JACK GIVENS CANDID TAKES ON UK'S STRUGGLES
- Thread starter Ima Alien
- Start date
I sat with Goose at a recent luncheon and he went on about how good this team is. He raved about them.
He just stated what's been regurgitated on here for almost 2 weeks now.
Hold up there, Hoss. Why you at lunch with Goose? Spill.
Yeah, people who say this team doesn't have talent have no idea what they are talking about. This is a very talented team. Pope is just mismanaging them at the moment.
Habitat for Humanity luncheon, he was the Keynote speaker.
And I have known him for while.
I bet before all the BS they did look good. Everyone in Basketball thought they were elite. It’s their feeling toward each other that makes them terrible.
That's pretty damn awesome! I spoke with Billy G outside of Camelot East back in the day, he bummed a cig off me and kept my lighter. Before I could ask for it back he was already burning rubber on Richmond road.
I met Jerry Claiborne back in ‘82, tried to commit to him in person. After he had me tossed off campus I went to the nearest recruiting station where the navy guy said I could fly F-14’s, six months later I was dishing out taters at the chow hall.
Dan Issel isn't happy with the product so far either.
Probably trying to catch the shift change at Camelot West. Girls at west were more “down to earth”.
Kidding aside I did see Saul Smith at Camelot East with an entourage of buddies. Literally got heckled out of the place lol
Yes its obvious that as of right now there is no love lost between some of the players towards each other. As the coach Pope needs/needed to nip that in the bud.
The team is not being managed properly . I admit I am not a expert but it is apparent to everybody that there are lockeroom issues and there is no player stepping up to be the leader. We need 1-2 guys to step up and help Pope pull the team back together. We have some talent but everyone is pulling in a different direction.
It should be painfully obvious that right now the UK team was put together by analytics and overlooked the need to have a solid go to guy that was ready to start the season. If Pope thought Oweh was the guy (weak shooter and weak handle) he misjudged. Maybe JQ will be that guy and free up opportunities for others to produce but right now there is nobody on this team that is remotely close to being an impact player.
Pope will struggle until he figures out that while it is true you want the sum of all parts to be greater than the individual parts you still need some damn good parts.
You don’t need 4-5 uber talented freshman with limited experience like Cal but you need 1-2 to go along with experience (cause most uber talented guys with experience are in the NBA). Pope‘s playing guys 20-25 minutes isn’t going to get very many uber talented freshmen.
Pope will struggle until he figures out that while it is true you want the sum of all parts to be greater than the individual parts you still need some damn good parts.
You don’t need 4-5 uber talented freshman with limited experience like Cal but you need 1-2 to go along with experience (cause most uber talented guys with experience are in the NBA). Pope‘s playing guys 20-25 minutes isn’t going to get very many uber talented freshmen.
I haven’t completely given up hope that some of it could be fixable given that we should be more competitive than that on paper, but it’s hard to disagree with him. There really wasn’t a single thing we did well in that game to try and build off of.
Agree But on paper seems to be the issue. As of now it is looking like there was a miscalculation on the abilities of the portal guys. Not one is demonstrating the ability to be the go to guy, but JQ has yet to play and Lowe has been hurt. On paper these guys look great but why? Possibly because they were complimentary players behind go to guys?
The flaws even if Lowe and JQ play seem to be there is no reliable shooting on this team, nobody other than Lowe can beat their guy and the 2nd year in a row no backup PG. Hope I’m wrong but this looks to be shaping up as Pope relying way too much on analytics and building a staff that probably doesn’t challenge that very much.
Remember what Mike Casey said about the Billy G days and how the fans crucified him. I’m not saying we’re heading back to those days specifically, but we need to listen close to those guys who sacrificed everything for this program. If it continues to tank, there will be way more noise from other CATS
There’s definitely a lot of validity to what you’re saying. It seems that Pope banked heavily on two things when building this roster. The first was that returning players from our own roster would be greatly improved in year 2. That’s been almost a complete bust. Chandler does look more comfortable on offense, but has still gotten lost a lot on defense. Garrison and Noah still look like the exact same guys from last year. Oweh has actually regressed.
The other was that guys who had good rate stats in limited roles last year on other teams would be primed for a breakout if given the opportunity this year. Aberdeen has been pretty good, although the injury to Lowe moves him to a role he’s probably not best suited for. Mo has been fine if allowed to just rebound and chase loose balls like he did at Alabama, but hasn’t really proven capable of more of a starring role. Williams has shown flashes of his athleticism, but overall seems to be struggling to get up to speed against the increased level of competition.
It’s still early in the season, but so far, there’s not nearly enough success stories to justify the approach we took. Hopefully this will serve as a lesson to the staff to go ahead and pay for a couple of game changers at the top of the roster even if it means we sacrifice a bit of reliability in our 9th and 10th men.
Agree 100%. If this season is not what we thought, so be it. But, Pope’s approach to roster composition is going to have to change or improve. He cannot whiff on so many targets. The recruiting status for next year is my biggest red flag right now.