Kansas, wow!

O

orangecat1

500+ Posts
I don't remember the last time I saw a team so determined to drive the ball to the hoop, who had so many missed shots, who kept coming back to driving the ball to the hoop. And they finally succeeded.

That was an impressive display of determination.

I think Kansas beats Ohiostate, and then probably gets killed by Kentucky.

Unless a Villanova style eruption of offensive FG shooting occurs, Kentucky is the winner.
 
They did in fact gut that one the hell out for sure. Great game. My bracket sucks high hell this year but I do have Kentucky v. Kansas in the final. I have Kansas winning it all by 6 points. It is my Obi Won Kenobi, my only hope.
 
Kentucky, I believe, will win over Louisville by about 10 to 15 and then obliterate either tOSU or KU in the final....they are that good. I can't recall a team as loaded as the Wildcats....sumbitch keeps reloading with one and dones. And I hate them, always have.
 
Kentucky is going to be hard to beat if they are anywhere close to on their game. They can certainly be had, but it is going to take them being off and their opponent being on.

I am intrigued by the Louisville matchup and looking forward to Pitino's strategy. I think he may try pressing and running with Kentucky. Will it work? Probably not, but it may be their only hope.
 
I do remember a team as loaded as Kentucky, but they lost.....to Villanova.

It was the most well-played NC game of all time, imo. Spring of 1985, Georgetown had Patrick Ewing and company. They totally dominated the boards, + they had some incredibly quick guards.

Just going by memory, there were almost 0 turnovers in the game. But of course, the star was the Villanova shooting %. They shot a record, something like 79% from the field, for the game. They shot a better % from the field than they did from the FT line.

I believe Villanova won by maybe 2 points, despite the record shooting.

That is a game that will never be topped, imo.
 
Kansas or OSU over KY would be nowhere near an upset the caliber of NC St or Villanova over Coog High or Georgetown. KY is good - clearly the most talented team in the tourney even with a healthy Kendall Marshall. But they are young -very young. And Calipari has never gotten it down, while Pitino and Self both have. KY is not the favorite you all think they are. They shouldwin, but should not be considered an overwhelming favorite.
 
*********. Kentucky is the clear favorite, and it will be reflected in the Vegas lines. Their starting 5 may all end up in the NBA. They have a sure fire top pick in Anthony Davis, sure fire lottery pick in Terrance Jones (and prob Kidd-Gilchriest), while the others are probable 1st rounders Teague and Lamb. In today's college game, they have a sick lineup. It may not be a Georgetown or Houston upset if they lose, but it's not far behind.
 
Kentucky's starting 5 is indeed in the first round of every mock out there. Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist are in every top 5 and 1 and 2 in half of them. Terrence Jones is in every top 15 and mostly in the top 10. Lamb and Teague are in every top 20. Even Darius Miller and Wiltjer are in most 1st or 2nd rounds with Miller working his way to most 1st rounds. Side note that Perry Jones was a top 2 pick last year and has worked his way out of the top 10 in most. Wow at that. Lots of money lost.

Anyways, this Kentucky team has all-time type talent even at their ages. I think what seperates them from past Calipari teams is that they really play hard. I truly believe that Indiana beats anyone else in the country on Friday. They were just as fired up as the first time they played Kentucky and they were hustling more than any team has all year, period. We kept noting how hard they would fight at different deficits to keep the deficit where it was. Kentucky hustled right there with them and kept matching their effort, and put up and all-time display of free throw shooting. This is their tournament to lose. I knew they would blow away Baylor because to beat them, you will have to play with more intensity for 40 minutes, not a 10 minute stretch, which is Baylor's MO. If they continue what they have done in the Final Four, we have to consider this an all-time team and performance. I know we think of college basketball as way down, but I think college basketball is actually up a little at the top for the first time in a while. You have some loaded teams at the top with talent and experience. And Kentucky just might blow them all away. Saturday is dangerous from a rivalry standpoint though, but Louisville will have to match Indiana's intensity.
 
The last college team that looked that good was coached by John Wooden. Nobody is going to come close to Kentucky.
No only do they have talent, they play as a team, which is fairly remarkable for three freshmen and two sophs.
Kentucky had five first round freshmen just two or three years ago, didn't they? But they lost in about the second round because they played like freshmen. I don't know how this team does it, because players that young usually just aren't that polished, no matter how talented they might be.
 
I don't put much stock in the final score of the UK-BU game. Kentucky could have beaten Baylor by 30 in that game, had they not lost focus after they got a 23 point lead. This was apparent not only from the field, but the FT line as well.
 
UNLV Georgetown and Houston were all better than this Kentucky team.

For some reason, I don't think Duke was quite as athletic as this Kentucky team.

However, two of those three lost in the championship game.

That leaves UNLV as the best team to go up against this Kentucky team. I think UNLV wins by 10.

Going back further, I think the Michigan St. - Magic Johnson, Greg Kelser team was better for their day, but couldn't compare athletically to this Kentucky team.

Teamwwork wise, the Magic Spartans were better.
 
No Duke team has been this athletic, probably. The '92 team of Laettner, Grant Hill, Hurley & Thomas Hill was pretty salty. The '01 team of Jay Williams, Battier, Boozer & Dunleavy was nasty. They had a worse record than '92, which was probably the epitome of a fundamentally sound yet still dominant team of the modern era, but they were insanely talented. People forget that Williams would have been a 10-year All Star if he hadn't gotten injured.

This might not be the most athletic KY team of the last 3 years, and it certainly isn't in their history (look at their '97 team for recent history). 2 years ago they had a ridiculous team with Wall, Cousins, Patterson and Bledsoe.
 
The main difference between Wooden's UCLA and today's teams s the format of the tournament and the quality of the teams in the expanded rounds.

Wooden's teams basically just had to win two games to win it all. Only conference champions played and you were placed in the region where your school was located. That meant that if UCLA got by Weber State, they were in the final 4.

I went to the final 4 in Houston....must have been '68. The four teams were UCLA, Kansas, Jacksonville State and Western Kentucky. That Kansas team was not very good and neither were the other two. UCLA had Curtis Rowe and Sidney Wicks.

Wooden did have two very good teams, the two with Lew Alcendor(?) and Bill Walton. The championship game that Bill Waltion played is probably the most dominating performance ever in the championship game.

Basketball has changed, no one will ever come within 4 of Woodens record.

I really loved Woodens first championship team. It was small, kinda like Rupp's Runts that didn't quite win it all. UCLA's center was 6'5", just like the Kentucky's center, Thad Jaracz, was also 6'5". The two guards, were Tommy Krom and Larry Conely. One of them was as tall as the post. The Forwards were Pat Riley, yes that Pat Riley, and a real sharp shooter, Louie Dampier. Broke my heart when Texas Western beat them in the final.

I began to dislike Wooden later when he had all that talent, the best we had. He would not let any of his players play in the Olympics. That was when we played only college players, and UCLA by then had the best we had on the college level. Not a well known fact. He was afraid they would get injured because of the rougher play.
 
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