 12, 1 (a shaky 1 without its best player), and 11. Duke’s path to the Final Four. Of course we will now say Scheyer is a genius. The NCAA tournament is so dumb.

11 hours ago, Randy Parker said:

Will my pain ever end?

Did you get any sleep last night?

10 hours ago, Kentucky Windage said:

That was a big time basketball game. Each team had their moments. 

 

Cormac Ryan was on fire for a moment but Oates made adjustments (I think it was Sears who locked Ryan down) and I don't think Ryan got another shot off after the 3 he made very early in the second half.

 

I personally was pleased when Bacot missed a point blank dunk. It was lightly contested but still missed. No real reason why, but I just have an extreme disliking for Bacot.

 

Grant Nelson, dude straight up balled it out down the stretch for Bama.

Fun fact. Bacot is a holdover from the Matt Doherty era.

Believe I saw in the Summitt League, that every 1st and 2nd team player eligible to return to college has entered the transfer portal. My assumption is every person is entering the portal until I hear otherwise. Had we tried explaining this to our future selves 20 years ago, we would have died laughing and called it impossible.

The problem with gimmicky moves like going to the BIG3 or Barstool is the lack of a long-term investment opportunity. She is a household name, and whether we believe the WNBA is a great product or not, the profile is being raised by merely talking about her being in the league and her exposure to the masse$ being realized. That said, $10M is $10M.

12 minutes ago, sportsfan41 said:

I think this hire just goes to show how the coaching landscape is right now. Not a lot to choose from and the top choices are happy where they are.  I'd say that had a lot to do with why Calipari is back at Kentucky. 

It does, which is what most people keep ignoring.

We will see what the investigation shows, but assuming nothing nefarious took place (which does not seem to be the case), that crew has to be sick to its stomach.

3 hours ago, 16thBBall Fan said:

Yeah, she was, doesn’t matter HOW or WHY she won the SEC tournament, what really matters is she DID IT!!  Yes, she had a great player, Cal had the National Player of the year and didn’t win a SEC tournament, both won 1 NCAA tournament game, Elzy was 8-3 in SEC tournament in those 4 years, Cal, 1-4, everything else was fairly even so in my opinion the SEC tournament success compared to Cal’s makes her more successful during that time span.

This is an all-time take that nearly melted my screen.

12 minutes ago, gchs_uk9 said:

 

Wasn't it middle of the night which would have limited the amount of traffic, too.

Yes.

13 hours ago, Tranquility Base said:

Does Jason Whitlock like anything?   Maybe just broccoli and paper-cuts.

Whatever the opposite of what the mainstream finds interesting, he looks for an opposite take in hopes of being seen as an intellect. Not because he always believes what he’s saying, but because it’s his only available oxygen. One of my favorite past times is to have a big story come out (normally around race or other sports and culture crossover topic) and I go to his twitter to see his “take.” I can guess where he is going 95% of the time without seeing his posts. Whitlock has become a caricature of himself and has become the most dreaded thing a provocative journalist can become: predictable. If you haven’t seen the Stephen A. Smith evisceration of Jason Whitlock, it’s something else. And for the record, when he was a real journalist, he was probably my favorite and I was a huge fan. But at some point when you’ve been ostracized by literally everyone you’ve come in contact with, it may be time for some self-reflection.

32 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

I am curious how they were able to stop traffic so quickly. The ship mayday call was just a couple minutes before it hit the bridge yet they were able to stop traffic going onto the bridge. How did they do that? Toll gates?

I believe the distress signal went out to emergency responders and they halted traffic.

Why college basketball is tough to evaluate is because so much rides on the NCAA tournament. Had UK gone into this tournament as a 10 seed, yet they catch a break or two, a guy on another team gets injured, upsets occur in their region, etc. and they find their way into the Final Four without playing anyone beyond a 5 seed, we would be praising Calipari despite a lackluster regular season. In a vacuum, it's silly.

That is why I generally try and look at where teams are seeded at the end of the year. In the last three years, UK has been a 2, 6, and 3. Not horrific, but not world-beating either. Over time I do believe the results of a single elimination tournament bear out patterns, and they have yet to advance to the second weekend in those same years. Which, by UK standards, is horrific. And not just failing to make the Sweet 16, but losing to a 15 and 14 seed. Double horrific. The loss to Oakland wasn't the end of the world. It was the fact they lost to St. Peter's two years earlier that made last Thursday so bad.

I know I am in the minority on this one, but I do not hold that '20-'21 season against Calipari, Coach K, etc. It was a whacky year with a group of Freshmen never practicing, COVID sitouts, games being canceled, and UK's best pro prospect missing most of the season. On balance, you could say when given lemons Cal can't make lemonade and I would be praising him had he won. Fair points.

7 minutes ago, 16thBBall Fan said:

It is evident and I understand the NCAA wants Iowa to go to the finals. The officiating was pretty one-sided WVU had 12 more points from the field than Iowa did (51-39) but lost by 10 points. The fouls for the game were 27-11 and Iowa shot 30 FT's to just 5 for WVU. I know WVU fouled the last 1+ but the fouls were still 23-10 with just over a minute to play.

Also don’t doubt the advantage of playing at home and receiving more foul calls because of that. We see this all the time in college basketball.

45 minutes ago, futurecoach said:

I am pretty sure you completely misunderstood what Sheppard met. Even the players after the game talked about how they were prepared for the zone. That even showed at the beginning of the game, when UK was easily getting in the middle of it down low and just kept missing bunnies. I am pretty sure what Sheppard met when he said that, was they had never seen that type of zone in a real game. It was the first time actually having to play against it. 

They obviously worked on it as evident by how UK was attacking it from the jump. Preparing for something and playing against something are two totally separate things.

This all gets back to the Calipari decision or any other university hire. What is in this long term for universities? To invest millions of dollars a year when they are losing control of their assets seems short-sighted.

Looking out 5-10 years, what do you believe college basketball will look like? Will it even exist?

It feels like we are angling towards a true minor league system not dependent on the college model. When I saw the first invitational tournament with a $1M payout, beginning next fall, it sunk in that college basketball is on its last legs. The players that can play will follow the money, leaving behind a true amateur model for colleges. Once the NBA gets involved and finds a way to bolster its minor league system with these folks, its game over.

3 minutes ago, TheDeuce said:

I've had this thought floating around since we knew Louisville would be replacing its coach, and now it's even more relevant with the talk of Cal not being at Kentucky. Something UofL and UK fans are going to have to swallow...

Gone are the days of Pitino, Self, Boeheim, Williams, Krzyzewski (yes, I Google'd it), etc. For the better part of four decades, we've had the same crop of high caliber coaches leading the blue bloods of College Basketball. Most of them are gone, and the ones that are still around are in the final years of their careers. 

We are going to have to come to terms with the fact that our next coach is not going to be a "grand slam hire" like we want it to be, at least night initially. We are going to have to get comfortable with sitting and waiting, and in the era of the transfer portal and NIL that is more unsettling than it has ever been. 

Some Louisville fans are bent out of shape that Scott Drew said no. But why? How many times has a high caliber, well known Power 5 coach left his school and gone to another Power 5? It hasn't happened often. Why? Because if you leave where you are and go to a Louisville/UK/Duke/UNC and fail, your next job won't be at that level, and likely several tiers below. 

Duke and UNC are the only blue bloods to recently hire new coaches. Did they land high-profile Power 5 coaches? Nope. They hired alums. That's what everyone is going to have to do, and unfortunately we are going to have to get comfortable with it. Not necessarily alums, but someone who isn't a big name that we are used to hearing. The next crop of legendary coaches has to start somewhere, and I feel like that's where we are. 

Spot on.

Coaching in college offers very little prestige now and the future of the sport is hanging in the balance.

10 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

Is that $4M year one? That seems higher than what I remember for the salary slot.

Here it is for the lottery selections:

31 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

I can't remember if Filipowski was still a lottery pick late in the season but I know he was during the season last year. I was paying attention because I have a personal connection with his family.

I agree with you that NIL money can impact these decisions to stay. Sheppard probably could make as much if not more playing for UK next year than he will on a rookie NBA contract.

Assuming Sheppard goes top 10, that’s at least $4M in the bank. He would have to be one of if not the top college earner to make that amount.