Breaking: Pons returning to Tennessee

#101
#101
cncchris33 said:
Or did something go terrifically well for Bailey in terms of his development with this staff? Bailey isn't bereft of talent in his own right, and will have an additional offseason and a redshirt season's worth of experience in the system that Springer doesn't. I think we all know that Springer is talented. Bailey is more of a mystery because we haven't seen him play in 2 years but he was always a good shooter and it will be interesting to see what kinds of improvement he's made as a PG under Barnes and staff's direction. If he's getting more minutes than Springer, I think there is just as good a chance, if not a better chance, that it speaks to his improvement and development as a player than it does negatively about Springer's ability.

One thing that seems universally apparent is that Bailey is the wildcard in the whole lineup guessing game. Opinions on him are quite polarizing. Most people either believe he starts and dominates PG minutes, or he is 3rd string at one or both guard positions. I think it is likely somewhere in the middle.
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I think people are overrating Bailey based on preliminary reports that have never shown to be proven factual (remember the Zach Kent breakout season? Uros Plavsic would be a top 3 player right now?) Bailey is a solid role player. He’s going to contribute this year but this idea he’s gonna be a 30 mpg player seems kinda silly. We aren’t even mentioning Vescovi, who was our fourth best player in SEC play. Hell, not sure the staff would have recruited Bailey if they would have known Vescovi would be on campus.

Point being, Bailey hasn’t shown any star capability while Springer is a consensus 5* talent and we have an open guard spot (and maybe 2). Bailey getting more minutes would be disappointing. I mean sure it’s possible Bailey because a legitimate SEC star, but I think everyone knows that is unlikely.
 
#102
#102
Chris4Vols22 said:
You seem to be ignoring NCAA playing experience and its significance.

Additionally, if our history with 5-stars is any barometer, the inherent flaw in your logic is even further illustrated.
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It’s a factor but talent>experience all day
 
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#103
#103
zjcvols said:
It’s a factor but talent>experience all day
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There is an old adage, "Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn't work hard," that I think somewhat applies here. Talent does not in fact always trump experience. John Fulkerson is far less "talented" than most of Kentucky's 5-Star "elite" roster last year, yet he made them eat their lunch money on two separate occasions.

We'll just have to respectfully agree to disagree on this point, but I personally think you're putting too much stock in what these analysts and mock draft people say.
 
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#104
#104
zjcvols said:
I think people are overrating Bailey based on preliminary reports that have never shown to be proven factual (remember the Zach Kent breakout season? Uros Plavsic would be a top 3 player right now?) Bailey is a solid role player. He’s going to contribute this year but this idea he’s gonna be a 30 mpg player seems kinda silly. We aren’t even mentioning Vescovi, who was our fourth best player in SEC play. Hell, not sure the staff would have recruited Bailey if they would have known Vescovi would be on campus.

Point being, Bailey hasn’t shown any star capability while Springer is a consensus 5* talent and we have an open guard spot (and maybe 2). Bailey getting more minutes would be disappointing. I mean sure it’s possible Bailey because a legitimate SEC star, but I think everyone knows that is unlikely.
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I would agree that people are generally taking these offseason reports and lending them far too much credence. I've been pretty vocal about my preference to take those reports with the coarsest of salt. Your examples given are part of that reason.

I think it's fine to doubt those reports and in turn doubt the legitimacy of whether Bailey can lead this team in minutes from the PG position, but I think it is equally presumptuous to entirely dismiss the idea because it completely erases the possibility that Bailey can be really good and Springer can also be really good without either of them being all-conference type players in year 1.

I've just seen way too many kids in this system completely transform their games and go from average to great, or below average to really good, to simply dismiss the possibility of it happening with Bailey.
 
#105
#105
zjcvols said:
It’s a factor but talent>experience all day
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That’s somewhat true but it doesn’t always work out that way.

Look at all the talented teams that Cal inherited during his time at Kentucky and only has one championship to show for it...
 
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#106
#106
VolFreakJosh said:
That’s somewhat true but it doesn’t always work out that way.

Look at all the talented teams that Cal inherited during his time at Kentucky and only has one championship to show for it...
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You mean the guy that has 4 final fours, 6 sec regular season titles, six conference tourney titles, the most tourney wins the last decade, and top 3 in winning percentage? Yeah I’ll take that type of talent driven results all day.
 
#107
#107
zjcvols said:
You mean the guy that has 4 final fours, 6 sec regular season titles, six conference tourney titles, the most tourney wins the last decade, and top 3 in winning percentage? Yeah I’ll take that type of talent driven results all day.
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Barnes has a winning record against Calipari since he’s been at Tennessee.

His way of doing things seems to be working just fine.
 
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#108
#108
VolFreakJosh said:
Barnes has a winning record against Calipari since he’s been at Tennessee.

His way of doing things seems to be working just fine.
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LMAO, I’m not getting baited into that argument. If you’d like to live in a delusion that Barnes is anywhere near Cal’s atmostphere that’s fine
 
#109
#109
Anyways, I’m not getting into a Barnes debate in a thread about Pons. Glad he’s coming back. We should be preseason too 15 next year
 
#110
#110
zjcvols said:
LMAO, I’m not getting baited into that argument. If you’d like to live in a delusion that Barnes is anywhere near Cal’s atmostphere that’s fine
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Ok so why has Barnes been successful against him though?
 
#112
#112
zjcvols said:
LMAO, I’m not getting baited into that argument. If you’d like to live in a delusion that Barnes is anywhere near Cal’s atmostphere that’s fine
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You give Barnes and Cal equal talent Barnes wins 7 out of 10
 
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#113
#113
Been saying this for awhile now but I think Pons has been waiting on covid

With the vibes with college football seemingly bleak he’d be crazy imo to not go ahead and enter the nba draft at this point.
 
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#115
#115
BruinVol said:
Been saying this for awhile now but I think Pons has been waiting on covid

With the vibes with college football seemingly bleak he’d be crazy imo to not go ahead and enter the nba draft at this point.
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There still could be college basketball in January/February, but at the very least go play in Europe for a year where leagues are going to start back up and get paid.
 
#116
#116
zjcvols said:
You mean the guy that has 4 final fours, 6 sec regular season titles, six conference tourney titles, the most tourney wins the last decade, and top 3 in winning percentage? Yeah I’ll take that type of talent driven results all day.
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Those results are the product of coaching the easiest team in CBB. The SEC was down for nearly a decade, and UK is the easiest recruiting sell in the country. I would hope the coach who annually has the best roster in our league wins it more often than not.

Cal couldn't replicate those accolades at UT. Barnes could at UK.
 
#117
#117
johnfnkelly said:
Those results are the product of coaching the easiest team in CBB. The SEC was down for nearly a decade, and UK is the easiest recruiting sell in the country. I would hope the coach who annually has the best roster in our league wins it more often than not.

Cal couldn't replicate those accolades at UT. Barnes could at UK.
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Even still, you have to acknowledge that Cal still gets the players to Kentucky. Simply being Kentucky isn't an automatic birthright to elite talent. Tubby Smith and Billy Gillispie struggled to keep UK elite. Look at their 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007 classes. I think people have just become numb to the idea that Cal routinely signs the #1 or 2 class in the country every year, not to mention the kind of talent makes up those classes. In 2008, UK signed the #1 class, and it only contained 2 players in the top 100. His 2020 class, ranked #1, contains 6 players in the top 40.

Acquiring the talent is still part of college basketball. Cal is elite at that. It is probably easier to do it at UK, but he was doing it at Memphis, too. I think he could do it at Tennessee. JMO.

I do agree that his results should be expected relative to his talent, though. Just felt it beared mentioning that simply being Kentucky doesn't necessarily equal elite talent.
 
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#118
#118
cncchris33 said:
Even still, you have to acknowledge that Cal still gets the players to Kentucky. Simply being Kentucky isn't an automatic birthright to elite talent. Tubby Smith and Billy Gillispie struggled to keep UK elite. Look at their 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007 classes. I think people have just become numb to the idea that Cal routinely signs the #1 or 2 class in the country every year, not to mention the kind of talent makes up those classes. In 2008, UK signed the #1 class, and it only contained 2 players in the top 100. His 2020 class, ranked #1, contains 6 players in the top 40.

Acquiring the talent is still part of college basketball. Cal is elite at that. It is probably easier to do it at UK, but he was doing it at Memphis, too. I think he could do it at Tennessee. JMO.

I do agree that his results should be expected relative to his talent, though. Just felt it beared mentioning that simply being Kentucky doesn't necessarily equal elite talent.
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In Tubby's defense, I think he was squeaky clean recruiting, and I'm not sure anyone can say that about Cal. You might call it a different philosophy Cal has in comparison to Smith.
 
#120
#120
TheMookieMonster said:
There is an old adage, "Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn't work hard," that I think somewhat applies here. Talent does not in fact always trump experience. John Fulkerson is far less "talented" than most of Kentucky's 5-Star "elite" roster last year, yet he made them eat their lunch money on two separate occasions.

We'll just have to respectfully agree to disagree on this point, but I personally think you're putting too much stock in what these analysts and mock draft people say.
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I've been in sports my whole life and I don't think hard work beats out talent that doesn't work. It's happened before and there are definitely some hard work stories that have overcome and prevailed but in the end and during the games I'll take talent every time.
 
#121
#121
PulaskiVolFan said:
I've been in sports my whole life and I don't think hard work beats out talent that doesn't work. It's happened before and there are definitely some hard work stories that have overcome and prevailed but in the end and during the games I'll take talent every time.
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Wait, I’m a little confused. Maybe you can clarify.

Are you saying that if you’re talented, even if you don’t put the work in, you’ll still beat out those with less talent who do work hard? Maybe that’s true, but I personally don’t think so. I can probably point to many cases in TN athletics alone where someone far less “talented” beat out a more talented athlete.
 
#122
#122
PulaskiVolFan said:
I've been in sports my whole life and I don't think hard work beats out talent that doesn't work. It's happened before and there are definitely some hard work stories that have overcome and prevailed but in the end and during the games I'll take talent every time.
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all you had to do was read the rest. WHEN talent doesn’t work hard.
 
#125
#125
PAC cancelling basketball... could imagine anyone on the fence about going pro might start to be swayed by the situation...
 
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