Which game to watch tonight?????

[Netboy Extraordinaire]

Tim,

Cal never had the talent at Memphis like he has at Kentucky. When he takes Kentucky to the NIT or loses in the first round of the NCAA Tourney with the talent he is getting now then he is underachieving. I guess if Cal loses 2 years in a row in the first round of the NCAA then that would be "occasionally competing for a national title" in the eyes of certain in state rival fans. Face facts, Pitino has not just lost a step he has lost the race. The fainting red tailights Pitino sees in his nightmare every night are those of The Big Blue Bus putting more distance between each program and if he had any pride in himself or Louisville, he would get out now before it gets worse. Pitino underachieved before he had any recruiting / coaching competition in Lexington and it will be a cold day in heck before Pitino recruits a better class than Cal or has a better team than Cal. A perfect example is Siva, where this sort of started. Pitino has coached Siva to 10% worse production from last year to this year. Cal has made Teague look like 2 different point guards before IU at halftime and after IU halftime. Cal can recruit, Cal can coach and Pitino is playing second fiddle to him in the state of Kentucky.

[DJD]

IMO..Pitino has stayed long enough. I said it before and I have no proof but with Cal ruling the airwaves and basketball coverage in Kentucky UL will have to react. When tubby was here no big deal.....when Billy was here NO BIG DEAL but now Cal has raised the bar so high that pitino has to fight harder and I just don't see him able to take the heat. jMO

[Tim_T]

Tim,

Cal never had the talent at Memphis like he has at Kentucky. When he takes Kentucky to the NIT or loses in the first round of the NCAA Tourney with the talent he is getting now then he is underachieving. I guess if Cal loses 2 years in a row in the first round of the NCAA then that would be "occasionally competing for a national title" in the eyes of certain in state rival fans. Face facts, Pitino has not just lost a step he has lost the race. The fainting red tailights Pitino sees in his nightmare every night are those of The Big Blue Bus putting more distance between each program and if he had any pride in himself or Louisville, he would get out now before it gets worse. Pitino underachieved before he had any recruiting / coaching competition in Lexington and it will be a cold day in heck before Pitino recruits a better class than Cal or has a better team than Cal. A perfect example is Siva, where this sort of started. Pitino has coached Siva to 10% worse production from last year to this year. Cal has made Teague look like 2 different point guards before IU at halftime and after IU halftime. Cal can recruit, Cal can coach and Pitino is playing second fiddle to him in the state of Kentucky.

You are not getting what I am trying to say. I am going to try and explain myself on here, but sometimes meaning doesn't come across as well online than if we were talking face-to-face.

First off, nobody since the John Wooden teams at UCLA or maybe the two-year run Tark had at UNLV have had the talent that Cal has gotten for the last three years at UK. As I have stated before, Cal is a great recruiter, maybe the best in our lifetime, and that is a huge part of coaching. I don't deny that,

Secondly, my point about Cal is that he has made one person better that I can find, in his entire career. That is Jorts. I give him a lot of credit for that,because IMO Cal is the reason that he is in the NBA. Everybody else that has been a high draft pick, was because they had that kind of potential before he got them. The NBA drafts on potential. He didn't do anything to improve them, they were that good to begin with.

I never said Cal had the talent at Memphis that he has gotten at UK, but my point was, if it hadn't been for his success at Memphis, after the other big time programs went elsewhere, he wouldn't be at UK. Darius Washington was considered by some to be a better point guard than Sebastian Telfair in high school. Telfair went pro and his career in the NBA has been a bust. Washington went to Memphis where he was a complete bust and he couldn't even make the NCAA tournament with that team. They were a complete and utter failure. Washington actually regressed under Cal. Dejuan Wagner was the same way, best player by many coming out of high schoo, complete bust (to be fair, injuries contributed and you can't lay all that on Cal) and this after Cal gave a scholly to his best friend, and gave his father a job he wasn't qualified for.

Now to the Teague/Siva comparison.

Teague is on a team with Davis and Gilchrist and all he has to do is not lose the game. Heck, there are 20 point guards in high school that can do what Teague does with that much talent around them. Not a knock on Teague, just stating the way I see it. Why did Teague get better suddenly against IU in the second half? Simple, because Crean thought it was a good idea to go man-to-man and put Jordan Hulls on him. Go back and watch the highlights. If Crean doesn't have the brain fart and try and go man-to-man, guess what, Teague is an afterthought in a game that IU wins comfortably.

Unlike Teague, Siva actually has to do something. He doesn't have the luxury of having Davis under the basket to bail him out of mistakes.

Bottom line on your post, whoever is the coach at Louisville is going to play second fiddle in the state to Kentucky, even if they are a far better coach. Denny Crum is all the proof you need. During his career at Louisville, Kentucky had Joe B. Hall and Eddie Sutton. They were considered better coaches by people around here. Yet Denny is in the Hall of Fame, and they are not.

My whole point is that there are a lot of coaches in college basketball that are better than Cal, they just can't recruit like him.

[Netboy Extraordinaire]

For the record, I will take Kentucky's 96 and 97 teams over Tarks UNLV teams any day of the week, especially the 96 team. The second 5 were a Top 15 team that year