$2 Million Doesn't Buy Much Anymore

My only prediction this year for the UL/UK basketball game was that it would be ugly. I think I understated that. Ugly would have been an improvement. This was a game that 11-6 at the 10 minute mark of the first half. The rest of the half got a little better, but one stat puts it in perspective. UL finished the half on a 0-9 shooting streak to end up shooting 26.7% from the field, and they were still only down three. Of course, they improved to 27% for the game. I would like to give credit to UK since it would make me feel better about UL's chances later in the year. However, when a team misses 21 of 24 mostly wide-open three point shots, I'm not sure you can give a lot of credit to defense. Plus, how did they only score 61 points when UL's defense was playing "unintentional double team"? (That's inexplicably double teaming someone with out the ball which is really just not knowing who you should be guarding) Well, they got out rebounded 19-8 on the offensive boards. So, I wouldn't book those tickets to the Final Four for them. Still, they are in much better shape than UL. Fortunately, I have the football team giving me a reason to go to Miami, because basketball ain't crap.

Those who know me know that I've never liked Rick Pitino. His "coaches win, players lose" attitude got old when he was at UK. However, at least when he was doing his schtick at UK, he was still winning. I didn't like Pitino coming to UL (or how they booted Denny Crum out the door), but I assumed he would win. I was a little less than pleased when his first three years included one NCAA tournament win. Then he made the Final Four in 2005, so I thought he turned the corner, but last year's NIT team was disappointing, but this year's may not even make the NIT. That's how mediocre Pitino has been at UL. The Final Four looks like the fluke. At UK, in his six seasons UK was not on probation, he went to three Final Fours with his worst result being a second round loss. At UL, unless things get dramatically better, he will miss the NCAAs in three out of six years with a second round loss being the second best season.

I think the worst thing about Pitino has been his history as a pathological liar (in Boston, the press called him Pitinocchio). At UK, it was always that he hadn't talked to anyone about an NBA job while he's negotiating contracts or that UK would be a better team without Jamal Mashburn. At UL, he lies even more. Every recruiting class is his best ever, but he runs off half of them for not being good enough or even better, he says they aren't ready for college basketball like he did with prized recruit Derrick Caracter. On the radio show before the game, he said UL wasn't struggling (all Big East teams have at least two losses to Atlantic 10 squads), and Randolph Morris is the second best center in college behind Greg Oden (which makes UL's performance even worse since Morris was on the bench most of the game). After the game, he said they played a good game if they had actually hit their shots.

That last line is probably true. However, Pitino's in game performance has left a lot to be desired. Yeah, UL couldn't hit crap from the three point line. So, why were they still shooting so many three point shots? Here's a thought. If something isn't working, make an adjustment. I'm convinced the only reason UL made the Final Four in 2005 was because they got down 20 points to West Virginia in the Elite Eight. When you get to that point, you don't run plays, you just play. Once it was out of the coach's hands and into the players', UL makes a huge comeback and wins. Since that game, they haven't beaten anyone worth a crap. And I don't see that changing anytime soon. The simple fact is Pitino's success has had a good bit of luck added to good recruiting. His Providence success depended on him being one of the few coaches to immediately embrace the three point shot. At UK, college basketball hadn't seen the glut of top high school players jumping directly to the NBA. So, he's able to stockpile talent to the point that he had better players on the bench (say Ron Mercer) than most teams had as their focal point. There also weren't the recruiting restrictions that limited how many new scholarship players a team could sign each year. So, he could run off a bunch of players and replace them easily.

Unfortunately (for me), Pitino seems to be mailing it in. I think that Final Four has caused him to believe that he's "proven" he can still coach after the Boston problems. Another point that he made in the pregame interview was that he's happy now as opposed to when he coached the Celtics. Well, that's great that he has his priorities in order and no longer considers winning the most important thing. Except UL is paying him $2 million a year because they thought they were getting the win-at-all-cost attitude. Not an underachieving team that might not even make the NIT this year. Let's put it this way, Denny Crum was considered out of touch and past his prime. If UL doesn't' turn it around enough to make the NCAAs (unlikely with the Big East schedule ahead), that will be two straight years that UL has not made the tournament. Crum never went two years without making the tournament.