its crazy how in just 3 years we've gone from "don't attack the players, they are just kids and student athletes" to "f these overpaid hired guns"
and its totally deserved. Kentucky as a university is to be blamed for this as much as anyone. I'm sure it was a source of pride and also by design that UK lead the nation in NIL basketball money and what it got was a bunch of players who will tell you to your face all the right things and then go out on the court and totally disrespect the program.
I still love the idea of Mark Pope being our coach - I want the video game offense , and I haven't grown tired of the continual praise and idoltry he shows the program, but I am pissed at him for not immediately shutting this mindset down after the Louisville game.
The only leverage Mark Pope has left is not playing guys that have post Kentucky professional aspirations and let everyone know they are a problem child on the team - driving down their value and marginalizing their chances to play professionally. I know that sounds harsh and honestly, what we know about Pope, its not in his DNA (although it sounds like its come to that in some form after the 4th loss).
Its clearly not working internally, and Pope has committed the cardinal sin of Kentucky basketball. He has put a team on the court that doesn't play hard. That is the single worst thing you can do (I would say arguably worse than point shaving) in the eyes of a Kentucky fan. And at this point, Pope has to choose between living up his message of understanding the assignment or being a good guy coach who believes constructive conversations will eventually motivate these guys to turn the corner.
I would be angry with them if I was Pope, to the extent I didn't care if calling them out as uninspired, ungrateful and frankly not a good college level basketball player labeled them for the rest of their life. They have damaged his coaching career to the extent he may lose his dream job, and its damaged the UK program to the extent they are the most overrated, overpaid and underperforming program in recent memory.
in short, its time to say, screw these players, we are focusing on the good of the program. I get the reluctance in terms of future impact this makes but the program is at a point where you have to focus on salvaging this season, Pope has to focus on keeping his job and face the reality that regardless of what he does, 80% of this team is going to bolt at the end of the season anyways after realizing they will not get the same NIL money for killing UK's vibe this year as a potential title chaser. Think about it, at the moment, no one cares that anyone besides Chandler and maybe Noah, returns next year. Their value has to be less than half of what they received in NIL money from UK based on their performance and future ROI on a different team.
and I'll say that Calipari would have never done that. He would have just keep taking losses to protect the players. Some people, in particular those close to the players might find that admirable. I consider it basketball coaching treason.
