It's the Players' Fault

[Art Vandelay]

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/sports/16785152.htm

Tubby says, "We've won in the past, so it must be the personnel." Well, like John Clay said, whose reponsible for the personnel.

Tubby is flat out in denial. No wonder we aren't improving, this man believes he's doing everything right, refuses to make any changes, and then sluffs if off by blaming the players. I have always given Tubby the benefit of being a good guy, but I'm beginning to wonder.

Part of coaching is recruiting and then managing the players you recruit. Tubby struggles with both. Xs and Os are great, but if you recruit players that can't or won't execute, you're screwed.

[Blue Heaven]

Plus, the players are an extension of their coach.

[Will Lavender]

Blue Heaven wrote: Plus, the players are an extension of their coach.
Indeed.

I go back to a point I made last week. (And I'm not the first to make it.)

Tubby has increasingly become more difficult to listen to. The way he wanders off when he speaks makes him almost impossible to understand at times.

And you look at this team. What is this team's greatest problem outside of talent at certain positions?

Focus.

I think that's really telling.

[RaleighCat]

I don't even agree anymore on the X's and O's stuff. I listened to the game on the internet and have some questions for those who saw it:

It sounded like we were pushing tempo much more than normal in the first half. Is this the way it looked on TV?

Sounded like Woo had a fantastic game, but didn't get much time in the 2nd half. Was Vandy doing something different to negate him?

Vandy missed a lot of 3's. In one sequence they got 3 shots from 3 off 3 offensive rebounds. Did UK do a better job of guarding their shooters or did Vandy just miss some open looks?

What happened in the final few minutes to force us into so many bad decisions? Did Vandy change defenses or throw some traps at us?

These are legit questions- not bait. Listening on the radio just doesn't do it justice obviously.

[Will Lavender]

RaleighCat wrote: I don't even agree anymore on the X's and O's stuff. I listened to the game on the internet and have some questions for those who saw it:

It sounded like we were pushing tempo much more than normal in the first half. Is this the way it looked on TV?

Sounded like Woo had a fantastic game, but didn't get much time in the 2nd half. Was Vandy doing something different to negate him?

Vandy missed a lot of 3's. In one sequence they got 3 shots from 3 off 3 offensive rebounds. Did UK do a better job of guarding their shooters or did Vandy just miss some open looks?

What happened in the final few minutes to force us into so many bad decisions? Did Vandy change defenses or throw some traps at us?

These are legit questions- not bait. Listening on the radio just doesn't do it justice obviously.


Re: pushing tempo. I don't think we were "pushing the tempo" in the first half. We were running a sort of trap at them, especially when Gordon was out of the game. That led to some easy baskets. Of course, we ditched that in the second half.

Re: Woo. I think Tubby was trying to get Morris going. Morris was, to his credit, playing pretty good defense (he got 2 or 3 blocks) and rebounding fairly well. Woo came in with 4:00 or 5:00 to go; he should have come in much earlier. Instead of Sheray, who played a godawful game, I think Tubby should have gone with Woo and Morris when Perry sat. Woo could have guarded Neltner.

Re: Vandy's threes. Vandy made a lot of threes in the second half. They were isolating Byars and Foster over on both wings and just tearing our perimeter defenders apart. We really have trouble with those guys' quickness and length. The threes they missed late in the game they got put-backs on. Sheray Thomas got beat on four or five rebounds late in the game.

Re: Vandy's defense. Vandy started to press a little and trap. D. Jasper fell apart first, and then R. Bradley fell apart. It looked at times like Ramel was playing for the Commodores.

[Blue Heaven]

The Cats probably stretched the D better than they have all year. I believe Byars elbowed Joe to get that missed FT. He eventually hit the game winner. We lost again because Ramel and Joe made bad decisions with the ball as far as shots and passing. Ramel has had a BIG hand in at least 4 losses this year.

[Littlemeyer]

Will Lavender wrote: Re: pushing tempo. I don't think we were "pushing the tempo" in the first half. We were running a sort of trap at them, especially when Gordon was out of the game. That led to some easy baskets. Of course, we ditched that in the second half.

Re: Woo. I think Tubby was trying to get Morris going. Morris was, to his credit, playing pretty good defense (he got 2 or 3 blocks) and rebounding fairly well. Woo came in with 4:00 or 5:00 to go; he should have come in much earlier. Instead of Sheray, who played a godawful game, I think Tubby should have gone with Woo and Morris when Perry sat. Woo could have guarded Neltner.

Re: Vandy's threes. Vandy made a lot of threes in the second half. They were isolating Byars and Foster over on both wings and just tearing our perimeter defenders apart. We really have trouble with those guys' quickness and length. The threes they missed late in the game they got put-backs on. Sheray Thomas got beat on four or five rebounds late in the game.

Re: Vandy's defense. Vandy started to press a little and trap. D. Jasper fell apart first, and then R. Bradley fell apart. It looked at times like Ramel was playing for the Commodores.


That's as good a summary as you're going to see. :thumbup

You mentioned Sheray getting beat on several rebounds. One of those was the biggie: the Byars' freethrow miss. IIRC, both Crawford and Thomas had a chance at getting that rebound.

Poor Ramel. He played as hard as I've seen him play this year, but things just weren't going his way.

I mentioned this in another thread. This is most disheartening thing about this game: In that final minute, we went from controlling our own destiny as far as getting the E2 seed, to being at the mercy of practically every other team in the Eastern Division (and one or two Western Division teams). :X

[RaleighCat]

Thanks guys. It sounded like a very fast game in the first half. Leach was having trouble keeping up with the scoring at one stretch when we traded baskets several times in a row. I know we came out of the gate well and was curious how we did it.

As to Woo- I don't know what to say about this situation. I don't think you can see Woo get 9 points on 4-5 shooting and not play him more. 17 minutes is a lot for Woo, but it could've been more considering how well he was playing. Vandy didn't game plan for Woo (no team does). If you can get production from a player the other team didn't plan for, then you ride him until the wheels come off. Even if it's Woo. I can't tell, but did Sheray come in for Woo in the 2nd half?Best I can tell Woo made a 3-point play at the 6:30 mark in the 2nd half and wasn't heard from again.

I recall Vandy made some 3's in the 2nd half (which fueled their combeback, obviously). Sounds like we still had trouble locating their shooters in time to challenge. This problem continues to kill us.

Don't know what to do with our decision making late in games. Shot clock violations, giving up a rebound to the freethrow shooter-AGAIN! Lazy pass from Sheray (just like the Georgia game). Ye Gods, when is this team and staff going to wake up?