gbuk

What Painter is doing at Purdue is so great...anyone who brings in a top 5 class to Purdue has my respect. Purdue at home is basically a top 15 team.

Indiana is so overrated. This isn't really a surprise, but that was truly pathetic, especially considering that Wiggins and Dyson were both out, guys who have been huge for this UConn team. Gordon is a very good player, but when teams focus mainly on him it's like he doesn't know what to do.

QUOTE(JuiceCruz16 @ Jan 25, 2008 -> 03:11 PM) I think it also takes into account the records of your opponents - opponents. So the 1-11 would also depend on the quality of teams they lost to, as to how much it would bring you down. I don't put too much into it though, just something to respond to debates such as "who has team A played compared to team B" type of discussions that people have. I will bring it up to a IU fan that last Sunday during our poker leauge was going off about Carolina losing to Maryland and saying that UNC hasn't played anybody and gets all this love while Indiana with one loss gets no credit after a much tougher schedule. Reality never gets in the way of some fans. Exactly, it's just something to measure success with since it's pretty simple...however I like to look at the actual teams played and compare those than the numbers. Looking at Memphis' non-conference schedule compared to Kansas' and it's really not even close, no matter the numbers. Pretty funny about that fan in your poker league. Indiana homer? Sounds like it, considering he fails to bring up the fact that out of the 1 decently average team they've played they lost by 15. The rest of their schedule has been an absolute joke. Not saying they're not legit, because I think they're top 20, but using that as the main argument is laughable.

SOS numbers are pretty misleading, because when you play teams that are like 1-11 at that point in the season it totally takes away from a great team you played.

QUOTE(Jimbo's Drinker @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 07:51 PM) UNC cant play any defense, its not very good. It's been erratic all year, yes, but I expect that to improve greatly under Roy. If they don't improve than they're screwed, but their talent alone will get them places.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 03:00 PM) Name me one close, because I haven't seen them yet. The "closest" team is Memphis, and I just don't trust a team playing in a league that awful. Considering they played probably the toughest non-conference schedule in the country and came out unscathed, they are very good. I don't care what they do in their conference, since they've already proved what they can do against legitimately good teams. Although February 23rd is going to a sick, sick game (Tennessee). You can't really write off North Carolina either...losing to Maryland is pretty awful, but it's not like Kansas hasn't had it's close calls (OT at home against Arizona, USC win that called for an absolute BOMB Chalmers three towards the end, and GT, who UNC struggled similarly with on the road). In terms of talent North Carolina matches them at almost every position and depth wise pretty similarly...they tend to play to the level of their competition too often, but I expect that to change. Even though UCLA has had their struggles, you absolutely cannot write them off. I agree with you that Kansas is the best team in the nation at this time however. They're athleticism, talent, defensive prowess (just wanted to use that word), and depth is unmatched. I'd rank them Kansas and then Memphis and North Carolina close behind.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Jan 24, 2008 -> 12:02 AM) Kansas is so far and away the best team in the nation right now......I don't even think Self can do his traditional die in the elite 8 thing with this group. And I think hell is going to freeze over when Drake and Baylor, both in the top 25, make the dance in the same year. Far and away the best team? That's stretching it.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Jan 23, 2008 -> 10:13 PM) Well he will have his chance to prove that his greatness. I hope he does well, hes just gotten off to a rough start. I truly think your last sentence really is where our disconnect is here. From an outsider's standpoint he's doing a bad job and they should be much better. If he had just fit his system to his players and halted the development of his system for just this year, we would have been better. However, Kentucky fans (at least the rational ones, who sadly are few and far between) want a long term fix, something that will ensure us a better chance of getting back to the Final Four, where we haven't been in 10 years, going on 11 (the longest drought in Kentucky history). The improvement in this team's effort mainly, leading to its play, has truly been unbelievable so far this year. The way he's gotten these guys to come together and give 100% effort ALL the time and play some of the best defense (last night) we've played in years is incredible. He's a great, great coach. No doubt.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Jan 23, 2008 -> 09:44 PM) No the point of your argument was clear: The team wasnt talented and was lazy. Billy brought in a new style and they were unable to adapt to it very quickly because the players were untalented and lazy. The fact that these players are even able to win any games is a testament to how great Billy is, as Tubby left him with nothing, absolutely nothing. Tubby was a bad recruiter and lazy. His teams were lazy. He is a lazy coach. Apathetic, not giving enough effort, laziness, you might as well just say "lazy" over and over again. You clearly are a big UK fan and actually care about the team, I as an outsider who frankly could care less about UK just does not agree with your assessment that Billy has been an "insanely good" coach. I guess my standards of "insanely good" are a little higher than yours. Which is odd because half way in your post you say how Kentucky has such high standards... He might be doing a decent job, maybe even good, but "insanely good", thats where I think it becomes strained. We lost our entire front court, started a walk on for most of the year, do not have a true point guard, and have quite possibly the lowest basketball IQ on our team in my lifetime. These players were lazy, there's no question about it...now as a random observer you should have no reason to know that, but they were. The problem with Tubby's era is the fact that he beat the teams they were supposed to beat and lost to the teams they were supposed to lose to. It was incredibly predictable...in fact, before the Vanderbilt win they hadn't beaten a ranked team since February '06. Gillispie was going to get his system at whatever cost. He's way too arrogrant to give a s*** what the fans want, and that's absolutely how it has to be. Sometimes you have to completely tear something down to rebuild it and that's exactly what he's doing. We're just a few points away from being 4-0 in the SEC...after getting blown out by Gardner Webb, San Diego, and etc. We lost to them, whatever...that sucked, but improvement was all that was needed this year because everyone expected it to be this way with the personnel we lost and the incredible amount of injuries we've had. Tubby was apathetic his last two years. No doubt. That's why he needed to leave and go where he's totally accepted and where he can really shine. Minnesota is the perfect place for him. You're totally misunderstand what I'm saying about him as a coach. Also, you're last sentence you say "good job", I'm saying he's an insanely great "coach". He is a great coach, I have no doubt about that. The type of job he's doing this year is totally objective depending on your standards.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Jan 23, 2008 -> 08:33 PM) Sorry I misspelled it 1 time. I spelled it right to begin with but did not think that his spelling was relevant to the discussion. But it is noted, should you ever spell a name wrong 1 time, I will be all over you and remind you that the only way an argument is going to be legit is if you spell every word right. Its a clever argument, all of the blame is placed on Tubby, but the question is does it make sense: So let me get this straight. Tubbys players were: Lazy, unathletic, and should not be playing at the NCAA level. Yet Tubby with all these terrible playes won 20+ games. Now Self comes in, these lazy terrible players all of a sudden regress to .500? Something has to give, its a simple equation same players + different coach= drastic decline in record. And why are Minnesota's untalented players buying into Tubby? Minnesota has less talent than Kentucky, but has more wins. Its team only won 9 games last year, he already has eclipsed that. You can make all the excuses that you want that players are lazy, cant understand the system, etc... But the facts are they lost their last 2 road games to unranked teams, and this upset occurred in their own arena. (which just shows how sad the state of Kentucky basketball is when its an upset to win at your own court which you should never lose at) And whats odd is that you complain about the lack of talent/recruiting but since 2004: 2004: 3 five star, 1 four star 2005: 2 four star 2006: 3 four star To me thats not to bad of talent. Maybe its not at the top tier like UNC, KU, but its still enough talent to make the NCAA tournament, and thats where Billy's (im not going to use his last name cause i dont want to spell it wrong so sorry for any disrespect billy) problem lies. He does have the players, he just is not getting as much as Tubby was out of them. You can say he was lazy, etc, but he clearly got more out of his players. You said that he was an "insanely good" coach. I just dont consider it a great job when a coach takes over a team that should never miss an NCAA tournament and makes them a bubble team. /shrugs You can complain about my grammar and sentence structure as well if it will keep you warm at night. Wow, you seriously missed every single point of my argument. I'm not even kidding. I'm not even going to bother responding to this. Wow.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Jan 23, 2008 -> 07:23 PM) Well its just shocking to say Gillispie is an insanely good coach when: 1. Kentucky had a preseason ranking of 20 in AP and 22 in ESPN. 2. Kentucky has a 16 season NCAA tourney streak. 3. Since 2001 here are Kentuckys final win/loss: 2001-2: 20-10 2002-3: 32-4 2003-4: 27-5 2004-5: 28-6 2005-6: 22-13 2006-7: 22-12 Current Record: 8-9 Barring a finish of 12-4 or better Kentucky will finish with its worst record in 6+ years. Tubby Smith on the other hand has Minnesota at: 12-5 2001-2: 18-12 2002-3: 19-14 2003-4: 12-18 2004-5: 21-11 2005-6: 16-15 2006-7: 9-22 As you can see, Tubby already has more wins this year for Minnesota than they did all of last year. If he can win even 7 more games this season it will be Minnesota's second best in the last 6+ years. If he can win 9 games it will tie for Minnesota's best season. Its hard for me to consider Gillespie as doing an "insanely good" job when he took a team that has been a NCAA lock and has made them a bubble team. And the coach he replaced has taken a team that was a cupcake, not even going to make the NIT, to a bubble NCAA team. Gillespie may be a good coach, but hes done really nothing this year to prove that. If anything he has shown to be over rated. Can I take race for 1000 Alex? First of all, preseason rankings mean absolutely nothing, and I'm truly sorry if you put faith in those. Judging from this post I'll just go ahead and assume you haven't seen us progress from the beginning. We have improved probably 500% since the second half of the Louisville game...pretty much over night. Since not many people want to point it out, we were without two of our best players, who's minutes for the first half of the season were taken by guys who probably shouldn't have gotten a scholarship at Kentucky in the first place. You're telling me Tubby is a very good coach. I agree with you. No one said otherwise, yet somehow you're trying to argue my statement that Gillispie is a great coach by telling me what I already know about Tubby. Anyone who pretended he would be very successful (in relative terms) at Minnesota probably hasn't paid too much attention. Tubby thrives with players who, similar to WSU this year, combine to make a team whose "sum is better than their parts". Teams like this are always competitive and will always give you their best shot...and always successful. However, Kentucky isn't happy with just being a successful, middle of the pack team and happy with second round exits 3/4 years. Kentucky and Minnesota are clearly on totally different levels, and for Tubby, Minnesota is absolutely perfect for him. Anyone who told you that we were going to be a legit team this year also wasn't paying too much attention. In the last few years Tubby's teams have become apathetic and seemed to lack a will to win and even true effort at all times. Tubby became complacent in recruiting, in his offense, and what was always Tubby's trademark, their defense was horrible. Gillispie comes in, and the first thing he promises to do is recruit, something which was not done very well...as we had a lazy coach for the most part, who liked to go all out for one recruit; and when he missed he almost never had a backup plan, leaving us with players like Josh Carrier, Brandon Stockton, Mike Williams, and on and on. Players who shouldn't be at this level. To put it simple, we have a really dumb team. Their basketball IQ is collectively worse than I've seen it in my lifetime, so adjusting from Tubby's ball line defense and total laziness in the past few years to Gillispie's in your face CONSTANT man-to-man was something these players just could not understand for a long, long time. To add to it, they weren't giving the effort Gillispie wanted, and that's something a lot of players struggled with, mainly Joe Crawford who didn't truly earn his starting spot until the Vanderbilt game. Offensively? Well, we didn't run an offense the last two years...unless you count standing around for 25 seconds, realizing the mistake, and then penetrating with guys who absolutely do not understand how to do that...then yeah, we did. Gillispie runs an offense focused on a lot of ball movement, and a hi-lo game, much like Bill Self (for obvious reasons), and given the fact that there are probably 3 legit passers and no real point guard, this was by far the hardest adjustment for them. Again, they're not smart, and everything was very forced and predictable for a long while until something clicked in the last few weeks. Basically this team lacks a tremendous amount of talent (thanks to the previous regime), and for a long while was way, way too lazy to become what Gillispie wanted them to become. They have fully bought in...every one of them, and if you haven't seen that, you're obviously not watching the games. Tubby's gone because of his race? Please tell me this is a joke...please lord tell me you are not serious. If so, you must have something seriously wrong up there. And dude, if your argument is going to be legit, SPELL GILLISPIE'S NAME RIGHT. NOT GILLESPIE. GILLISPIE.

QUOTE(JuiceCruz16 @ Jan 23, 2008 -> 10:48 AM) He's no Tubby! Gardner Webb? There's a reason Tubby got forced out at Kentucky. Need a reminder?

QUOTE(Felix @ Jan 23, 2008 -> 08:30 AM) Yeah, he's been doing amazingly with Kentucky so far this year. I mean, look at really, it's not like they lost at home to San Diego or anything ridiculous like that. Well hey at least someone has been following what's actually been going on with Kentucky here!

QUOTE(dasox24 @ Jan 23, 2008 -> 02:51 AM) Eh, Tennessee hugely beat themselves. Can't wait till KY comes to Thompson-Boling. Let's see how well Gillispie can coach then... Anyway, hope Kentucky has fun battling the rest of the year for a NIT bid. Oh you poor, bitter Tennessee fan not willing to give credit where credit's due? Sweet low blow on the NIT bid...don't really care, it was pretty obvious all this year that's how it was going to be.

Man that was truly awesome. Gillispie is an insanely good coach.

QUOTE(Rex Hudler @ Jan 20, 2008 -> 01:00 AM) Exactly. To Krush, gbuk, etc..... gbuk, don't get me started with your BS. You haven't been around this board near long enough to understand the history of what I am talking about. Go research the college basketball thread the past two years before you start making comments about IU fans on this board. I don't need to be on this board to understand the history of Illinois apparently not being a rival with Indiana lately. No need to research anything about your posts. I'm not making any comments about IU fans on this board specifically. I barely even know anyone on this board...I'm just a random dude who is a fan of one of your "real" rivals.

QUOTE(Jimbo's Drinker @ Jan 20, 2008 -> 12:44 AM) What other sport does IU have besides basketball? We're not limiting this just to IU.

QUOTE(Rex Hudler @ Jan 19, 2008 -> 05:00 PM) You are reading it exactly right. Purdue and Kentucky are Indiana's rivalries. Michigan State at times is a bigger game than Illinois. Whether Illini fans like it or not - it is not our fault they don't have a real rivalry of their own - the Illini just aren't that important to the Hoosiers. If they want to fight for #3 status on our rivalry board and feel important about that, go right ahead. Beyond that, they are just another Big Ten team, albeit with a lound and annoying fan base. Wait are you seriously implying that Indiana doesn't have a loud, annoying fan base? Indiana fans in almost every sport are, for the most part, totally unbearable.

I always love elitist fans talking about how they're too good to be rivals with another team.

Coach K cried when recruiting Patrick Patterson too. He was also weirded out by it. Anyone see a pattern here? I hate Coach K.

THAT IS JUST BRILLIANT! HE IS A BRILLIANT DEFENDER! THIS TEAM IS BRILLIANT! Shut the hell up Mike Patrick.

This Florida-Ole Miss game is where it's at.

Now for a legit post since I don't watch too much of the Bulls, how much has Tyrus been playing since the Boylan era began? Dude should definitely get a bunch of PT, clearly one of the best options down low.

QUOTE(SoxAce @ Jan 16, 2008 -> 07:42 PM) And I'm ya daddy nugga. This game needs more Tyrus though but Sefo is lookin damn good. :headbang THATS WHAT IM TALKIN ABOUT

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Jan 16, 2008 -> 07:39 PM) Uhhh...? Whatever...welcome to SoxTalk! :headbang :headbang HELL YEAH MOTHERf***ER