Teams can play though drama. If they’re worth a damn. This one isn’t. At all. They can’t shoot. They can’t rebound. They can’t defend.
Pope Had Some Huge Wins Last Year
- Thread starter philstat
- Start date
He and staff have severely misjudged talent and failed recruiting, despite the open checkbook. That is the bottom line.
Didn’t hang my hat on anything. Nor am I disregarding how bad the defense was early on. There was clearly a difference in the way that team played together and worked as a unit versus this one. Not gonna go back and forth over it. If you disagree, you’re certainly allowed to. It is telling how you wanna make sure those Duke cramps are factored into the equation last year while also downplaying our own serious injury problem. All good though.
I didn’t downplay anything. Literally said the opposite in the post.
Two things can be true at once. Those wins last year were incredible. We set a record with top 15 wins. Those kids fought and often came from behind. There’s no need to downplay it.
it’s also true that we were *** when we lost. But a sweet 16 with a roster he built in 4 weeks was incredible and we were right to have had optimism.
having said all that I hated the hire, then he won me over last season, and now I’m reminded why I was pissed that we hired him.
Simply a bad hire and it sucks for Pope. Hate that he’s going through this but he had to know how we are
Duke and Florida last year were awesome teams, any attempt to denigrate Kentucky’s wins over those squads is BS. A W is a W.
What serious injury? The third or fourth best PG in the ACC last yr? Bamas 6th man? Cmon dude. Those two dudes make these blowouts better?
Did you hear me say any of it makes blowouts better? Too down to do this with you right now, man.
No, we had shooters last year and when you have shooters and the shooters get hot, they can hide a lot of weaknesses.
We never played defense last year.
Do what? You said the injuries matter. Matter how? They matter to the extent that a 35 point loss might be 25? I’ll acknowledge they matter, but not enough to make this team any good. It’s telling that the one game a lot of people want to point to was an exhibition. That game is the anomaly, not the rest of them.
The cramping absolutely played a huge role in the Duke game. We could not stop the big guy. He was dominating the paint. Once he could not play at the same level, Duke was done.
Give Kentucky credit for continuing to compete and Oweh making a huge play.
No, they weren't incredible. Again, when you consider the context, most of them weren't even impressive. However, I get why some of you need to live in a fantasy land full of rainbows and lollipops where you just make up "incredible" things. You do you!
Sw16s aren't ever incredible, particularly when you only beat lower ranked seeds to get there and then get ran off the floor when you have to actually face a team seeded close to you.
If he won you over, you're gullible of ****.
This is another team turmoil scenario. I think Pope needs to move them all back on campus and into the lodge. They need to lock the team down and work these issues out. If they aren't willing to do it, they get dismissed from the team. After a few culprits are sent packing, I think what you'll have left can function as an actual college basketball team.
He didn’t win me over. But he gave me hope last season. I was always way down on the hire. I got into countless arguments with my friends over it. I refused to be brain washed by a press conference. But for year 1 with a new regime who had just 4 weeks to build a team from scratch I was pleased
I don't even get the 3 - 4 weeks to build a roster.
Just because players only have so long to enter the portal, it doesn't mean they have to decide by the closing date. Plenty of players were undecided for weeks. Particularly those going through the draft process. There were still some undecided HS players and others that could be flipped and were, like our very own Trent Noah.
He also had the option to look at international players, similar to how we got Jelavic late in the process this year.
Pope may not have had a full season, but he had ample time.
He also had some players off Cal's last roster that were interested in staying and got told no. One of those was Jordan Burke who seemed to have great pride in being at UK. He currently averages 13ppg at UCF and would likely be our best player.