I've said before, I don't think UK should ever hire a coach that hasn't taken a team to the FF before. We should have learned that with Tubby and BCG. I would have made an exception with Vogel because he won an NBA title. Oats has now checked that box.
Pope Word Salad
- Thread starter Possum
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I coached a kid like BG for a few years. 6'10" big class HS kid. Took me two years to figure out his only basketball attribute was "being tall". We were way better when we moved on from him. Pope should do the same with BG. Dude is awful.
I agree in large part with what you wrote but everyone is dealing with this. Pope came in as the anti-Cal with a message all fans wanted to hear. The name on the front means more than the back. Sacrifice the individual for the whole. While that resonates with the fan base, how does that play to today’s elite recruits? Every press conference is a recruiting pitch as well and Pope failed last night.
Today’s coaching environment is going to be a mixture of getting the right portal guy(s), getting the glue recruit(s) that sticks and getting 1-2 elite recruits per year. Pope is struggling mightily with the last part especially with recruits not from the state of KY and is going to be forced to reach on portal guys. He missed on some portal targets for this year as well getting a game-changing recruit.
He nailed it with several of the portal guys last year especially for the time frame he had. But they played at a lesser program and apparently had the desire to prove they belonged. Oweh and Garrison seem to be major problems this year with their lack of effort and flaws in their respective games. Didn’t have a lack of effort last year with Butler, Brea, Williams, Carr and even Oweh last year. Robinson maybe.
Chandler is a glue guy with the talent to play. Noah may stick but has major weaknesses for this level. Hopefully Moreno and Jasper are glue guys but I have doubts about 1 of them. But landing the elite recruit is looking really questionable right now. Like it or not, Pope has to got get guys to the league but he doesn’t have to be Cal where that’s all that mattered.
I remember this sequence from the game last night, and it perfectly encapsulates Garrison's, shall we say, "challenges." Things just don't click fast enough in his brain to react, respond, or be in the right position. He is very frequently a second behind the action, which is an eternity in D1 college basketball. I had hoped he would have improved his game somewhat over the summer because he has some physical tools to work with, but he is exactly the same player as last year. He could be worse, but he's not at the level that is expected at UK.
So how did Izzo and Kelsey manage? What about all the other good teams around the country?
Some of you guys are delusional to the point of being cartoonish. Bevis and Butthead go to Kentucky. Pope isn’t going anywhere. Stop lying to yourself. This is embarrassing to legitimate and sane fans.
Hey Bevis, we’re gonna far at Pope guy. He walks slow.
Heh heh heh, like we farred that calamari dude. Heh heh heh.
Hey Bevis, we’re gonna far at Pope guy. He walks slow.
Heh heh heh, like we farred that calamari dude. Heh heh heh.