Collins Update......
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all these guys are performing better than the top transfers, same as last year too
And? If a team wins a title this year with a bunch of OAD rather than returnees, you can come on here and let me know that the number is now higher than 0.05%. Until then, it’s “muh feelings”.
I'm tired of the hyped "we're about to land" posts from Pilgrim and his red-headed step child, Jacob the Amish Ever-Bachelor Polacheck.
They said we led for Stokes, Wilkerson, Braden Smith, Holt, Dent, Wilson, Lanier, etc.
They clearly don't know much.
All they do is lead on BBN and try to get them to subscribe to KSR plus.
That said. I don't see the need for Collins. He gives us what Hawthorne will give us. I'd rather get Stokes.
They said we led for Stokes, Wilkerson, Braden Smith, Holt, Dent, Wilson, Lanier, etc.
They clearly don't know much.
All they do is lead on BBN and try to get them to subscribe to KSR plus.
That said. I don't see the need for Collins. He gives us what Hawthorne will give us. I'd rather get Stokes.
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Yes and aberdeen is averaging about 16 with a 26 point game against our toughest opponent. Butler was defiinitely a portal stud bit had injuries.
I hate to say it but I think our staff burned some bridges with the stokes pursuit even if he does commit. We had guys wanting to come to uk but chose stokes over guaranteed ppl. Same with Rippey just waisted time.
He’s young. Always been a recruiting guru and not old enough to remember UK being UK before this OAD stuff. I like Jack but he’s another one of these that thinks freshman are way more important than they are, because of “muh feelings”
1. march is fluky
2. if ur fine watching our current product and okay with the brand getting spat on every week by media and other programs than you have fun with that
when i grew up kentucky basketball was getting the best players and putting them on a team together, so this change the last 2 years have been awful for me
Well, I appreciate you being honest. I wasn’t going to throw the “you must be a kid” at you but it makes sense to me that you just don’t know any better. You grew up with Cal and you think that’s how titles are built. I get it, definitely won’t go hard on you for it. I’ll leave you alone, but just being honest —- your whole worldview on this topic is just your emotions
its not emotions, us getting bent over by a freshman in mikel brown isnt emotion its fact
us getting torn down by media about our coach and recruiting is fact, that DOES happen, it bothers any kentucky fan
Well, of course. It bothered me too. That doesn’t mean I’m going to say the reason why we lost is this particular thing without justification. We lost scoring 88 points. If I told you that and you didn’t have emotional attachment to the game, you would be able to easily say the issue was what? You shouldn’t lose ANY games scoring 88 points. Fix the defense, not say 88 points wasnt enough, so let’s add pieces to score 89. It isn’t rational, bro, I’m sorry. It’s just emotional. The issue is the defense and that’s on the coaching staff to fix
well the 3pt shooting hasnt been the greatest but it doesnt need too, i just dont get the problem with getting slightly more talented players, its like u want pope to recruit average players to prove a point about his coaching
Well, I certainly don’t want him to recruit average players. That’s a bit of a misunderstanding. All Kentucky fans want talent, including me. You can’t win without a mix of continuity and talent. You don’t have to have top HS talent though. Talent comes in different types and sizes. Walter Clayton Jr. wasn’t exactly a top high school name. Was he talented? Hell yeah, he was. As Kentucky fans, we think it has to be some heralded high school kid, but it doesn’t. We have talent btw, a whole lump of it. We have one of the most talented teams in college this year, but it remains to be seen what we look like by year’s end
The thing that should be questioned is Pope's ability to develop good players into the elite player/s we need to get the job done. Hurley takes good players and turns them into great players. Golden took Clayton who we all overlooked , then said hey he's a pretty good junior at UF, to then damn he's elite as a senior. Broom at Auburn was pretty good as a junior then elite as a sr at Auburn.
Look at Mo D... he's pretty darn good but say this off season if we had someone to make his jump shot to something good and consistent then he'd be elite. If someone gets Chandler to drive to the basket and finish at the rim then he could be elite. Jasper Johnson or Moreno take the next step and they can be elite.
Can Pope develop them into that is a question we should have.
(When I say elite I mean for college ball, not top 6 draft pick NBA super star elite)
Look at Mo D... he's pretty darn good but say this off season if we had someone to make his jump shot to something good and consistent then he'd be elite. If someone gets Chandler to drive to the basket and finish at the rim then he could be elite. Jasper Johnson or Moreno take the next step and they can be elite.
Can Pope develop them into that is a question we should have.
(When I say elite I mean for college ball, not top 6 draft pick NBA super star elite)
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Clayton was the exception, not the rule.
Top 5 freshmen being incredible is the rule, not the exception. Just look at this year's class.
Of course it helps to have guys like Mo-D and Kam Williams return. We had that when we won titles with guys like Darius Miller, Allen Edwards, and Heshimu Evans playing ig roles.
But you also need your Antoine Walker stud. The issue is that UK has been devoting a ton of money into having fourteen Allen Edwards-level guys, instead of two Antoine Walker-level guys to run with six Allen Edwards-level guys.
If we lose ten plus games again this year (which I think we will), BBN will be calling for elite talent. Pope will have to adjust.
i think our ideas of talent are different
oscar was a good college player, but hes not that talented, id say reed is miles more talented than big o, which is why he was a top pick
Ding ding ding. If for some reason the Pope era doesn’t materialize into banners, success, etc the solution will not be to go back to something that hasn’t worked. The solution would be finding someone who CAN win with the formula that’s proven. I still think Pope can get it done, but if he doesn’t I’m not going to say it was because we didn’t have the top high school classes. I’m going to ask if he can develop players and use those pieces tactically as well as other coaches who are winning those titles. Best comment of the day hands down!
I went easy on the other guy because he’s a kid. You and I are old enough to have the bigger picture. You know that we are about banners at Kentucky, so if you’re wanting to win banners, tell me which teams that won titles you want to construct like? If you’re teaching your kids at school, are you going to use a curriculum that hasn’t shown increased competence in your students or you gonna use one that has met your goals? Simple as that
Feelings had something to do with Murray, Bam, Fox, Monk, Maxey, Wall, Cousins, Randle, MKG, Davis, Noel, Knight, Herro, SGA, etc. being All-SEC level performers?
I'd trade any of our current players for Boozer, Brown, AJ, or Peterson today.
Would you?
No, it's not as simple as that.
I'm going to differentiate my instruction so that the most students can learn from a variety of ways.
On the basketball level, that means I'm going to surround a freshman Antoine Walker and a freshman Ron Mercer with six or seven Allen Edwards-level juniors/seniors.
It really depends. We are too early to know what our guys look like in March. But let’s look at your example and be honest about it:
Murray — loved the kid, but he led us to a 4 seed and a second round loss. We didn’t win big with him.
Bam, Monk, Fox —- absolutely stacked to the gills high school crop of guys. 2 seed…not even a dominant team. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the hell out of it but it wasn’t elite by Kentucky standards and even that year was better than most in that era for us.
Maxey - A three/four seed type of team.
Wall, Cousins, Bledsoe - that was a special team, but even they didn’t make a final four.
Davis, MKG — I’ll not speak ill of our national title team but you talking exception to the rule and bring up these guys. Literally, less than 0.05% of champs since 1985 are built like this.
Noel — probably makes tournament of healthy. Trended toward 8/9 seed, not setting the world on fire.
Etc Etc. I could almost accuse you of making my point for me.
it isn’t that we don’t want freshman but I think you proved the point quite well that even extreme over abundance of freshman talent isn’t the solution
That's a limited question because there are only five of them each year. Some of them don't even go to college. Many pick lesser programs with very little talent. Even so, a few have made the Final Four in recent years. Here's a larger question: you don't think a Chet Holmgren helps 2022 Kansas win it all? Do you think Cooper Flagg helps Florida or Houston win it all last year? Would you take Lowe over Brown right now? Would you take Mo D over Dybantsa? Would you take Kam Williams over Ament or Peterson?
The problem is your response to LadyCat says there’s only 5 of them a year but there’s zero per year of what you’re advocating for. UK should be trying to win titles, whatever the best formula is for that. Nothing else should matter
Slow down and read the argument. You're creating a straw man for folks in this thread.
No one is arguing for an "extreme over abundance of freshmen talent." No one.
What we are arguing for is one or two true freshman studs surrounded by solid veterans. That was the recipe in 2012 and 1996.
You should invest in creating steel man arguments instead of straw man fallacies.
I agree with steel manning but I think you’re actually not realizing you’re strawmanning as well. No one is saying to avoid talent like the plague. The point is saying top flight high school talent has shown zero correlation to titles over recent years. If you get it, great. If you don’t build around it, it doesn’t mean you’re less likely to win. I for one am not saying “DONT GET A TOP HS PLAYER” lol. I’m saying it isn’t what we think it is. Again, I’ll say…Saul, the floor is yours, sir. Point me to a national champion who built the roster the way you’d like us to. What I see is 0.045% versus 99.95%, in teams that built differently than your suggestion. Even Stephon Castle was only a 25 ranked HS guy and we have people on here saying we are doomed if we don’t have a top 5 guy. I’m glad to be proven wrong with facts, but seems to be just emotion
I didn’t feel a need to. Your questions were purely hypothetical about replacing players. We have no data for that to know for sure, but we do have data about roster construction for national champs
Exactly the show should be called here comes the bs
Pope said he does not mess with a players form if it’s broken. Dioubate was brought in to rebound and play tough defense, not so much for his ability to make threes
How do you think I want a roster built? Can you answer that question?
It still doesn't seem like you're grasping my argument at all.
Again, and for the third time - I want one, maybe two, OAD stud freshmen surrounded by six or seven solid veterans.
It looks like you just enjoy arguing.
Sure. You want a roster to be built by veteran and portal guys, while sprinkling in elite high school players. I understood it months ago. Zero data for it
How many top 5 freshman have gone to title-contending teams the last few years?
Do you have data for that?
No, I don’t. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to me if teams are “title contending” or not. This is when you get to the weeds a little, but I think there’s a gap between being a contender and being a champion. It’s the only way to make sense of 0.045% versus the otherwise. It doesn’t mean I want to AVOID top talent — I just think Kentucky fans, especially us that have been longtime fans should see the bigger picture
That’s hard to quantify because the term “title contender” doesn’t have a clear definition.
Last year i’d say the 4 1 seeds has separated themselves very clearly.
And the year before that it was Houston, Purdue and Uconn.
or are we wanting to include the teams that might win it 1/100 times played because 2014 Uconn happened?
Auburn didn't win the ship last year but they were arguably the best team, in the best conference all year long. They had zero stud freshmen on the roster and was largely built out of the portal. Pettiford was big time last year but was a 4 star recruit and he's back this season. If the portal players they lost were back...where would they be ranked right now! Pretty easy to say that they'd be number 1 in the nation and expected to make a very deep run again.
That's the thing about anons argument too. He's right, in all likelihood, that we won't win a title. But the odds of anybody winning it are what...1200 or so to 1. He's playing a case he is likely to win, even if we have a great season. He'll just come back and say Pope failed to win a ship because he failed to recruit xxx players, or something stupid like that. He's pretty close to being my first "ignored" on here.
That's the thing about anons argument too. He's right, in all likelihood, that we won't win a title. But the odds of anybody winning it are what...1200 or so to 1. He's playing a case he is likely to win, even if we have a great season. He'll just come back and say Pope failed to win a ship because he failed to recruit xxx players, or something stupid like that. He's pretty close to being my first "ignored" on here.
What I can understand:
Someone who believes the tournament is random. Who cares? Freshman are fun, so I want them.
What I can’t understand:
Someone who desperately wants the top freshman BECAUSE they want to win titles…no data for it. Show them the data and it comes back to “yeah but this is how you win”. But why? “Muh feelings”
Me thinks rolling in crap with a pig makes ya both stink...but only one of ya enjoys it.
You know, and I mean this with 100% sincerity: If the data showed that landing the top 5 HS players meant a hill of beans, I’d do a complete 180 and I change my mind tomorrow. Really, I’m willing to debate topics like this for a clear reason —- I don’t want to die before seeing us pass UCLA. That’s what it’s all about for me. Period.
I don’t give a damn who the coach is or how it’s done, as long as they can make that happen. To me, Pope looks like he knows the formula. Can he bake the cake? I’m ready to watch the man cook and see how it tastes.