The House of Blue

Poythress played a lot better today. I am not sure i get the whole he doesn't seem to care part. He showed progress. He had 12 points and 6 rebounds in 20 minutes.

People shouldn't mix his max potential and college performance. Obviously if he reach the maximum potential he can get 20 and 10. But that's with 30+ minutes of play and his game more polished.

WCS is raw, and just started going b-ball full force. He has shown TREMENDOUS improvement over earlier year. He struggled today because he was guarding Turner at some point and he got multiple fouls. At which point, his defense became soft. That was one of his first time dealing with foul trouble. Again, he has shown great progress.

Goodwin is the one i can't defend too well. He seems to have his mind made up the second he gets the ball. I think he wants to play too much HERO ball. His defense is very much like what cal said "taking risks." He is still very much HS style, which is high risk and high reward.

Noel has improve SO much it's insane.

Mays is a 5th year senior, don't expect him to change...he is pretty close to his limits.

Some of you need to calm down. We all so how RAW this team was at the beginning of the year. Even ryan is still growing. He has to learn to get other players more involved. He is one of the best right now in terms of offensive game, even comparing to previous PG's we had. However, his ball movement isn't anywhere JohN Wall's level.

As long as each players take 1 step at a time and improve, it will be amazing team by end.

I don't think he can lose them if he hasn't even found them yet.

my biggest knock with Poythress is his lack of motor, and his weakness under the basket. As I said in a post somewhere earlier if I had has size it would take one hell of a man to push me out of a rebounding position, or take the ball from me once I did rebound it. My brother goes to school at UK and has sat and talked to Poythress and says he is a super nice guy. That's great but he needs to get a little bit nasty, so to speak, when he is on the court. There should not be very many people who can handle him if he gets a little mean under the basket.

I think they lack leadership and a proven go to guy. I think this team is taking a llittle longer to come together than in this past but I think Noel is ready to take on that role. I think we will start to run the team and offence run through him a little more now that he has asserted himself. We still hadn't found the soul of the team before now but now I think we finally have a player for the team to rally around. Dude dropped 40 that won't happen every night. We need a solid game against Tenn. and we will be fine. I compare this team to the 2010 team only with even less experience. They will be fine when everyone finally figures out their roles. We needed a leader to emerge so the others can file in behind and I think Noel can be that leader.

Poythress is NOT a 3 - Cal needs to move him to the 4 where his athletic ability is GREATER than those who he has to match up with. WCS needs to backup the 5 and Witljer backup the 4. For every minute the "twin towers" play well together (with Poythress at the 3) there are 2 minutes they play poorly together. And Polson has to see the floor for 5-6 minutes a game - he can backup Harrow and Mays (ball handler, scorer, rebounder). When Wiltjer is in Cal needs to tell him to FORGET about rebounding and defense and just SHOOT. His hitting 3's IS HIS DEFENSE since his man will get in foul trouble trying to defend him and go to the bench. Twanny's back and Hood's illness are definite drawbacks to this team as both together could provide 5-6 min a game rest to Goodwin. This team is NOT having fun and it's up to THEM (not the coaches) to talk it out and do whatever they have to do to get to that point.

Whether Poythress plays the 3 or 4 spot has nothing to do with his"motor" and the lack of RPMs he is playing with or in his case isnt playing with. Why does it matter if he plays the SF or PF when it comes to playing with intensity? The answer is it doesnt mean anything at all which position he plays when it comes to effort. Cal could play him at the point and if he plays full throttle there I would be happy regardless of the results. Look at Noel, he is playing like a man possessed and it shows in his stats but unfortunately he has only had help from Harrow who has developed into a pretty good PG considering where he was at the start of the year. I think that we might just have to come to the realization that this team may be able to improve a little more but that may be the ceiling with this group of players. Some teams gel and become incredible teams like last year and some have trouble coming together as a cohesive unit and that fits this team to a tee.

Number 1 I dont think you need to apologize for questioning coach Cal if you meant to do that b/c he isnt perfect like so many hardcore fans believe. Number 2 you may very well see an all freshmen team win the whole thing next year here at UK. We certainly have all the freshman talent we need to do it but Cal may not be finished yet with Gordon,Randle and Wiggins left on the board and if 1 or more of those players sign on board then it becomes very likely that UK will be the NC with an all freshman lineup and even 1 or 2 freshmen being the 1st players off the bench to play. I believe the odds will be quite good that KY will in fact win the whole thing w/o a"grizzled" veteran to lead the way.

I didn't mean that to come across as critical. Hard to type on my phone. But I think Calipari has known he was playing with fire by reconstructing the entire roster every year and it has finally caught up with him for a year. He's clearly trying to find the right buttons to push and the right lineups to play but if he's not going to get much of anything from Poythress and Wiltjer, at least in terms of consistency, then it doesn't really matter what he does because they're aren't any other options.

Definitely don't think the team has been lost, for the record!!

I very much agree with that. I mean look at the Lakers more talent than almost anyone but don't know how to win. While I appreciate Goodwins desire he does need to pass off of the drive to open players. I just think we do a lot of standing around on offense. I still love em and hope they can get this figured out quickly....

By watching Kyle sometimes, I think KYLE does forget about rebounding and defense......all the time. lol Just kidding.

Really, WCS only 8 minutes? Plus Kyle has killed us on defense in just about EVERY game. I love the kid but when there is a switch to be made on defense, he either allows the drive to the basket or he's too slow to defend the three. If Alex and Archie were playing turnover free basketball, and making great decisions on the floor basketball decisions, the vandy game would have been a rout, and the A&M game would have been a win.