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Official NCAA Tourney Thread

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Canedude08 said:
He's a very good MIDMAJOR coach. He's won at his midmajor stops, but was nothing special at Alabama. Some guys are at their best working at a specific type of program. If L was to retire tomorrow, he'd be in that second/third wave of candidates I'd consider. That said, he's one of the names fans love to throw around, mostly because he was raised in Miami.

I was shocked that he has only been to the NCAA Tournament 5 times in sixteen years and that's with me giving him a bid in the COVID year.
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Cal over Grant. But unlikely to happen
 
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HurricanePhilly said:
Calipari has mastered doingless with more the last 7-8 years. 5 Stars, money spent, his salary. I mean that fan base has to be cranking the heat up on him
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Not that it would align, but I’d go after Cal in a heartbeat. He’d elevate the program instantly.
 
Absolute HORE**** call gives Kansas the game. The blue blood bias strikes yet again. What an absolute joke

Ben Middlebrooks with 21 points for Nc state. He’s a local big that I don’t believe we ever recruited. Instead, we’d rather take fliers on guys like Favour Aire. Make it make sense @King of Allapattah
 
Gables Canes said:
The quality of basketball today has generally been awful. A ton of hideous, ugly games.
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Lotta mid-majors hurt by selective raiding of their rosters by the bigger dogs. Rich getting richer.

What the smaller programs still have going for them is age. Pretty clear you want your team to be older in the NCAAT. Very good 24 yr olds have a big advantage over 18/19 yr olds, even if the younger guys are more talented.
 
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casualcane said:
Not that it would align, but I’d go after Cal in a heartbeat. He’d elevate the program instantly.
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Cal is a name, but honestly, Miami needs a good tactical coach and Cal has never been that guy. Dude has become an underachiever because he refuses to grow and evolve.
 
Gables Canes said:
Absolute ******** call gives Kansas the game. The blue blood bias strikes yet again. What an absolute joke

Ben Middlebrooks with 21 points for Nc state. He’s a local big that I don’t believe we ever recruited. Instead, we’d rather take fliers on guys like Favour Aire. Make it make sense @King of Allapattah
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Please tell me you're trolling. I know that Google can be hard to use for some, but let's look at Middlebrook's actual career, instead of looking at a the ONE game you've seen of him. He's a junior that had a big game, but has been a mediocre entity his entire career.

Ben is averaging 5.9 PPG on less than 50% shooting this year. Ben isn't a three point shooter, so he's shooting around 50% as an interior player. That's not good. Keep in mind, the dude is 6'10''. He also gives you 4.1 rebounds per game, despite him being that big. This year is his career high in PPG and that's with him averaging around 15 minutes per game. The two years before this one, when he was at Clemson, dude was averaging less than 5 PPG, with less than 2 rebounds per game. He's a backup big that feasted because everyone was concentrating on Burns. He's a replacement level big, period. Amazing how if NC State wouldn't have made a magical run through the ACCT and stole a tournament game, Keatts would have likely been fighting for his job, but he's suddenly a eval god for picking this mediocre, forgettable big up from the scrap heap.
 
Memnon said:
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I live in KY and people are ****ED. I think this 1-3 in the last 4 postseasons are gonna be his downfall. I'm not sure what the buyout falls to within the next few years and $33M is a TON of money, but something's gonna have to give.

I told a coworker who's a UK fan what they *should* do is pay the $33M, and find and up-and-coming kind of coach on the cheap (as opposed to the bigger names like Dan Hurley, Bruce Pearl, Scott Drew, etc that's being tossed around) to justify the buyout. I know Kansas State laid a dud like we did this year...but I could see Jerome Tang being a crazy good (and inexpensive) fit at UK with their resources.
 
BWCD said:
I live in KY and people are ****ED. I think this 1-3 in the last 4 postseasons are gonna be his downfall. I'm not sure what the buyout falls to within the next few years and $33M is a TON of money, but something's gonna have to give.

I told a coworker who's a UK fan what they *should* do is pay the $33M, and find and up-and-coming kind of coach on the cheap (as opposed to the bigger names like Dan Hurley, Bruce Pearl, Scott Drew, etc that's being tossed around) to justify the buyout. I know Kansas State laid a dud like we did this year...but I could see Jerome Tang being a crazy good (and inexpensive) fit at UK with their resources.
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I don’t see UK going with a non-household name, personally.

And Tang hasn’t been a head coach long but he’s 57 and just signed an extension that would tack on an additional 6 million to the 33 for Calipari’s buyout. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t know that a guy that age with as little success as he has would move the needle for that fanbase, and that’s a lot of money to pay just for a guy with a 45-25 career record.

Maybe they swoop in and get Dusty May before Louisville can just to little brother them.
 
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BWCD said:
I live in KY and people are ****ED. I think this 1-3 in the last 4 postseasons are gonna be his downfall. I'm not sure what the buyout falls to within the next few years and $33M is a TON of money, but something's gonna have to give.

I told a coworker who's a UK fan what they *should* do is pay the $33M, and find and up-and-coming kind of coach on the cheap (as opposed to the bigger names like Dan Hurley, Bruce Pearl, Scott Drew, etc that's being tossed around) to justify the buyout. I know Kansas State laid a dud like we did this year...but I could see Jerome Tang being a crazy good (and inexpensive) fit at UK with their resources.
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$33 million is a lot for most programs...

But Kentucky is a cash cow, they made close $160million in total athletics revenue just last year.

The issue that's come up with Calipari is that he's had a pretty big disconnect with some of the major boosters who do most of the funding of their Basketball program & there's been some tension in terms of how much input they feel they should have vs how much Cal is willing to relinquish.

But make no mistake about it, $33mill really isn't as expensive of a bill (FOR THEM) that people might think it is. If the right guys get ****ed off enough, they'll write that check with no problem.

Just like when people thought that Jumbo's $75 million dollar buyout was too steep even for TAMU & all it took was for the right one to say, "Nah, I got it, we're done with you..".

They may or may not fire Calipari, but I can guarantee you the money won't factor into why they do or don't.
 
Sort of off topic but I was curious what Stoops’ buyout is in the event they needed to plan for two, and it’s only like 4 million.

That Jimbo deal has completely warped my brain.
 
TwentySix said:
I don’t see UK going with a non-household name, personally.

And Tang hasn’t been a head coach long but he’s 57 and just signed an extension that would tack on an additional 6 million to the 33 for Calipari’s buyout. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t know that a guy that age with as little success as he has would move the needle for that fanbase, and that’s a lot of money to pay just for a guy with a 45-25 career record.

Maybe they swoop in and get Dusty May before Louisville can just to little brother them.
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Louisville's probably gonna shoot themselves in their own dyck soon...I'm hearing Huggie Bear is the front runner for that job. Yikes for them if they go that route.

Paying $6M to buy out Tang or having to pay double that or more for one of the bigger names on their list I mentioned makes more financial sense to me. I'm not necessarily advocating for Tang to be their guy, but a guy with a lower buyout also likely means he's not a splash name, either. Dusty May also fits that profile with a lower buyout (only $1M), but FAU wasn't as good this year in conference when they switched from C-USA to American...so him coaching in a non-P5 job where as Tang had an Elite 8 team last year at a P5 might be something to consider there.

Lots of moving parts for UK here. They probably *should* go for a non-splash name who's just a solid coach and can build a really good staff around themselves, but they'll probably overpay/overspend for someone bigger to retain that "blue blood" status.
 
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Memnon said:
$33 million is a lot for most programs...

But Kentucky is a cash cow, they made close $160million in total athletics revenue just last year.

The issue that's come up with Calipari is that he's had a pretty big disconnect with some of the major boosters who do most of the funding of their Basketball program & there's been some tension in terms of how much input they feel they should have vs how much Cal is willing to relinquish.

But make no mistake about it, $33mill really isn't as expensive of a bill (FOR THEM) that people might think it is. If the right guys get ****ed off enough, they'll write that check with no problem.

Just like when people thought that Jumbo's $75 million dollar buyout was too steep even for TAMU & all it took was for the right one to say, "Nah, I got it, we're done with you..".

They may or may not fire Calipari, but I can guarantee you the money won't factor into why they do or don't.
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I agree with all of this. I just heard, don't have a source to share, but one way in which they could wiggle out of the buyout is if they made him step down into an Assistant/Associate AD role. It's like a poison pill kind of thing, because if he and their AD are already at odds with how poorly UK's postseason performance has been lately, then why would you invite someone like that to stay in-house? It would be a majorly bitter marriage.

I dunno. No perfect answers here...lots of variables for them.
 
Canedude08 said:
Please tell me you're trolling. I know that Google can be hard to use for some, but let's look at Middlebrook's actual career, instead of looking at a the ONE game you've seen of him. He's a junior that had a big game, but has been a mediocre entity his entire career.

Ben is averaging 5.9 PPG on less than 50% shooting this year. Ben isn't a three point shooter, so he's shooting around 50% as an interior player. That's not good. Keep in mind, the dude is 6'10''. He also gives you 4.1 rebounds per game, despite him being that big. This year is his career high in PPG and that's with him averaging around 15 minutes per game. The two years before this one, when he was at Clemson, dude was averaging less than 5 PPG, with less than 2 rebounds per game. He's a backup big that feasted because everyone was concentrating on Burns. He's a replacement level big, period. Amazing how if NC State wouldn't have made a magical run through the ACCT and stole a tournament game, Keatts would have likely been figng for his job, but he's suddenly a eval god for picking this mediocre, forgettable big up from the scrap heap.
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A veteran big who can come off the bench and give 6/4 is better than anything we've had in a while. Walker couldn't do that, Aire and Rodney Miller certainly could not, and neither did Nwoko (think he eventually could but he's transferring out for some odd reason).

So no, I'm not trolling. A guy like Middlebrooks fills a void that this roster has sorely lacked for years. The last time I could think of us having a decent big off the bench was Julian Gamble.

The load that we continue to ask Omier to shoulder is criminal. No center should have to play 35+ minutes a game.
 
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Gables Canes said:
A veteran big who can come off the bench and give 6/4 is better than anything we've had in a while. Walker couldn't do that, Aire and Rodney Miller certainly could not, and neither did Nwoko (think he eventually could but he's transferring out for some odd reason).

So no, I'm not trolling. A guy like Middlebrooks fills a void that this roster has sorely lacked for years. The last time I could think of us having a decent big off the bench was Julian Gamble.

The load that we continue to ask Omier to shoulder is criminal. No center should have to play 35+ minutes a game.
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This is Ebuka Izundu erasure.
 
Gables Canes said:
A veteran big who can come off the bench and give 6/4 is better than anything we've had in a while. Walker couldn't do that, Aire and Rodney Miller certainly could not, and neither did Nwoko (think he eventually could but he's transferring out for some odd reason).

So no, I'm not trolling. A guy like Middlebrooks fills a void that this roster has sorely lacked for years. The last time I could think of us having a decent big off the bench was Julian Gamble.

The load that we continue to ask Omier to shoulder is criminal. No center should have to play 35+ minutes a game.
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Ant Walker actually averaged roughly that in 14 min the year we went to the Elite Eight. It shouldn't be that hard
 
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