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Braylon Mullins-Jasper Johnson

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Smeegs

All-Conference
Nov 19, 2025
467
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bigblueinsanity (the real) said:
Yes except it was a massive miss on talent assessment. This kid is at least one more year from contributing (positively contributing anyway) at a high level.

Yet we massively overpaid and spurned a legit talent. Great.

Also anyone who had jasper more than a 4 star top 50 prospect all just need to be laughed out of the talent evaluation profession.
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But I bet you weren’t posting this about Jasper a year ago, were you?

In Pope’s defense, hindsight is 20/20. It’s very easy NOW to see which one is obviously the far better player. But I don’t recall seeing any of y’all pushing the Mullins over Jasper argument back then.
 
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Eagles_Ball_69

All-Conference
Dec 19, 2003
3,658
4,901
82
Littlecreek10 said:
Because a native Kentuckian more likely understands what it means to be able to play for Kentucky which probably means that he will give a greater effort than someone else of equal talent. Also he would be more willing to play for the team, and sacrifice himself, for the success of the team. If you have a Kentucky boy and another guy from another state and they are equally talented, you take the Kentucky boy every time. It’s not hard to understand.
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Jasper played hard? For all of Trent Noah's "playing hard", those clanked wide open 3s didn't help much. I think what you say was probably true 30-40 yrs ago. But today, if you're good enough to play at UK (eg, Trent Noah and Travis Perry aren't) it really doesn't matter to the elite kids.
 
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Eagles_Ball_69

All-Conference
Dec 19, 2003
3,658
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82
peterpiper09 said:
The biggest difference I saw in Johnson and Mullins this year is the fact that Mullins has an actual point guard running the show, where Johnson had to kind of play point guard which is not his natural position. This makes a humongous difference.
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Mullins also had an actual coach running the show and not a Pope.
 
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Winston Wolf

Freshman
Aug 15, 2004
2,233
99
33
Littlecreek10 said:
Because a native Kentuckian more likely understands what it means to be able to play for Kentucky which probably means that he will give a greater effort than someone else of equal talent. Also he would be more willing to play for the team, and sacrifice himself, for the success of the team. If you have a Kentucky boy and another guy from another state and they are equally talented, you take the Kentucky boy every time. It’s not hard to understand.
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Bennie logic. You Bennie’s would’ve January 6th the craft center if Pope chose Mullins or JJ.
 
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JDHoss

JDHoss

Heisman
Jan 1, 2003
16,510
40,134
113
peterpiper09 said:
The biggest difference I saw in Johnson and Mullins this year is the fact that Mullins has an actual point guard running the show, where Johnson had to kind of play point guard which is not his natural position. This makes a humongous difference.
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Absolutely, and if you look at their stat lines, they're very similar. The biggest difference was Mullins played 28 mpg and had a good point guard running the show while Johnson played 12 mpg and had to play point much of the time. If Mullins hadn't hit that one shot yesterday, no one here would give him a second thought.
 
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UKBB4Ever

All-Conference
Jul 3, 2025
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So they are saying that Jasper would have hit the game winner for UConn and Mullins would have gone undeveloped at UK?😜
 
BlueSince92

BlueSince92

All-Conference
Jul 2, 2025
10,408
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20MRoster said:
Brandon Garrison was a McDAA. That artificially inflates his value, even now.

Fine, have it your way. Poop found all diamonds in the rough in 2024. Keep telling yourself that.
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Pope found two players who were both very heavy in the national talk after one season playing for him and except for some “there, there” talk about Lamont Butler getting on a hot streak and leading SDSU to a title game by luck even though he was a B-lister because he couldn’t shoot neither of them had gotten any press before that and certainly not any press before comparing them even negatively to the kind of people they were both compared very positively to after that.

After that, the real result you derailed with your two-year-old attention grab bullcrap was that Pope came away thinking he had better gambling instincts than he really had and that absolutely heavily and obviously (for adults) affected his roster construction for this past year and led directly to a lot of the crap we had to endure.

That’s the reality.

It’s okay if you can’t deal with it. Clearly you don’t deal with things very well. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Just go stand in the corner quietly and I’ll talk to you again after I’m finished f*cking your mother.
 
Resignmarkpope

Resignmarkpope

Redshirt
Mar 13, 2026
41
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C

CatPatrick13

All-Conference
Sep 17, 2015
3,200
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peterpiper09 said:
The biggest difference I saw in Johnson and Mullins this year is the fact that Mullins has an actual point guard running the show, where Johnson had to kind of play point guard which is not his natural position. This makes a humongous difference.
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This is a good point. Double Johnson’s minutes and the numbers are pretty close. What am I missing?
 
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20MRoster

All-Conference
Nov 16, 2018
588
1,033
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CatPatrick13 said:
This is a good point. Double Johnson’s minutes and the numbers are pretty close. What am I missing?
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It never works like that. Numbers typically plateau when you add minutes.

I say this being a big Jasper supporter and a believer of his high potential. I just don't think this staff has any hope of getting the most out of him.
 
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bigblueinsanity (the real)

All-American
Jul 6, 2025
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Smeegs said:
But I bet you weren’t posting this about Jasper a year ago, were you?

In Pope’s defense, hindsight is 20/20. It’s very easy NOW to see which one is obviously the far better player. But I don’t recall seeing any of y’all pushing the Mullins over Jasper argument back then.
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I absolutely was. I said it the day he signed and every day since. Much too thin, much too weak in the lower body, and awful athletic base.

I saw nothing to warrant his lofty ranking nor his lofty nil demands, which we foolishly met.

I even mentioned back then that we overpaid solely for a pr win and i saw no chance hed contribute as a freshman.
 
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Goingfor9

All-Conference
Jan 27, 2003
16,008
2,774
113
Any coach at Kentucky would take Jasper Johnson over this guy in a heartbeat. I mean any of you guys trying to Monday morning quarterback this situation it’s not gonna it’s not gonna help. Mullins is a nice player, but Jasper Johnson is a homegrown top 15 talent top 25 talent and if we had a coach to develop him, he’ll be fantastic.. I say the situations were reversed and Jasper is at UConn and Mullins UK I will bet Jasper will be far better than Mullins. They have a legit staff at UCONN. I hope Jasper stays as long as Pope brings someone in to develop these guys. The Kentucky connection. I mean, people downplay it, but we always have strong Kentucky players on our team teams when we make runs. It’s a must.

A lot of other dudes who were Kentucky boys they were like three star recruits man like a I can’t think of his name the guy that played at Bryan station went to butler. When Tubby was the coach that guy lit it up at Butler he got drafted in the NBA second round but still for us not to recruit Jasper and Moreno with everything we have would’ve been malpractice and really at this point I mean we really need both those guys back Moreno‘s probably our top recruit Jasper, though if we got hope he doesn’t go into the portal and we bring someone in to develop him. Maybe mo Williams can help with all of our guards not just point guard. All our guards need attention that’s the thing is. I’m afraid that Pope’s gonna look and say oh we suck a point guard so he’s gonna overcompensate put too much resource to point guard and overlook other areas.
 
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Smeegs

All-Conference
Nov 19, 2025
467
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Goingfor9 said:
Any coach at Kentucky would take Jasper Johnson over this guy in a heartbeat. I mean any of you guys trying to Monday morning quarterback this situation it’s not gonna it’s not gonna help. Mullins is a nice player, but Jasper Johnson is a homegrown top 15 talent top 25 talent and if we had a coach to develop him, he’ll be fantastic.. I say the situations were reversed and Jasper is at UConn and Mullins UK I will bet Jasper will be far better than Mullins. They have a legit staff at UCONN. I hope Jasper stays as long as Pope brings someone in to develop these guys. The Kentucky connection. I mean, people downplay it, but we always have strong Kentucky players on our team teams when we make runs. It’s a must.

A lot of other dudes who were Kentucky boys they were like three star recruits man like a I can’t think of his name the guy that played at Bryan station went to butler. When Tubby was the coach that guy lit it up at Butler he got drafted in the NBA second round but still for us not to recruit Jasper and Moreno with everything we have would’ve been malpractice and really at this point I mean we really need both those guys back Moreno‘s probably our top recruit Jasper, though if we got hope he doesn’t go into the portal and we bring someone in to develop him. Maybe mo Williams can help with all of our guards not just point guard. All our guards need attention that’s the thing is. I’m afraid that Pope’s gonna look and say oh we suck a point guard so he’s gonna overcompensate put too much resource to point guard and overlook other areas.
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You seem to be unaware that Mullins was a 5 Star ranked even higher than Jasper.

The reason why other coaches likely would’ve done the same is because no UK coach wants to take the fan base heat that would result from not landing a 5 star “Kentucky boy” from Lexington. But it is NOT because Jasper was considered the better prospect.
 
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WilmoreCat

All-Conference
Nov 18, 2005
1,548
4,350
113
Goingfor9 said:
Any coach at Kentucky would take Jasper Johnson over this guy in a heartbeat. I mean any of you guys trying to Monday morning quarterback this situation it’s not gonna it’s not gonna help. Mullins is a nice player, but Jasper Johnson is a homegrown top 15 talent top 25 talent and if we had a coach to develop him, he’ll be fantastic.. I say the situations were reversed and Jasper is at UConn and Mullins UK I will bet Jasper will be far better than Mullins. They have a legit staff at UCONN. I hope Jasper stays as long as Pope brings someone in to develop these guys. The Kentucky connection. I mean, people downplay it, but we always have strong Kentucky players on our team teams when we make runs. It’s a must.

A lot of other dudes who were Kentucky boys they were like three star recruits man like a I can’t think of his name the guy that played at Bryan station went to butler. When Tubby was the coach that guy lit it up at Butler he got drafted in the NBA second round but still for us not to recruit Jasper and Moreno with everything we have would’ve been malpractice and really at this point I mean we really need both those guys back Moreno‘s probably our top recruit Jasper, though if we got hope he doesn’t go into the portal and we bring someone in to develop him. Maybe mo thinking about Williams can help with all of our guards not just point guard. All our guards need attention that’s the thing is. I’m afraid that Pope’s gonna look and say oh we suck a point guard so he’s gonna overcompensate put too much resource to point guard and overlook other areas.
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Is the player your thinking about Shelven Mack ?
 
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L

loublue22_rivals308424

Heisman
Jan 30, 2004
105,488
12,455
78
Smeegs said:
You seem to be unaware that Mullins was a 5 Star ranked even higher than Jasper.

The reason why other coaches likely would’ve done the same is because no UK coach wants to take the fan base heat that would result from not landing a 5 star “Kentucky boy” from Lexington. But it is NOT because Jasper was considered the better prospect.
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If we take a 5 star commitment and it turns out a lower ranked Kentucky kid goes elsewhere because of that, I don't think many people would care. Johnson was no slouch recruit either, both he and Moreno were in the hoop summit game, but a bird in the hand etc.
 
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Jp1542

Junior
Feb 15, 2026
181
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WilmoreCat said:
Listening to KSR.Jack Pilgrim just said that Pope chose Johnson over Mullins with Mullins wanting to commit, when Johnson committed, Mullins cut UK.

Edit: He also just said Stokes delayed his decision for a week.

I take that as a positive.
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Stokes still waiting on Self’s decision?
 
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