Norte Dame can beat Kentucky

[SilentsAreGolden]

Originally posted by vcugreg:
Kenpom has been all over the place. I'd like to see where those teams, especially UNC, was ranked in kenpom when Kentucky actually played them. For example, UNC is playing FAR better than when you guys played in December...

Kenpom is a fun site to look at but not any sort of authority on who wins what matchups. Duke beat Wisconsin, the best Oeff team in the nation at their house. They also beat UVA, the second best Deff team in the nation, on their home court. Duke beat ND by 30 points this year... Do you think that had any bearing on their matchup in the ACC tourney? Nope. My point is this... Kenpom is fun to look at, but it's not the absolute authority of rankings, nor is the BPI. Hell, Ken has Duke ranked #6 even after beating two teams ahead of them on their home court...

I don't think any reasonable Kentucky fan can sit back and say they've played a hard schedule. You guys beat Kansas at the beginning of the season and same with UNC... I wouldn't dare say us beating MSU earlier this year would be as impressive as beating them right now. And just to preempt the obvious, yes you can only play who is on your schedule. We are just simply saying Kentucky hasn't been tested and that's largely due to the weak conference they are in. Hell, I still can't believe Duke beat this ND team by 30 points... The basketball season is CRAZY.

Wow. Talk about trying to convince yourself of something. So, in your world nobody we have played was good at the time we played them, but now they are world beaters. Kansas won supposedly the best conference known to ever exist (heavy sarcasm) and we are 3-0 against the B-12. Winning by 32, 12 and 39. We are 2-0 against your conference, which is showing itself to be the best conference.

None of this is to say we will beat ND, or even you guys if we meet in the finals. But trying to explain our record away is ridiculous. We were 13-0 against the field coming into the tournament, and we played 7 tournament teams in the OOC portion of the schedule.

 

[HeLooks2MuchLikeDave]

No one has a chance to beat UK, no one. There are 2, maybe 3 NBA teams that could win a game against UK in a 7 game series. Heck, the SEC is probably better than the Eastern Conference!

For real, the SEC is terrible.

 

[SilentsAreGolden]

Originally posted by HeLooks2MuchLikeDave:
No one has a chance to beat UK, no one. There are 2, maybe 3 NBA teams that could win a game against UK in a 7 game series. Heck, the SEC is probably better than the Eastern Conference!

For real, the SEC is terrible.

So was the AAC last year. Didn't stop UConn from winning it.

 

[DukeDenver]

Why are there UK fans on a Duke board reminding us that you're undefeated team is awesome. Is that really needed at this juncture?

 

[OldasdirtDevil]

Geez, the thread is that ND 'CAN' beat Kentucky, not that they will. If you're a Kentucky fan and you don't think the Irish can beat you...well, I just hope your Wildcat players are of the same mindset.

OFC

 

[Swim_Bike_Run]

It's all conjecture obviously but I highly doubt UK would have been undefeated playing in the ACC. Games at UVA, Duke, Pitt, UNC, etc would have caught them, 1, maybe two times.

FWIW, UK opened -12.5 vs ND but is now down to 11. I really like ND +11.

 

[crazyduke3]

Originally posted by DukeDenver:
Why are there UK fans on a Duke board reminding us that you're undefeated team is awesome. Is that really needed at this juncture?

Well we are talking about their team on our board, is it alright if they stop by and discuss with us? People trying to poke all kinds of holes in to their team when their isn't really any at all.

If we can talk about them losing, I think it's alright for them to talk about winning... considering winning is all they do.

 

[Mpm277]

The SEC is garbage; I don't care what anyone says.

UK is outstandingly good, however.

 

[Kobe #1]

Well, just like last night, once I heard that a WVU player predicted a win I went straight to the bank and loaded up on UK.... The worst thing you can do is give them a reason to play hard.....

Any team that wants to beat them needs to pull a Coach K against UNLV and make sure they think the other team already is in trouble and then you hit them right in the mouth.....

That being said ND has a zero chance with their bigs of winning this game.

 

[zoid1]

I just don't for the life of me see how a team that plays 2 guys in the post that are 6-5 have a chance to beat us. Im pretty sure the scouting report says all 4 guys can shoot and I don't think were 37-0 by not preparing a game plan that gives us the best chance to win. You can say we haven't played a offenseive tea like ND all year and I can say they haven't played a defensive, depth, size and athletes like us all year. I always hear a good D beats a good O. Just last gae all we heard was uve never seen a press like WVU all year and the gae was over 3 inutes in at 18-2...

 

[dukiejay]

Originally posted by Mpm277:
The SEC is garbage; I don't care what anyone says.

UK is outstandingly good, however.

I wouldn't quite say it's garbage, but it's hardly good. Outside of UK, who would obviously win the ACC, there isn't another team in their conference that finishes in the top six. There just isn't.

There's two things here....1) people trying to discredit UK because of their conference, and 2) UK fans saying the SEC isn't that bad. IMO, both are sketchy.

First off, UK is 37-0 because they're very, very good. Not because of a weak schedule. By that same token, the SEC just wasn't good this year. That's not a knock on UK, which some UK fans are missing.

 

[Crank_it_loud]

DJ you make strong points about both sides but I cannot agree that UK would obviously win the ACC. They would have 2 or 3 losses in the ACC IMO.

 

[DukeDenver]

UK sucks. I give them no chance of stopping Duke.

 

[jchammock]

I thought this was a message board. A place to discuss???

ND could beat us. And we could beat ND. Let's just play and see what happens. SMH when it comes to people having a problem of discussion. If you don't want to discuss, don't start the thread.

 

[Ulla1]

The Ulla is pulling for Duke. However, one has to admit that UK is pretty ridiculous. Unfortunately, UK just has too much depth.

 

[FearTheBeard]

Originally posted by uk_fan_in_tn:

Originally posted by DFerryFan:
This situation seems very similar to UNLV back in 91…great team, but largely untested and in a weak conference. I'm not saying that UK isn't an extremely talented team, but I would like to see them in a game where they play a competitive opponent.

UK played 11 NCAA tournament teams in the regular season. The idea that they've been untested is laughable. The SEC isn't the strongest, but it certainly isn't weak.

KY is tested, but the SEC is weak. It's not really debatable.

 

[FearTheBeard]

Originally posted by Swim_Bike_Run:
It's all conjecture obviously but I highly doubt UK would have been undefeated playing in the ACC. Games at UVA, Duke, Pitt, UNC, etc would have caught them, 1, maybe two times.

FWIW, UK opened -12.5 vs ND but is now down to 11. I really like ND +11.

KY didn't cover in their first two tournament games and I made a good chunk of change off of it.

 

[kingbluedevil]

Going to get interesting for KY from this point on. This Notre Dame team plays loose but will probably not get a rebound just need to make everything. Hope they play the whole game like that 5 min stretch against the tarholes.

 

[zoid1]

Originally posted by Crank_it_loud:
DJ you make strong points about both sides but I cannot agree that UK would obviously win the ACC. They would have 2 or 3 losses in the ACC IMO.

We beat your 4th team UNC by 14 and 5th team @UL by 8 play your 3rd place and conf T winner tomorrow in ND. I really don't think UL touches us in Rupp and we beat UNC in Chapel Hill. UVA lost Anderson along with a early 2nd round loss don't think they could beat us either. So were do the 3 losses come from? The only ONE I could even imagine is @Duke and if the conf schedule falls were we play Duke in Rupp were still 37-0 IMO. I think the 6th thru 15th teams will be on par with a lower tier SEC teams so those are all easy W's.

Im not saying the ACC is not good they are and showing it in the NCAA T Im just saying our team is equipped to handle just about any type of team and think besides possibly @Duke were still 37-0.

 

[DFerryFan]

Originally posted by FearTheBeard:

Originally posted by uk_fan_in_tn:

Originally posted by DFerryFan:
This situation seems very similar to UNLV back in 91…great team, but largely untested and in a weak conference. I'm not saying that UK isn't an extremely talented team, but I would like to see them in a game where they play a competitive opponent.

UK played 11 NCAA tournament teams in the regular season. The idea that they've been untested is laughable. The SEC isn't the strongest, but it certainly isn't weak.

KY is tested, but the SEC is weak. It's not really debatable.

Ok, we can debate whether or not UK has been tested but I concur that the SEC being weak is certainly not debatable. How many ranked teams did UK play this year? 2? Five or Six (I can't remember exactly) of those NCAA tournament teams were from an overrated SEC conference…good job, you're like the new big ten of basketball.

 

[Alaskan_Assassin_21]

*RIGHT NOW*

Anyone but Kentucky. But if we defeat Gonzaga Sunday, we are worth the Championship

 

[Showenuff]

Okay, real talk. The SEC is pretty pitiful. Kentucky has played a weak schedule. But Kentucky won every game put in front of them. Me personally, I think Notre Dame does have a chance, a snowballs chance in hell. Kentucky is going to beat the hell out of them. Sorry, it's just the truth. We are at the end of the season now, Those kids are actually gelling now. They simply have to much height and athleticism to lose to ND. I think realistically, there are two teams left who could upset Kentucky, Arizona and Duke. Both teams are going to have to have an amazing shooting night to get it done as well. I know nobody likes to admit it, but they have a frigging amazing group of talented athletes. I don't think their coach is a great x's and o's coach at all, but he has recruited a huge group of big time athletes. What's worse is, if we play them, even if Okafor has an amazing game, we won't get them in foul trouble because they have to many bigs to throw at him. It's gonna be a bitch to knock'em off. Not saying it's impossible, but it's a tall tall order.

 

[Tim1515]

Everything has already been said.

All I would add is that if Duke has the fortune of winning the next two (I think tomorrow will be extremely hard) we would be better off against anyone not named Kentucky. That is a huge reason we want them to lose IMO whether fans want to admit it or not.

 

[bleediteveryday30]

Originally posted by Showenuff:
Okay, real talk. The SEC is pretty pitiful. Kentucky has played a weak schedule. But Kentucky won every game put in front of them. Me personally, I think Notre Dame does have a chance, a snowballs chance in hell. Kentucky is going to beat the hell out of them. Sorry, it's just the truth. We are at the end of the season now, Those kids are actually gelling now. They simply have to much height and athleticism to lose to ND. I think realistically, there are two teams left who could upset Kentucky, Arizona and Duke. Both teams are going to have to have an amazing shooting night to get it done as well. I know nobody likes to admit it, but they have a frigging amazing group of talented athletes. I don't think their coach is a great x's and o's coach at all, but he has recruited a huge group of big time athletes. What's worse is, if we play them, even if Okafor has an amazing game, we won't get them in foul trouble because they have to many bigs to throw at him. It's gonna be a bitch to knock'em off. Not saying it's impossible, but it's a tall tall order.

As much as I hate to admit it, you are right on the money here Show. They are going to be so tough to beat and at this point it is just going to get more difficult with each game that they win.

 

[stoneycat_20]

Inferiority complex to whom? UK fans have no feelings of inferiority when it comes to Basketball my friend..

Originally posted by Crank_it_loud:
Lol the UK coming to the Duke board to offset their inferiority complex.....makes me laugh every time.

 

[FearTheBeard]

Originally posted by DFerryFan:

Originally posted by FearTheBeard:

Originally posted by uk_fan_in_tn:

Originally posted by DFerryFan:
This situation seems very similar to UNLV back in 91…great team, but largely untested and in a weak conference. I'm not saying that UK isn't an extremely talented team, but I would like to see them in a game where they play a competitive opponent.

UK played 11 NCAA tournament teams in the regular season. The idea that they've been untested is laughable. The SEC isn't the strongest, but it certainly isn't weak.

KY is tested, but the SEC is weak. It's not really debatable.

Ok, we can debate whether or not UK has been tested but I concur that the SEC being weak is certainly not debatable. How many ranked teams did UK play this year? 2? Five or Six (I can't remember exactly) of those NCAA tournament teams were from an overrated SEC conference…good job, you're like the new big ten of basketball.

And, by "tested" I mean they've played some close games. That doesn't necessarily mean they played better competition (two overtime games were against crap SEC schools), but not every team has rolled over and died.

 

[FearTheBeard]

Originally posted by stoneycat_20:
Inferiority complex to whom? UK fans have no feelings of inferiority when it comes to Basketball my friend..

Originally posted by Crank_it_loud:
Lol the UK coming to the Duke board to offset their inferiority complex.....makes me laugh every time.

You and many others may not, but our board is like a lightning rod for the RR posters that are missing a chromosome or two. The ones that give your fanbase the terrible reputation it has online. Many of those "special" posters have had an inferiority complex since Laettner's shot went in, and they don't hide it very well.

 

[madrussian]

We're are tied at the half

 

[kailman]

I thought ND had no chance?

 

[JohnstonCDevil]

The Irish are holding their own. They are not getting killed on the boards & that's surprising. They have made a few three's, but they are not burning it up out there. For them to stay in this game they will have to get hot out there! Hopefully they keep it close & have a chance at the end!

OFC

 

[Swim_Bike_Run]

Hey UK.....WELCOME TO THE ACC LOL

 

[Showenuff]

There's another half though. That's where it gets real. Pulling for ND with all my soul.

 

[dukiejay]

Originally posted by kailman:
I thought ND had no chance?

There's still 20 minutes to go. They can win, but they could still get blown out too.

 

[DFerryFan]

Originally posted by Showenuff:
There's another half though. That's where it gets real. Pulling for ND with all my soul.

It's weird the short amount of time I've gone from not acknowledging ND in the ACC to now pulling for them as much as any ACC team (other than the tarholes). Nothing brings a conference together like facing a common foe.

 

[kailman]

And they could win ... And that would be great. If they could keep a lead under 10 and get the twins to start thinking and whining like last years regular season. It could happen.

 

[kailman]

They have to dig down on towns unless booker is your man

 

[Dukesince90]

Where's freak a Zoid now?

 

[Showenuff]

Man I totally underestimated ND.

 

[rob5894]

I am wrong, sorry!!!!!

 

[kailman]

Show that's ok as long as you keep being right about Duke. Damn what a game.