Another Reason To Hate The Vols - Lang Wiseman

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

UPDATE: My blog post on Calipari

By Lang Wiseman, Wiseman Thoughts

Website For All This:
http://langwiseman.blogspot.com/2010/03/update-my-blog-post-on-calipari.html

On Sunday, I wrote a blog post critical of John Calipari entitled Calipari Blows It.....Again. A couple of UK-themed blogs and message boards picked up on the post and linked to it:

Did Bob Huggins Outcoach John Calipari: John Clay's Sidelines
Kentucky Sports Network

Needless to say, my post was not well received in UK-country. I got over 2,750 blog hits in less than 24 hours, and a few of the UK homers left some "nice" comments on the message boards, and even on my blog. (Which I thoroughly enjoyed.)

Their criticisms generally fell into a few categories:

Cal isn't the only attention-hound of a coach
Bruce Pearl is worse
UT would be glad to have UK's season/players/etc.
Lang Wiseman was a horrible basketball player; he's old and doesn't know "modern" basketball; he's an idiot; and/or he can't possibly know anything because he's not a coach
Lang Wiseman doesn't like Cal personally so his opinions/observations are invalid
The NCAA never directly sanctioned Cal so he's obviously a good guy
Coach Cal didn't miss the shots; his players did

Interesting, huh? But notice anything missing?

Well....how about a substantive response to my underlying observations? Indeed, it's not really an response or argument to merely change the subject (Pearl, UT, etc.) and/or attack the writer (his knowledge, his motivations, etc.).

To reiterate:

Cal had at his disposal the upcoming #1 pick in the NBA draft (Wall); the #2-4 pick (Cousins); a lottery pick (Patterson); a top 15 pick if he comes out (Bledsoe); and a host of other HS All-Americans. There's simply no excuse for not winning a National Championship with those players. How many people out there truly believe that any of the following elite coaches wouldn't win it all with those players: Tubby, Pitino, Pearl, Boeheim, Williams, Self, Donovan, Coach K, Izzo, etc.?

Cal made no adjustments late in the game to give his players a chance to win -- at least not any useful ones anyway (see below). He looked totally lost and bailed on his players. He didn't even use pressure defense when WVU's primary ballhandler -- indeed only ballhandler (Mazzulla) -- went out of the game with foul trouble.

Cal has no idea how to attack a zone. You miss 20 three-pointers so the solution is to go to a 4-out offense when you have the overall biggest team in the nation? Even us basketball players from the stone age know that isn't the answer. (This phenomena is not new for Cal. His teams had "zone phobia" at Memphis, too.)

Without a doubt, a 35-3 campaign with an SEC Championship and Elite Eight was a great season by most standards. At UT, we absolutely loved it. But a program with the history and tradition of UK didn't pay Cal $30+ million and buy his #1 recruiting class full of NBA lottery picks just to rack up regular season wins and go to the Elite Eight. The UK fans are still in the honeymoon phase so they're willing to cut some slack at this point. It's understandable. Remember, though, that UK fans are the ones who hated-on Joe B. Hall for years and ran Tubby off, too -- the point being that Elite Eight finishes with that sort of talent isn't the type of thing which creates job security or love at a place like UK.

The closest thing to a substantive response is the argument that the players play the game, not the coach. Or that you can't really count on anything when you have freshmen leading your team (although with that logic Cal will always have a built-in excuse since he relies heavily on the one-and-done player). And while I understand those sentiments, I just don't buy into them in this situation because Cal didn't put those players in the best position to win. Admittedly, it may be the case that nothing he might have tried would have worked on that particular day at that particular time. It happens. Players and teams have horrible days where nothing works. But don't you at least deserve to know for certain that nothing would have worked? As in, because you actually tried it and so you know for certain that it actually failed? Don't you pay a guy $30+ million to make sure that he squeezes every last drop out of your team? Does anyone really believe that that happened?

If you do, then great. Personally? I don't. And we can agree to disagree if necessary. I won't lose any sleep over it.

As for Cal the person, UK folks can believe what they want. Really. It makes no difference to me. Remember: I didn't post my thoughts on their message boards or try to persuade them not to like Cal. They came looking for my opinions on my blog. Don't like like 'em? Then don't read 'em. Love Cal? Great. In fact, it sorta gives me a kick to know that he's at UK laying the foundation for later NCAA sanctions.

As for me, I don't care for the guy. And I'm obviously not alone. Just go ask Bobby Knight. And read the stories I linked to on my blog here and here. Has the NCAA ever sanctioned Cal directly? No. But does that mean he's somehow innocent, or a great guy? Of course not. To the contrary, he was the captain of two different ships which set records and went to the Final Four....although actually they didn't....at least officially anyway. It might be safe to say that no one has ever been as good at cozying up to the seedy side of sport while at the same time pretending to be so much better and far above it all. I watched it firsthand while he was here in Memphis. (And mind you, Memphis isn't even "my" team.). The problem with Cal's distancing of himself from all things questionable is that you can't have it both ways in life -- i.e. you can't really sell yourself as the consummate mastermind/button-pusher/wizard-behind-the-scenes and yet plead ignorance when it all goes bad.

All that being said, none of it really matters at the end of the day (my opinion, that is). Cal does do some good things in the community. He's a great recruiter and motivator. He wins lots of games. He goes to Final Fours (sort of). And by all accounts he's loyal to "his" people. As I said above, in many ways I think Cal being at UK will ultimately be good for my school, and for the rest of the SEC in the meantime.

Are the UK fans understandably in love with him and willing to look past his shortcomings (i.e. make excuses)? Of course. What else can be expected at this point? Heck, we UT fans will be the first to tell you how easy it is to caught up in the irrational, knee-jerk defense of an arrogant, dynamic, motormouth of a head coach.

So check back with me in a few years -- assuming, of course, that Cal doesn't bolt for the Nets this summer and you find your own new reasons to dislike him. I won't even say "I told you so."

I love how he throws Tubby's name in there... As I recall, even he couldn't go to the championship with a bunch of All-Americans (Morris, Crawford, and Bradley) What a maroon....

This guy just hates Cal and is pissed that he went to UK and got them back to where they belong, We have some great talent, but once again these guys where freshman, a lot of other teams that had freshman wouldn't have went as far as the Cats did. People like this hate UK because we have the great fans and will stand up for UK anytime, People hate to see us win and be back in the fight for a championship.

This dude is just trying to get yall to read his stuff..Loser!

tam4bama wrote:This dude is just trying to get yall to read his stuff..Loser!

And like moth to flame...the lemmings jump all over it.

Edge

There is a lot of truth in his article, some biased opinion, and some stuff that's out in left field.