A great game. Looked like a Final Four type game. John Wall just willed his team to win. I know we are ranked #2, but are we ready to take on teams of this caliber? Do we have anybody that can stay within 3 feet of John Wall? Does anybody?
I do not think we could have beat either of those teams last night. They both looked solid. Good to see UConn shoots FTs about as well as Texas.
Texas would have been able to play with both those teams last night. Both teams looked great at times but also looked very average on the defensive end. Neither team executed very well on the offensive end and it wasn't due to great defense. Wall is an exceptional player but had a high number of turnovers. As with any Calipari coached team, they will have to prove that they can win in a half court style game if they want to advance against a well coahced disciplined team in the tourney.
If those teams play like they did last night, we win fairly easily. Kentucky actually had a bad game by their standards, other than Wall (who still almost had double-digit TOs). We are easily ready to play teams "at that level." And to the comment about staying within 3 feet of Wall, have you seen our on-ball perimeter defense? Bradley and Balbay is the best combo of defenders in the country, and Balbay is the best defensive player in the nation. Balbay is one of the few, if not only, players in the country who can at least step in the same ballpark of Wall's speed and athleticism. I've seen Bradley hold him before, it was quite a duel.
Buster, What offensive sets did you like that Kentucky ran down the stretch??? Was it the "clear out and let Wall go 1 on 1" set? Because that's the only "set" they ran down the stretch. On another note, our defense is much better than either of those two teams at this point in the season. If we were able to control tempo we'd beat Kentucky. A Texas vs Uconn game would be a game played in the 60's more than likely. Uconn wants to slow down and beat you up physically. We match up well with that style but we are also a pretty good up tempo team with Dexter off the floor. One of our major strengths this year is being able to play differing styles with our multiple line-ups.
Oh, and also, I don't know what UConn team you were watching, but they only really play two big guys in Edwards and Oriakhi. Edwards WILL NOT play in the NBA, or anywhere close. Oriakhi is just a freshman, so give him time. It's almost impossible to think of a team that we match up better against.
DJ vs Derrick Rose = mismatch and major advantage Rose A. Bradley vs John Wall = pretty even match up Comparing Kentucky vs Texas to memphs vs texas is a terrible terrible comparison
You guys have seriously got to get a grip with the expectations of this team. Saying we will crush both UConn and Kentucky is a joke. It is expectations like these that set the basketball team up for failure every year.
It's not about tempering expectations, it's about recognizing talent at every position, and UT has it. Why temper your expectations when you are the deepest and most talented team in the country, and ranked second? This is OUR year. These kinds of years don't come around often, so now that we're starting to show how good we can be, there's no reason for all the senseless pessimism and concerns that make absolutely no sense after watching that single game.
Buster, I understand what you are saying. There are two extremes on this board. 1st is the people that think we are going to go 39-0 and win the title. That's not going to happen. We are very very good but to win the final 4 you have to have many breaks and be very very talented. We'll see. We have the talent for sure but we still have a lot of room for improvement. On the other hand, some posters on this board make comments like "Uconn or Kentucky would beat us by 15 points". That's just as insane as thinking we are going to go undefeated. We are more talented than both those teams. And our defense is better than both those teams. Like any game against two very good teams, it could wind up going either way but I like our chances vs both those teams and we would most assuredly be favored by linesmakers in vegas in both those matchups.
Sometimes I let the pessimism get the best of me. That is where the "we lose by 10-15 points against UConn and Kentucky" comes from. I guess I am still disappointed from the Elite 8 loss to Memphis. Not that we lost the game (because Memphis was a very good team), but that we did not even show up and, at no point, did we have any chance to win that game. We were not even competitive. So, when I see a really athletic team that plays good defense and is solid offensively and has a good coach, I just see another team that we are going to lose to when there is something on the line. I know, I should not compare this team to that team and Memphis to Kentucky, etc. etc. I am trying to get out of this "sky is falling" mentality, but I guess it takes some time.
Look, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being pessimistic. That's not my problem with your argument. Believe me, I am often pessimistic about situations when I am being a realist. There's nothing wrong with that. For instance, realists knew our O Line would be a huge liability this year and had almost zero chance for improvement, and thus our running game would struggle. Regardless of whatever skewed stats you throw out, our running game has struggled and we will never be truly dominant again until the philosophy (and some of the coaches) is changed. That is pessimistic, but it also was supported by empirical fact and turned out to be completely correct, unfortunately. But when it comes to this basketball debate, UConn is simply not that good of a team, so rule them out. Could we lose to them on the road in a cliche "hostile environment?" Sure, but I don't see it happening. Kentucky is insanely talented. But although they have the best player in the country, they aren't any more talented than we are and don't play half as good of defense certainly aren't going to scheme us to death like Duke has done in the past. I also think we match up with them better than anybody in the nation because of the perimeter defense we can play on Wall that nobody else in the country can hold a candle to. James can stay with Patterson when he floats out to the wing, and Dex can...well let's just say I'm glad they seem to have some extreme aversion to giving Cousins the ball.
The Memphis game was a bad matchup for us then. What happened in that game is irrelevant to us now, unless you're going by some sort of mystical "we always lose when we get our hopes up" mentality. Memphis was deep, talented, tall and rested - again, especially at guard. We had DJ Augustin, an outstanding offensive player and average-at-best defensive player giving up about 4 inches to Derrick Rose. DJ also was averaging around 35 minutes a game in the regular season and probably more in the tournament. We had AJ Abrams, a streaky offensive player and defensive liability, also giving up several inches in height to our opponents. We had Justin Mason and playing significant minutes as a starter. In the frontcourt, we had James and Pittman as raw sophs, with Dex still significantly overweight. And Connor Atcheley, who was a limited player having a great year. Outside of that crew, there was pretty much no one else who contributed anything of note. And even with our limitations, we won at UCLA, beat KU, A&M, St. Mary's, Tennessee and Stanford among many others. We've got some issues with our team this year, no doubt, but we won't be swamped on talent, conditioning or height/wingspan - like we were that year.
After seeing them live and in person, all I can say is Wow! We are DEEP and talented. 4 players with 20 pts? That is crazy balance. If we lose more than 4 games this year I'll eat a bug.
I hate to say I was right, but I guess we lost by 10-15 points to UConn. I fear if we were to play Kentucky right now, that it could be 20-25 points.
