Don’t move the goalposts. I literally said considering portal and high school. This isn’t 2002 anymore. There is more than one way to build a roster. And yes, we have been as good as anyone in recruiting for the past cycle.
On recruiting let’s not forget we have a big step up for next year
- Thread starter theKybluedude
- Start date
yeah but the whole concern about Pope recruiting is specifically about him getting high schoolers, right?
imo he's been solid in the portal.
I'd give him a B+ for portal, D- for HS recruiting.
And you're just lumping it all together and saying "we are very good at recruiting"
I don't really see the benefit in lumping the 2 things together when only one of them is really an issue that needs fixing. Just my 2 cents. Apples and oranges. This post dragged on longer than I intended, sorry, lol
Why do you care where the talent comes from? Especially when more portal players have made the final four as starters (by a wide margin) than freshman OAD in the portal era. It isn’t even close btw
ideally it would be a mix of the two. That's what I'm saying. We've had success bringing in talented vets. We need to also be bringing in some diaper dandies. Obviously Pope agrees because we're in the mix for all of these guys.
We had a mix of the two. That’s the whole point. We were one of only two schools that had top 20 high school class and top 5 portal class. We were more highly rated overall in recruiting than that school. Someone is gonna have to give me something other than “feelings” to explain why the constant recruiting complaints have any merit —- especially when you consider the small window of time Pope had to land that HS class. I think it was a great job for year 1 —- the pieces didn’t mesh, that happens.
Example: What is the combined record for the last two seasons we had the top recruiting class? How’s 32-26 with zero tournament wins?
You are making too much sense. Might as well give up because the ibs pope crowd will keep moving the goalposts, cherry picking info, and blaming pope for the weather too.
I must be missing something. Who did we sign from a recruiting perspective (not transfer portal) who is even going to be an impact player for us next year? We got MM and JJ this season which was, OK. But those were also KY guys and that doesnt happen often.
Our recruiting not only isnt at the top. Its no where NEAR the top. Now maybe it was just a bad off season. Thats possible. But Pope has to *prove* he can recruit now.
Acaden isn’t included and yes, the class is ranked 16th by On3. We like to forget that Moreno and Jasper were borderline 5 star guys.
I wouldn't get too excited either way until we see which of our 9 possible returnees (not counting the 2 red shirts and JQ) will come back next year. I'm guessing most of the recruits are reluctant to commit until they know that answer as well,
You’re using a post-hoc argument for recruiting and that doesn’t work. We are not talking post-hoc, because we are comparing this to RECRUITING. What you’re referring to is scouting, different thing altogether. We had one of the consensus top recruiting classes. And we think recruiting is the issue. Again, I’ll say the last two times we had the top high school class we went on to have a combined 32-26 record with zero tournament wins. It’s almost like things are deeper than ‘cruit’n.
so 2 guys from Kentucky that were coming here anyway.
So again I ask...in what way is Pope better at HS recruiting than Tubby? BC when Tubby was here everybody called him the worst recruiter ever and Pope right now is making him look like Cal in comparison
I’m gonna keep making sense and let them argue back with feel-feels and waaaa-waaaa’s. Tired of playing around with these people. Overdose on groupthink and they never actually test anything they believe. As long as a popular commenter said it, it must be true. Never mind that it’s all made up crap.
A post-hoc argument? What?
All I'm saying is we went big game fishing the last few months for elite 2026 recruits and we got none. I dont care what the excuse is. I dont care what the rumors are.. all that matters is that we struck out across the board. And I dont really consider the 6th or 7th best recruiting class, with all the holes we had, to be all that great when youre Kentucky. Thats not a good sign any way you slice it.
As for those past top recruiting classes .. we were stifled by poor roster management from Cal, awful injuries and even a star player deciding to sit out. On top of that, this was during the covid extra year where a lot of returning talent was able to capitalize over star freshman. A lot of our losses came from teams who got to keep players around longer, and that does matter.
You’re moving the goalposts, dude. In your post, you literally cited reasons other than recruiting for why it didn’t work with Cal. That’s not unique to him. When I was referring to post-hoc, I’m saying you don’t take a top recruiting class, then they perform bad and then reinterpret the data as a bad recruiting class. That is a fallacy, sir. You’re applying post-hoc to something predictive. The issue would be something other than recruiting, be it fit, scouting, continuity, chemistry, injuries, morale, etc.
Not really. I post positive stuff here all the time. I also post negative stuff. There's been a lot of both this season. But people tend to notice the negative stuff more. It's just such a waste of time when the discussion boils down to "you are critical so you must be trolling or you're just spouting groupthink" or whatever. No, sometimes, maybe people just have different opinions.
And you get in your fee fees more than anyone here so idk if i'd be throwing that particular stone if i were you
You’re missing the point. If you’re gonna say the issue has been the recruiting, give me something substantial —- metrics, rankings —- something. And yes, I am frustrated with the fact that every time I cite actual figures, I get an anectode or a personal expression in response. Stop complaining about recruiting if you can’t back up anything you’re saying or just block me. I am not playing with the topic anymore.
WE HAVE NO HS COMMITS FOR NEXT SEASON.
So, just like Louisville? Also, there is still a transfer portal season and we don’t know how many returners we have from this current roster. Again, this recruiting cycle hasn’t ended so no one can say one way or another how it will turn out. You gonna ignore the completed recruiting cycle, ignore every FACT I cited you and go all in on Pope can’t recruit? That’s nonsense, and I’m tired of pretending it isn’t. I’m tired of pretending that people who back up nothing with facts are doing something other than complaining without merit. If I’m wrong, insert some facts here:
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The problem is that Pope missed out on a lot of his top targets during this last portal cycle. Thank goodness for JQ and Lowe.
You wanted a fact. I gave you a fact. Stop trying to be an Internet tough guy.
If our recruiting is great and there's no problem...we should be announcing some big time commits soon. I will change my tune if and when that happens
College sports is all 100% free agency every year. Just because they are redshirting here does not mean they will be here next year. We will have to offer them new deals and negotiate. If someone offers more????? He Gone.
Every player is a one year deal.
I’m not tough and not trying to pretend to be. I’m asking for facts, you gave me yet another anectode. The class isn’t over and you’re ignoring the data.
Me: Provides data
You: Provides no data
And then you wonder why it’s frustrating. I literally am surrounded by a sea of people that parrot the same things back and forth with no substance….and I’m literally begging somebody to make some sense. That’s all.
what would make you worried about next year's recruiting class? or at what point would you become worried
If the class completes and we don’t have any players, I’ll be concerned. We are about 8 months away from that. Someone could get impregnated today and deliver a child into the world and we still aren’t there yet.
Here’s an anecdote from me: Imagine you are an astronaut who lives with 41 other people. All day long the other 41 people talk about how the moon is made of cheese. You try providing rational discussion and attempt to understand them — you provide them actual proof the moon is in fact not made of cheese. They still contend it is made of cheese and it’s literally everyone of them —- no matter how senseless. Would you get frustrated eventually?
The point about Cal was just to counter the notion that Top recruits dont matter. He also made 4 final4s with top classes.
I dont know how else to say it to you.. our recruiting has sucked. The 7th best class last year doesnt really cut it for me (because again, we got bailed out by having two top25 kids from in state, which almost never happens).
Pope currently has a recruiting class for 2026 that wont even show up on rankings. And his final 3 years at BYU he had classes in the 100s. That sure makes me think if JJ or MM didnt have ties to the state of Kentucky, we probably dont have them either.
I think fans have every right to question his recruiting at the moment. Im honestly kind of baffled how you think his recruiting is going so well..
Are we arguing with Mark Pope's daughter or something lol.
August 2026?!?!?! gtfo
dude im trying over here, i don't know what "proof" you've shown. We're just going around and round
i really dig Village Idiot as a poster. he's kinda batsh*t insane and has a ton of passion which I respect. you have to have that energy to be a great sports fan. i always like to read his takes.
but i have no idea where he's coming from here. I think I have to just step away from this thread , lol
16th best HS class in limited time
2nd best portal class in the same cycle
Combined, one of the best recruiting cycles any school had.
That’s the only completed data we have for Pope at Kentucky as a recruiter. It’s that simple.
If we finish with the 35th portal class and the 56th HS class this upcoming cycle, then “Pope can’t recruit” makes sense. It isn’t complicated at all.
I appreciate that. I’m too emotionally charged atm. Perhaps I should take a breather and come back, thanks for the grace.
You have to consider HS class and portal. Combined we were as good as anyone, man. If you disagree, name someone who outperformed us significantly in both (you can’t because they don’t exist). Looking for rankings, metrics, facts.
Yeah same. Im just making the joke haha. I love the optimism though.. I just dont have it right now with Mark, JMI and recruiting. Maybe that will change. I do expect JMI is going to have to change how they do things, and it could even happen in this cycle.
OK well thats a little bit differently of looking at it. Sure if we add in transfer guys that certainly helps the total ranking. However, Pope went after a lot of the big 2026 names and got none. And the only two he did get got 2025 were in state kids. He also didnt exactly get his top portal picks either. But we did land JQ.
Now I dont know why that is. Might be totally JMI and Mitch related. But in the end, you need SOME elite talent IMO, and we just have not really gotten any.. and thats WITH big NIL paydays, playing for a basketball school, our facilities, fans, legacy, etc. Thats a little alarming to me.
If he’s missing his first options then it’s not impressive. He has to start closing on FIRST OPTIONS. There’s no other way to spin it
There’s only reason we have JJ and Moreno is because they’re from Kentucky, we got lucky with that. The one top recruit who wasn’t from Kentucky backed out. No excuse not to land your first options
There’s no spinning anything. We had a top 2 portal class, regardless of who we missed on.
Also, its worth pointing out that when schools like Duke are adding four 5-star guys every cycle (like we used to), theyre effectively taking themselves out of the Transfer markert, as they will only going to get one or two transfers, and those will likely be bench guys. If we did an experiment and completely took away 2026 freshman recruits and teams had to rely on the portal only... I have to imagine Kentucky takes a hit as Duke and Arkansas starts to compete for transfers. In other words, I think Kentucky did so well with portal additions BECAUSE other big players filled their roster with the elite recruits.
There is something off with our recruiting, but I do think we will figure that out in the off season and correct it.
There is something off with our recruiting, but I do think we will figure that out in the off season and correct it.
I’m sorry Preston. I definitely got in my feelings on this topic —- I’m someone who always says to remember the person behind the keyboard and I failed to do that here. I don’t think people would know how important the recruiting topic is to me — and it goes way beyond Pope. It’s been a decade+ thing for me.