27-14 (65%)
- Thread starter BlueBomb
- Start date
Sweet 16 in year one, beat Duke and Gonazaga on the road, UL, UT twice and were tasked with beating Barnes for a 3rd time in the same year. (efff u NCAA)
November of year two........November.
It's embarrassing how some can't let things play out. One thing is for sure. If we right the ship, the shameless ones will just brush off their relentless negativity as if they never did it.......or just vanish.
November of year two........November.
It's embarrassing how some can't let things play out. One thing is for sure. If we right the ship, the shameless ones will just brush off their relentless negativity as if they never did it.......or just vanish.
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Could this season turn around? Possible. But right now we are getting our *** kicked by any good team. We aren’t even competing. Players are fighting. Pope looks lost and defeated. The fans are restless. We have 0 identity. We have O future pros
We are ******!
but yea maybe we right the ship man
It's embarrassing that UL gave up on Kenny Payne so soon. He didn't even have a chance to let his redshirt seniors show what they could do!
Yeah because year 1 of Payne was strkingly similar to year 1 of Pope. Thanks for making my point. #beyondbraindead
Ah yes! Brain dead for not being giddy about a subpar record. Let's keep pumping the sunshine and hand out participation trophies.
I get dumber reading your posts, so this will be the last one that I read. Comparing Pope to Payne disqualifies you from being a serious person and puts you in the category that makes the rest of us look like idiots.
Bye forever.
By pointing out the record, I'm not being negative. It's merely a fact.
Sure Pope won a few BIG games last season, but the fact remains that he's 27-14.
Mark Pope thru 41 Games at Kentucky
27-14 overall record
14-14 vs P5 conf opponents
8-13 record on road/neutral site
9 of 14 losses are by double digits
Allowed 90+ points 10 times (25%)
Marquee Wins: (7)
Duke
Illinois
Florida
Tennessee x2
Louisville
Gonzaga
Bad Losses: (12)
Alabama by 30
Auburn by 20
Michigan State by 20
Arkansas by 15
Ohio State by 20
Tennessee by 15
Georgia by 15
Ole Miss by 15
Alabama by 15
Texas
Vanderbilt
Clemson
3-8 overall record vs Oats, Pearl, Golden, Barnes, Beard, Izzo & Calipari.
1-1 record vs PK / Louisville
27-14 overall record
14-14 vs P5 conf opponents
8-13 record on road/neutral site
9 of 14 losses are by double digits
Allowed 90+ points 10 times (25%)
Marquee Wins: (7)
Duke
Illinois
Florida
Tennessee x2
Louisville
Gonzaga
Bad Losses: (12)
Alabama by 30
Auburn by 20
Michigan State by 20
Arkansas by 15
Ohio State by 20
Tennessee by 15
Georgia by 15
Ole Miss by 15
Alabama by 15
Texas
Vanderbilt
Clemson
3-8 overall record vs Oats, Pearl, Golden, Barnes, Beard, Izzo & Calipari.
1-1 record vs PK / Louisville
If you expected him to be 33 and 8 or 35 and 6 so far then LOL.
I know, right? Why would they winningest program in CB history expect their coach to, you know, win their games? It is so perplexing - I just don't get it!
Is it really unreasonable to have beat Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss, Vandy last year and Michigan State this year? That’s seven losses right there. Now you can offset that by a couple of the “marquee” wins.
However it is not just losing but getting your tail run off the court so often that is a problem.
He took the job, threw a team together during the summer, beat the teams I mentioned and went to the sweet 16. It was a wild success and now we are only a few weeks into season #2. You and many others are gonna move the goalposts to wherever you need to, to justfiy crying so good luck to you. A handful of "fans" make this a laughing stock of a forum.
Oh, and last year was with a kinds of injuries to include Jackson Robinson being done for the season and our PG being hurt almost all season (Butler).
Did I say that? Just provided the the numbers. And people can do with that what they will.
If anyone expected him to be 33 and 8 or 35 and 6 so far, then LOL at them.
Fixed it for me
Unequivocally and indisputably, year 1 for Pope was a success. I'll add our win over Florida to your list of accomplishments, considering they won the title.
This offseason he looked at the weaknesses of that team, and took advantage of the resources he has at UK, and went and got a team he thought could get to the next level. It's early but the results don't look great. I have to wonder if he made a mistake deviating from the style of team that brought him success in the past. Last year's squad was basically a more talented version of his BYU teams. This year looks nothing like any team he's coached before, and he appears to be dealing with some ego problems on top of everything. We'll see how he adapts.
I don't think there's a legitimate case to be made for canning Pope after this season no matter how poorly it plays out. I want to see if next offseason he adjusts his roster back to something he's more comfortable with. It's too early to know what we're in for this year but Pope may be learning a painful and expensive lesson in roster-building. Year 3 is fair game though, he has to be a contender that year.
Nobody realistically expected that. Everyone knew when Cal left the program would be in shambles because Cal is all about Cal. Luckily UK was in the portal era when it happened and last year was better than what it would have been otherwise, by far.
However nobody expected the blowout losses and some of the bad losses with the roster was built. The most troubling aspect to me is the lack of recruiting. Zero commits for next year is a legit concern.
Agree but look at the incoming class or lack of incoming class. Now hopefully that changes.
Very fair post. I just can’t believe some of the stupid comments like the one from @RunninRichie that said “Pope knows its over.” Embarrassing. He just sets up camp after losses for “likes”, though , so I’ll take it with a grain of salt.
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Not all of those loses are bad. I would consider any game we are favored and then lose as a bad loss.
Equally any game we were favored is not a marquee win.
They are expected or should be.
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I would like to see a couple studs pick UK and maybe bring in another Braydon Hawthorne for development. But the portal is where the meat of the team will come from, assuming there's a lot of turnover off this roster. Next year's freshman class doesn't look to be like this year's either with 6-8 guys who are among the best in all of CBB. It really is wild how stacked this class was... off the top of my head:
Peterson
Boozer
Dybantsa
Koa Peat
Ament
Mikel Brown Jr
Caleb Wilson
Who in next year's class will have an impact like those guys above? I like Caleb Holt a lot, Stokes is obviously talented but seems to be a bit of a wildcard. Crowe maybe, but I'm not threatened by Missouri.
Here's the deal. Nitro is right in that you cant judge Pope by normal standards just yet since he got hired about a year ago and handed the keys to the Ferrari with no engine in it. Had literally one players on the roster and put one together on the fly that won those 24 games. So most of the records you all are holding against him are under that back drop.
But the real issue is not as much the wins and losses to this point because you are going to be a little up and down with brand new rosters until you find a way for them to jell, even with talent. The real troubling issue is there are two things that he should have in place now and be able to control that he is not for some reason at this point and those are:
1. The energy and effort his teams play with
2. Their discipline to run his systems
It shouldnt matter who you've got to put out there, those two things should be a given, you are going to run the system and you are going to play with energy and effort. And too many times, even last year with good character guys, I've watched them have big lapses in effort and energy and go thorugh big stretches where they quit running the offense.
Last nigh and against UL I watched them completely stop running the our offense which is predacated on spacing and high eneregy backcuts to create motion and instead ended up standing around watching one guy stuck on the dribble. This is going to happen from time to time but you would think a coach could get that corrected at the first TV timeout. But I watched both games and through 16 TV timeouts and a few called timeouts NOTHING changed. And all the while I saw no fire from coach and very little interaction to change the attitude or focus. If after two timeouts I still didnt see changes in effort and runnign the offense like we practice I'm chewing some a***!!!!
Thats whats troubling to me. I love coach Pope but my worry all last year was whether he had it in him to be a hardass when needed to change things. I worried he is so all about analytics and such a nice guy that he relies on just X and Os and anaytics when those things cant change behavior and effort etc when those are the real problems most of the time
But the real issue is not as much the wins and losses to this point because you are going to be a little up and down with brand new rosters until you find a way for them to jell, even with talent. The real troubling issue is there are two things that he should have in place now and be able to control that he is not for some reason at this point and those are:
1. The energy and effort his teams play with
2. Their discipline to run his systems
It shouldnt matter who you've got to put out there, those two things should be a given, you are going to run the system and you are going to play with energy and effort. And too many times, even last year with good character guys, I've watched them have big lapses in effort and energy and go thorugh big stretches where they quit running the offense.
Last nigh and against UL I watched them completely stop running the our offense which is predacated on spacing and high eneregy backcuts to create motion and instead ended up standing around watching one guy stuck on the dribble. This is going to happen from time to time but you would think a coach could get that corrected at the first TV timeout. But I watched both games and through 16 TV timeouts and a few called timeouts NOTHING changed. And all the while I saw no fire from coach and very little interaction to change the attitude or focus. If after two timeouts I still didnt see changes in effort and runnign the offense like we practice I'm chewing some a***!!!!
Thats whats troubling to me. I love coach Pope but my worry all last year was whether he had it in him to be a hardass when needed to change things. I worried he is so all about analytics and such a nice guy that he relies on just X and Os and anaytics when those things cant change behavior and effort etc when those are the real problems most of the time
Ouch ouch ouch.... Those loses aren't just loses they're BAD loses!
I get what Nitro is saying, but there are some very disturbing trends and not a lot of reasons to think Pope can fix it. I was as supportive as anyone for Pope last year. Some even called me an apologist. Reality is reality though. Pope has the horses to not get kicked in the teeth by Michigan State and Louisville. We didn’t just lose — we were down by twenty in both games by halftime
Bad Losses: (12)
Alabama by 30
Auburn by 20
Michigan State by 20
Arkansas by 15
Ohio State by 20
Tennessee by 15
Georgia by 15
Ole Miss by 15
Alabama by 15
Texas
Vanderbilt
Clemson
Ummmm...
Nobody's giddy about what's transpired so far this season. Some of us just don't subscribe to the same false equivalency you do.
I am not defending the results, this team, or coach Pope.
But it is too simplistic to look at the record (27-14). That ignores the fact that the SEC last year was a historically great conference from top to bottom. It also ignores injuries.
That said. Last night was beyond embarrassing!!!
But it is too simplistic to look at the record (27-14). That ignores the fact that the SEC last year was a historically great conference from top to bottom. It also ignores injuries.
That said. Last night was beyond embarrassing!!!
You guys care too much about the regular season in a sport where it matters so little. This cycle continues over and over again.
Hype up the team preseason
-Loses OOC game early on- fans freak out (if they win, fans think they’re winning it all)
- Gets on a win streak again, fans think it has turned around
- Loses in January in the SEC, fans freak
- Has some good wins in February, splits
- Fans start picking them again as a sleeper in the NCAA Tourney
- We lose before the SEC Finals
Truth is, if a bracket busted and Kentucky went to the Elite 8, fans wouldn’t even remember a loss to Michigan State and Louisville.
Hype up the team preseason
-Loses OOC game early on- fans freak out (if they win, fans think they’re winning it all)
- Gets on a win streak again, fans think it has turned around
- Loses in January in the SEC, fans freak
- Has some good wins in February, splits
- Fans start picking them again as a sleeper in the NCAA Tourney
- We lose before the SEC Finals
Truth is, if a bracket busted and Kentucky went to the Elite 8, fans wouldn’t even remember a loss to Michigan State and Louisville.
Fair post. I remember reading nonsense all year last year that we had no chance of making the tournament. Some never learn from their behavior. Petulant children 4life.
No question those two games hilight a real concern about his ability to fix it things. My point waas the record last year wasnt a good example of his ability to coach at this level or not because he did well with what he had to work with. But these two (three if you count G town exhibition) games do make me question his ability to handle things when they dont have as much to do with his basketball knowledge as the they do with managing egos, instilling discipline and demanding effort.
I saw a little bit of that last year too. Not that we had any ego or attitude issues but I saw many times where the issue wasnt X and O it was just that we werent playing with fire and energy. I'm telling you in todays college basketball landscape all colleges have athletes who can jump and run and there's really not that much gap between real talent from 1 through 50 teams, so 90% of winning and losing is whose playing with the most energy at the time and I just havent seen him adjust to when we arent during games these first years. That takes an edge and some attitude from the coach to light a fire when needed and just havent seen his ability to do that and that concerns me for him and us.
I couldn’t agree more. Your observation about the talent being more widespread is something I’ve said on more than one occasion. You gotta be a psycho coaching savant these days because that’s who you’re up against
Disagree. If we lose double digit games again, and then get our *** kicked in the elite eight, I definitely don’t view that as a great season.
9 of 14 losses is the problem. He gets blown out when we don’t play great. As pointed out earlier in this thread 7 of those losses shouldn’t have happened.