Meanwhile, at the USA UK...

So here's the $25,000 question: Cal is obviously not living up to UK's expectations. He's also made himself an ememy of the football program. Meanwhile, with Beard out at Texas, Cal's name has surfaced as a potential coach at Texas. Selfishly speaking do you:

a.) Want Cal to stay at UK and continue to slowly drive them from greatness to mediocrity, while KU can watch from afar with no requirement to play them every year if we don't want to, or

b.) Come to Texas where we'd have him as an in-conference rival (at least untl Texas leaves in 2025).

My preference is for him to continue to underperform at Kentucky until they get sick of him and fire him.

Or the most likely option, he retires or heads back to the NBA.

My opinion is the older coaches are fading fast, and the young guns (see Coach Prime at Colorado) who get NIL and bring a more modern approach to handling players and their families, will take over.

I think Cal gave the One and Done era a good ride, but it’s fading, as is he.

I do not want him at TX because every time we would play they would bring up his links to KU and I would not want that.

UK cheated its way to 8 titles. Rupp was a bigoted son of a gun, it is a the shame that a program w/ zero historical integrity , contribution to the game and has been able to recognize 8 tittles. Texas Western beating Rupp/Riley is the best thing that could happen to College BB. UK should be on indefinite suspension

....and they lost again last night, in Rupp no less. I'm going to have to google some local Lexington sports sites to peruse over lunch to enjoy the grilling that the squid must be getting.

My only worry is that by the time we play them in a couple weeks, they'll be in such disarray that beating KU will be the only potential bright spot left for them this season, and they'll somehow pull things together. Of course there's an equal chance that over the next 4 games their current oil leak will result in catastrophic engine failure and they'll be a REAL mess when we go there.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the dumpster fire.

KSR: KSR Today: From Bad to Worse, What’s Next for Kentucky Basketball?.
www.on3.com/teams/kentucky-wildcats/news...kentucky-basketball/

Ask and you shall receive I guess. UK press says that they won't make the tourney.

Also a fan kicked out for holding up a sign reading "Go To Texas". Something tells me he wasn't a rep for the Austin visitors Bureau.

IMO, Cal was never a great coach as far as strategy, X’s and O’s And player development. What he was is maybe the best recruiter that the game has seen. There can be no question that Cal can recruit and UK has seen more talent as far as high school ratings, and even eventual NBA accomplishments, than any other school save for Duke. And of course, recruiting is a critical part of coaching. But when it comes to actually doing something with the talent, Cal may be the greatest underachiever in history of the game. Self is a decent recruiter, but then again, it seems to me that Self recruits more for the long haul than the short term. Has anyone been more successful at developing players over the many years than Self? I am out of the country and I don’t have access to all my data, but the consistency rate of Self is almost stratospheric to any other coach not named Coach K. Calipari has been wildly inconsistent. Especially the last 4 years. I am convinced that if Self had the same roster as UK, he would be top 5 and probably No. 1. I will go farther, if Self had the UK roster for the last 15 years during the tenure of Calipari, Self would have at least 10% more victories and more likely 15% more victories. I am not a Cal hater, I just truly have minimal respect for any coaching ability beyond recruiting.

Good points Corpus. I'd say that "recruiting" and "coaching" are two very different skill sets. They just happen to fall under the coach's job description.

Recruiting is straight sales: push the features and benefits. Sell the sizzle. Get the contract. ABC: Always Be Closing. Coffee is for closers.

Coaching is sales plus a whole lot more. The sales part is convincing people to put in work and endure discomfort with the promise of some kind of reward down the road. The rest is identifying talents and weaknesses, and exploiting those talents while overcoming weaknesses to develop the individual. It's figuring out how to utilize your assets in a way that makes the whole bigger than the sum of its parts. It's making smart decisions in the heat of battle. It's motivating people, teaching, strategy, and a million other things.

Cal is very charismatic which makes him a great sales guy. If I owned a used car lot, I'd want him on my staff. But if you look at the quality of the players he's recruited over the years and then compare it to outcomes, he's had more than his share of disappointing seasons where "loaded" rosters didn't live up to their individual talent levels.

With Coach Cal's history, I was expecting the UK basketball would eventually have an academic issue if he had situations where soom of the one-and-dones stayed more than a year but it did not happen.

For a short period of time, Coach Self was recruiting one and downs and it seemed as if we did not have as much success as when we had three and four year players that were developed into a cohesive unit. If you look at the success that many of Coach Self's alumni in the NBA, most have not become NBA All-Stars but have had a relatively long NBA career. In the recent LJW article (referenced in another post) on Coach's ability to adjust to the roster he has I think bodes well for the future. I can't remember who the quate is from and I don't have it exactly correct but . I also wonder if KU coaching staff has altered what high school kids they go after since the exposure of the whole NCAA investigation (regardless of outcome).

Both the transfer portal and NIL can be both a blessing and a curse.

Sorry for the rambling thoughts.

I frequent The Athletic which is a pay sports site. I find the reporting outstanding and (because it's a pay site) the comments tend to be high quality, not just fan "Rah Rah". That said, the UK fan base there is in total meltdown, not so much loud and pissed but more contemplative and resigned...and most feel that Calipari's time in Lexington has run its course.

As mentioned above, I'm a little scared of our game there as it could be motivation for them to get their act together.