Upset Alert: Kentucky on the ropes

Kentucky win in 2OT against a TAMU team missing its leading scorer. TAMU missed something like 11 or 12 FTs. If they'd done ANYTHING from the line, they'd of won. Sigh.

 

aTm shot 16 of 30 from the FT line and 2 of 15 on 3-pointers. Over a 13-minute stretch spanning the end of the first half and the start of the second, the Aggies made one field goal and somehow only trailed by four at that point.

How does a team as talented as UK not blow them off the floor during that stretch?

 

Calipairi plays a sludgeball offense and tolerates about 55% effort, that's how.

Put the pedal to the metal, you win by 30.

 

When you're recruiting and fielding a different high school all-star team every year, there's not much alternative to keeping the offense basic and tolerating the collective mood swings of what everyone involved knows is a most temporary team.

 

I'm not sure what the shock is here. Haven't we seen great teams before? No one wins every game. Any given sunday etc. Especially if they're new to each other - see the Lebron super teams.

 

My shock isn't that the game was close or that Kentucky might lose a game or two, though I think this UK team has as good a shot at going undefeated as any in at least 20 years. My surprise comes from Texas A&M not doing any of the things you'd expect it needed to do to even keep it close. The Aggies didn't hit a bunch or 3's or get to the line and make a bunch of free throws. Upsets happen most of the time when the favorite is ice cold and the underdog is hitting shots it normally doesn't, but A&M's offense was consistently bad for most of the game.

 

Talent in basketball manifests in ability to get shots, make shots, get rebounds, make passes, grab loose balls, set picks, block out, draw fouls, physically beat the opponent down the floor, to name the most obvious. When you push the pace of the game, all of all of those things happen more often; when the pace is slowed, they happen less often.

Therefore teams with huge, across-the-board talent advantages, such as UK or US Olympic teams, are idiots if they do not crank up the pace to the absolute highest level possible. By allowing opponents to lower the pace, or more moronically lowering the pace themselves, massively-over talented teams allow those advantages to be negated.

In other words, WTF is Calipari's roster of all-American recruits doing scoring 53 points in a regulation game?

 

The answer might be, he knows he doesn't need to go undefeated in the regular season to win a national title -- which is all that really matters for that team and program -- so why run your guys into the ground in early January?
Does it really matter if Kentucky is a 1, 2 or 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament? Do they need to beat Texas A&M in January to cut down the nets in April?
No, and no. So pace your guys. Don't burn them out early, make sure they hit their stride about two months from now. Kind of like the Greg Popovich approach, where you don't mind throwing away a game every now and then to work on some things and keep your key guys fresh for the stretch run.

 

There's no reason UK couldn't run if Cal wanted them too. Nobody has to play a huge number of minutes and they are 18-20 year old kids who only have to play 40 games over a few months. They aren't getting worn down like an aging NBA team might.

 

Yup. Wasn't Calipairi running 5-at-a-time squad substitutions? He can go 10 deep, 12 deep and probably 15 deep if he wants to. He doesn't need anybody on the roster to play more than 25 minutes a game. Nobody should be getting tired.