Hypothetical question, for your honest guess.
Imagine giving Calipari the WSU roster, giving Marshall the UK roster, and giving the coaches a month to work with their (new) players. Whom do you think would win if they played?
Hint: Cal rolls out the basketballs, teaches a few basic defensive principles, and then lets the players play. Marshall actually coaches, on the other hand, offense, defense, situational awareness, EVERYTHING. Players develop. The whole EXCEEDS the sum of the parts.
It would be like Bum Phillips once said about Don Shula: "He can take hisn's and beat your-uns, then if he wanted to he can take your-uns and beat hisn's"
In this case Cal has such overwhelmingly more talent that he can win a close one, so Marshall can't take hisn's and beat your-uns, but IMO he surely COULD then take your-uns and beat hisn's, and EASILY, rather than with great difficulty.
Late reply, but better than never.
I will answer with my completely honest opinion. Regardless what you think, it is my true opinion.
In short, the answer to your question is no. GM could not beat Cal with the positions reversed. It is not entirely what you may be thinking tho. I do believe GM MAY be the better X & O guy. At least that is debatable.
Where I believe GM would falter would be exactly what you said--Cal is the master at getting these young studs to buy in and play together. Even as a Hoosier, I would assume we could agree with that. Especially given the time frame you offered--one month--there is no way GM could have them playing together as a unit and at their optimal individual and team strength.
If you changed the argument slightly, say change Cal & GM's lineups for 2 years? Maybe that is a time frame where there would be an advantage to a possibly superior in game coach. Honestly, my opinion is that it still wouldn't matter.
You guys, and I mean that in the broad sense--ostensibly "the haters", like to brand Cal as a roll the balls out kinda guy. That is completely untrue in many ways. There is some slight truth to it in that he has realized that with the elite super talented players you actually hold them back trying to force them into complicated offense and defensive schemes. Especially if you only have them for a season. He realized that you work their ass off on MTM defense and multiple offensive Options out of motion. Anything else actually backfires. You can overdo these things--see Coach K this year with pretty much unarguably the best class ever assembled. It was too much for him b/c he has never had to deal with that before. Not that many young guys and at that level.
So, there you go. Not the answer you were searching for. But, you do realize that Cal has been the mid-major route and he has coached up the same type talent as GM. With that similar type talent he had BETTER results. UMass & Memphis were not talent juggernauts. They were very similar in most years to WSU.
I do appreciate the opportunity to educate you silly Whoosiers tho. Thanks for the opportunity. I did also chuckle at the assertion that Cal is so sleazy. Talk about Kettle---Black. Weren't you guys just on probation?Didnt Sampson get run out of NCAA after cheating so badly at IU? Didn't you just fire that creeper of a coach Crean? Who several times was borderline on NCAA violations. That AAU pipeline was working for awhile there, huh? And he still couldn't do anything with the talent he did get. Alas, that's why he is driving his creeper rape van off into the sunset. Sayonara my once blue-blood friends. Someday we may meet again. But, I wouldn't hold my breath.
