Nate Oats?
- Thread starter HappyBlue
- Start date
We were just in an S16. That’s no where near Nebraska territory.
Keep firing coaches and we will be.
MSU, UNC, Kansas all have very recently gone through slumps. UConn dipped off a bit.
Pretty sure we made it further than all of them last year.
Would argue big dog football programs have also dipped.
LSU, Clemson, Bama, UGA, Michigan, Oregon, even OSU looked human more times this year. FSU is struggling.
Penn st went from a top 5ish team to having to settle for the ISU coach. Another noticeable trend past few years. Big programs are not landing their top choice. So let’s pump the brakes on visions of change and savior coach.
We’re now in an era when Bama football and UK basketball are being denied at the dance.
Forget big flashy superstar candidates not wanting to mess with us. Rank and file guys are saying “nah I’m good..”
The BYU coach would’ve said no if he didn’t play here. Let that sink in.
Pope is gonna lose a massive amount of respect if he can’t face reality and resign if things don’t turn out well this year. Between no blue-chip recruits, a major possibility of a mass exodus of the team, not to mention NIL budget cuts, things will get rough.
This offseason is gonna be so miserable. I’m hoping he resigns, but if he doesn’t. I think I’m done for a few seasons, maybe for good. Kentucky basketball has made me too miserable for too long to keep watching this crapshow. And with this board slowing down massively and all the other ones slow and dead too, it’s not like there are a lot of placed to discuss Kentucky to begin with.
Maybe the changing of this board is a sign. Not a good sign, either. Might just have to face reality and accept the fate of the basketball program.
I’m almost tentative to even say because it really is more based on emotion and a conscious decision than anything else.
1.) The reason why I felt before that I needed to see no more and to fire Pope wasn’t because of the losses. Every coach loses games — I watched Tubby Smith start a season 3-5 and ended up a two seed in the NCAA Tournament later that season.
The reason I had given up is I hold the view that this will be the most talented DEFENSIVE team that Mark Pope is likely to ever coach. When our defensive rating tanked to 30 WITH Quaintance in the lineup and we were still playing what I refer to as “prevent defense” (I can explain if you want), I’d finally had it. I had been hoping we would be playing more aggressive defense with JQ in the lineup and, in my mind, failure to do it showed me Pope was never going to change his philosophy. It’s really very simple — if he has no potential to coach defense — he can’t coach here.
2.) I’ve never held the view that Pope himself needs to be the one who anchors his defense. I don’t care who is running the show — I just want results. Mississippi State is a Quad 3 game, so you’ll not see me hyping up “the win” that we were all but guaranteed to enjoy. In this game, versus speedy guards that threatened to destroy our pick and roll defense with regularity, McLean convinced Pope to not only change schematically, but really buy-in to an entirely different approach to defense. We blitzed ball screens, we trapped with conviction — we played what I call “offensive defense” and it resulted in nine steals between two players. This willingness to delegate and change philosophy are, to me, positive traits that show a necessary humility and adaptability that good leaders all should possess. We moved up five spots in defensive efficiency, now to 25th and did it without our highest potential defender. My personal goal was to have a top 20 defense — I don’t know if we get there, but it’s pretty evident I gave up too soon.
3.) I’ve felt like the site clown for a couple months now. I used to keep a notepad that had all of the catch and shoot/spot up efficiency numbers for all of our players. I would frequently point to those numbers and try to encourage people not to give up on the shooting. Combine the increased frustration from fellow fans on the forum and our inability to shoot in the big games, I started losing confidence that we would ever make shots again. Our patented 5 out zoom was nowhere to be seen and we had seen nothing from any of our bigs to indicate that we could even run it with success consistently. I started joining in on the idea that the offense was cooked.
4.) I really should have started to second guess my increased pessimism when Kam Williams went 8-10 from three versus Bellarmine. Since that game, things have changed drastically from an offensive standpoint. Kam finally broke out of the cold streak that he was in all season. Do you know how many comments I had received from people saying he wouldn’t be able to shoot and even one poster, a former coach, arguing with me that he won’t be able to shoot because his shot form. The numbers scream very good shooter from last season, but we hadn’t seen it.
5.) Once Kam broke the glass ceiling, we finally had a player on the court with real gravity. Anyone watching with a keen eye can see it, as defenders are going over the screens. This has led to Kam finding the driving lanes as defenders are behind him, on his hip.
6.) Moreno took control of the DHO handoff responsibilities and did an excellent job last game. We were able to get into our stuff and now we have players with enough gravity to get “options” from each of the actions. I need to see more but I have hope that this was not a one-off. Shawn Smith echoed the same sentiment last night on Sources Say. I had given up on the offense, and while it won’t ever be what it could have been due to injuries, I think it is very realistic to expect better efficiency rather than trying to win “rock fights” like we did against Indiana and St. John’s.
7.) For the last couple months, I’d been paying attention to posting trends. I had noticed that a good bit of posters fall into two specific camps and they just fight all day. I won’t call out any posters by name but you have faction one, where they are anti-Pope to such a degree that you are an enemy if you aren’t. They view the people who don’t want to fire Pope right this second as the very cause of the program’s issues. Faction two is pro-coach and they are “supportive” to the degree that anyone who has criticisms of the coach is the very cause of the program’s issues. Over time, I’ve started to realize I don’t want to be in either of those camps.
) It is a conscious decision, ultimately. I don’t want to say who, but a poster that I highly respect left and told me they had gotten exhausted with the constant negativity here.They told me they were going to another site. I went to that other site and it was filled with former and current posters here. However, the conversations were very different. Some of the same posters that were almost exclusively talking about the negative things here were having more light-hearted conversations there. Ultimately, while I did create an account there, I hate the user interface and I don’t think I’ll be there often. It did cause me to wonder why the posters were so different there versus here.
9.) I’ve learned that many can’t differentiate between what they want versus what to expect. I’m guilty of it also. But particularly related to the coaching situation, POPE ISNT GOING ANYWHERE AFTER THIS SEASON. I listen to KSR almost everyday and if there was a chance of a change Matt Jones would know.
It isn’t going to happen. So I’m looking at fourteen long months of every single day hopping on this site and having the same conversation, “Pope sucks.” “Yeah,
I know — Fire Pope.” “The hits keep coming.” “Oh man, we suck.” That’s a long fourteen months. I simply don’t want to do that — I want to enjoy the experience as much as I can and have all kinds of different types of conversations. I want to think deeply about causes and reasons and possibilities. The only thing running the “Fire Pope” flag will do — it will make me more popular, but it will make me and other posters even more miserable. As of today, if I’m being honest, I feel pretty sure it won’t work out with Pope, but I’m going to enjoy his tenure the best I can and hope I’m wrong. Simple as that.
You already know I don’t agree with this and you have no interest in changing your mind. So what is the point of this comment? I have no bad words for you coz I understand what you mean — but you have pretty much two kinds of posts:
- The answer to the hopelessness is to ditch Mitch and Pope. If Pope doesn’t do what I say, he’s unethical.
- Let me highlight all this corruption and scandal / something something about a conspiracy.
You’re always welcome to reply or engage with me. I just wish you’d bring something to the table other than those two posts — I’ve already seen them from you plenty.
Bro you were on the “fire Pope” bandwagon like a week ago… Even when I said it was too early in the season to commit to getting rid of him.You already know I don’t agree with this and you have no interest in changing your mind. So what is the point of this comment? I have no bad words for you coz I understand what you mean — but you have pretty much two kinds of posts:
- The answer to the hopelessness is to ditch Mitch and Pope. If Pope doesn’t do what I say, he’s unethical.
- Let me highlight all this corruption and scandal / something something about a conspiracy.
You’re always welcome to reply or engage with me. I just wish you’d bring something to the table other than those two posts — I’ve already seen them from you plenty.
Yeah I disagree with myself for saying it. I was wrong to say that about our coach, as though he didn’t exceed expectations in year one, something you also agreed to. I hate that I was saying we should fire Pope, not because it isn’t clear it most likely won’t work, but because I didn’t even let the guy finish his own work this year before saying that. It was goofy. I’ve always held to the view that you should wait for a whole body of work — I didn’t and I regret it. Low Emotional Intelligence.
Reasonably, I’m not convinced Pope should go until we’re absolutely sure we’re not going to make the tournament, hence why I still think it’s still too early. But it’s hard to see things turn around especially if Lowe and potentially JQ are out permanently this season. And recruiting just sucks massively. Even if he does make the tournament it’s hard to imagine next year not being worse than this year if he can’t get a few blue chip recruits.
Like if he makes the tournament, snatches Stokes from Kansas, I wouldn’t be so negative about the possibility of another season. But Pope is starting to become predictable after a season and a half, it’s very difficult to imagine things changing much from their current trajectory.
Things don’t look good. We are on the bubble right now, apparently. Tonight could end up keeping us out the dance. Schedule gets harder from here. Gotta win somehow.
