"We may never Platoon again. I really don't like to play that way" Hmmmmm looks like Calshady is having some trouble with recruiting guys that want to play more than 20 minutes a night.
Coach Cal's blog...
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Wisconsin loss is big stain on Cal's resume. He got completely out manuevered down the stretch.
Calpari knows that the long term effect of the platoon system was going to be negative in recruiting. Heck he went to a shorter bench as the season went on. Calipari has traditionally been an 8 players in the rotation guy. He has had great success with playing the best players the majority of the minutes. Just like almost every single other great coach. A dude with over 1K wins and five nattys does the same thing over in Durham
Calipari certainly didn't invent the platoon system (just like the dribble drive offense that everyone wants to give him credit for coming up with). It was just more publicized because his team was really damn good this year and it is Kentucky.
Calipari certainly didn't invent the platoon system (just like the dribble drive offense that everyone wants to give him credit for coming up with). It was just more publicized because his team was really damn good this year and it is Kentucky.
Don't get me started on the "dribble drive." The guy is a salesman. He is very good at being a salesman- it's in his DNA, he'll never stop being a salesman. It is what it is. As far as the playing time thing. Nearly every single good coach plays about 7-8 guys the majority of the time. It's just common sense, you ride your horses. The annual (biannual usually b/c of the offseason it gets argued) debate on playing time, how many minutes etc. is discussed ad nauseum but at the end of the day you play your best players and each team knows who their 7-8 are.
Like denn said it's not like he used it when games were tight lol it was a gimmick
Cal loses 7 to draft. Picks up 4. I think Cal's comments are just based on math. It will be hard for him to depend on player turnover and then not refill the bucket. It will be an interesting year next year of Cal.
Had he won it all he would have been a genius and his recruiting would be as affected.
Had he won it all he would have been a genius and his recruiting would be as affected.
And because he talked about it AD NAUSEUM. Every single thing he does is a sales pitch. Just shut up and coach! If it works, sell it to recruits in the in-home, not at a press conference. If you choose to constantly trumpet your "genius" via the media and then your team fails, you end up looking silly trying to backtrack. Like he does right now.
This is something I do not understand. IMo this is a bit of arrogance on his part. Which is fine because all great teams and their coaches should have some of that. I know they played them a year ago but I have never really heard of a coach going into a huge game like that without at least refreshing their kids on what their opponent does.
I don't mind Cal at all. He is a business man and ego manager more than a coach. That's one way to go about it for sure. He did win it all and always fields great teams.
I prefer a real mentor and basketball X's and O's coach. We have that at Duke, and we're doing pretty well too.
I prefer a real mentor and basketball X's and O's coach. We have that at Duke, and we're doing pretty well too.
He really is a charmer. I can understand how he gets all these great recruits. If he were just a recruiter and he had Coach K to run the team he'd have several nc's by now. He really is a great salesman. You have to hand it to him. If it weren't for basketball I could see him in many professions. Politician, sales of any kind, Evangelist and I say that with respect because of his dynamic personality. He's one of a kind but no way would I ever want him at Duke. OFC
the good thing about his salesman moniker is that he sold that bs platoon idea so much that even though he abandoned it half way through the season that's all people think about as to how uk was run. Definitely hurt his recruiting this year. We may be able to beat them after all next year
Heya Dukies. UK fan here. Honestly, that ^^ is the one thing that I wish Cal would change. A couple of the big games we've lost I feel may have been won had a more effective strategy been used (our loss against WVU in 2010 was another perfect example)
But on the platooning thing, the point must be made that the strategy was basically out of necessity. With 10 talented guys to make happy, he had to think of something. We all assumed (and Cal has said the same) that the twins and WCS were gone after 2014. When they all came back, the "platooning" was just how he chose to work it, and oddly enough when Alex Poythress went down, platooning gradually went by the wayside. But it gave opposing coaches a perfect opportunity to tell potential recruits that their PT would be limited as Cal wants to go 10 deep every year, which he really never wanted to do.
On a side note, opinions being what they are, whether you like Cal or not, this thread is rather civil and respectful for the most part for being about a rival team.
First, by any standard, Cal's recruiting hasn't really fallen off much. Two, the "platooning" is merely symbolic of a greater problem that Cal has tried to obscure this past season -- which is that no coach can simultaneously enhance the draft prospects of 10 players who all are hoping to declare for the draft at the end of the year. On any team, there will be featured and non-featured players. Regardless of how talented a kid may be, being a non-featured player will more often then not hurt a kid's draft stock in the short-run. Now, while it's not necessarily a big deal if a kid is comfortable spending a few years in a program developing into a star player, it is a problem if you're trying to recruit a bunch of kids who all want to be OAD. The Darkari Johnson and Marcus Lee examples, for instance, may not scare away a good prospect who wants to be a 3-4 year player at UK, but will definitely scare away a borderline OAD who's worried that he may get lost in the shuffle.
The platooning thing was definitely to keep everyone happy. It was a good idea at the time. He went back to the coaching ways that have made him the great coach he is though. Shorter bench and using the most effective players.
As far as the negative recruiting thing with other coaches, you are so right that others will and have used it against Calipari. However I am not sure too many of them will see the rewards for it though. Calipari is still recruiting at a higher level than anyone besides maybe K/Capel at this point. Coach K has has every type of mud flung at him from opposing coaches over the years it is almost funny at this point. Do you know how many times we have heard about coaches telling big men recruits that you go to Duke to set screens? Yet he we are all these years later and K is getting beg men drafted and landing them as well. The smart kids see right through the BS.
Agreed. And it is funny how some of our fans are reacting to this "down year" in recruiting for us. They just haven't been used to being spurned by 5 recruits in a row going elsewhere. This was a weird class though. Newman wanted to play point, Ingram seemed to favor you guys for a long time, Zimmerman's mom ran the show, and Brown was just an enigma. Did the "platooning" argument affect some of those guys? Maybe. But in the long run, I'm not worried about the next few years. Recruiting-wise, it's pretty much Cal and K in the lead with Self and Miller just a step behind.
