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So much for the new hire........

S

St.PatterSoN-54-

Heisman
Jul 11, 2007
27,222
34,299
0
......reuniting the fanbase.

I'll admit that I'm not thrilled with the hire, but I like Pope as a person, and think he's 5 times hungrier than Cal was his last 9 seasons.

I'm hopeful Mark can pull together a strong class from the portal and start this thing off right.

At the very least, I'm still excited that Calipari is gone, and that's enough for me to live on until we give Pope a chance.
 
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K

KYCAT78

All-American
May 24, 2006
7,858
6,073
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St.PatterSoN-54- said:
......reuniting the fanbase.

I'll admit that I'm not thrilled with the hire, but I like Pope as a person, and think he's 5 times hungrier than Cal was his last 9 seasons.

I'm hopeful Mark can pull together a strong class from the portal and start this thing off right.

At the very least, I'm still excited that Calipari is gone, and that's enough for me to live on until we give Pope a chance.
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Give Pope a 3 year leash, I personally love having a guy as Coach who loves UK. I glad the clown and his clown show has hit the road. Pope cannot do much worse than our previous Coach has done the last few years and he is getting paid alot less money.
 
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Bowfreak.

All-Conference
Mar 26, 2009
1,678
2,673
66
Personally, I’m excited. He will be a breath of fresh air. Fill out his coaching staff with some recruiters and a defensive minded coach and his style will take care of itself. Everyone wants to focus on the negative but you are looking at a guy who can be here a long time.
 
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*Fox2Monk*

*Fox2Monk*

Heisman
Jun 10, 2009
43,248
77,135
113
KYCAT78 said:
Give Pope a 3 year leash, I personally love having a guy as Coach who loves UK. I glad the clown and his clown show has hit the road. Pope cannot do much worse than our previous Coach has done the last few years and he is getting paid alot less money.
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I believe 3 years is perfectly reasonable and plenty of time in this day and age to build a competitive team.
 
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sam_o

All-American
Nov 30, 2005
10,952
7,579
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Mark Pope deserves the chance to be successful here. Hopefully in the next few days, the emotions wear off and our fans will get behind him as he takes over the program. He is going to do the best he can given the position Mitch is putting him in.
 
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P

PhattyJ4UK_rivals309166

Heisman
Nov 7, 2008
13,888
12,962
0
You can’t judge today with even five years ago.


The portal means we’re in a whole new era of college basketball and three years is perfectly plenty. Two is honestly. We’re Kentucky. Not byu. Not even uconn.
 
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NoahColeLiam2024!

All-Conference
Oct 1, 2002
1,748
2,488
38
One thing I already like about him is who he will go get in the portal....shooters. BYU shoots a ton of threes, love to get up and go, shoot 3 pointers on the break. BYU presses at times, runs a zone when it is the right thing to do. Pope has a great demeanor and has an edge to him. People on here pine for the years of Pitino, well Pope is going to get us a taste of those years. He just has to be able to recruit and I think he will with his style of play and it just being UK with NIL.
 
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Seth_C

Seth_C

All-American
Mar 12, 2017
4,204
7,498
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I don’t know why everyone is so obsessed with the idea of “recruiting” still. That’s not what it is anymore. Schools buy players now. If Pope is given more guaranteed NIL than other teams, he can get players. There is a reason Calipari wanted guaranteed NIL money at his new job.
 
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D

dc513

All-Conference
Dec 9, 2018
2,035
2,358
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Seth_C said:
I don’t know why everyone is so obsessed with the idea of “recruiting” still. That’s not what it is anymore. Schools buy players now. If Pope is given more guaranteed NIL than other teams, he can get players. There is a reason Calipari wanted guaranteed NIL money at his new job.
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This is what I am puzzled about when I keep seeing if he can recruit. You don't have to follow freshmen from grade school thru high school anymore. The Ky name gets you in the door and the money bags recruits the player. For the portal, if setup right, you tell your nil person who you want and they go after them with money bags in hand. Main thing is to make sure there is a good supply of money bags in nil, and it looks like there will be at Ky. As RP said yesterday we live in the ate of pro college basketball.
 
B

bigblueinsanity_rivals250340

Heisman
Apr 13, 2002
44,001
97,152
0
St.PatterSoN-54- said:
......reuniting the fanbase.

I'll admit that I'm not thrilled with the hire, but I like Pope as a person, and think he's 5 times hungrier than Cal was his last 9 seasons.

I'm hopeful Mark can pull together a strong class from the portal and start this thing off right.

At the very least, I'm still excited that Calipari is gone, and that's enough for me to live on until we give Pope a chance.
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Everyone is cheering for him. So we're united there. It's Mitch we're not united on and he pretty much doesn't count until he has to make another major hire.
 
U

UKortho

All-American
Oct 13, 2015
4,592
8,503
77
St.PatterSoN-54- said:
......reuniting the fanbase.

I'll admit that I'm not thrilled with the hire, but I like Pope as a person, and think he's 5 times hungrier than Cal was his last 9 seasons.

I'm hopeful Mark can pull together a strong class from the portal and start this thing off right.

At the very least, I'm still excited that Calipari is gone, and that's enough for me to live on until we give Pope a chance.
Click to expand...
Same here. Kal was toxic,arrogant, lazy, etc Ourplayers (except one) didn’t give two ***** about UK, the state, and Lex. It’s a great change- but there is a real risk in this hire. Looking forward to next year. Glad I renewed my tickets through the Cal mess. Knew I would wait the pos out.
 
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Bhad Rhabies

All-Conference
Mar 12, 2022
834
2,103
0
CASblue said:
I think the shock is how out-of-the-blue this hire is. Here someone (Barnhart I assume) spent the entire day in NY getting turned down by Hurley, only to fly back and hire Pope. Like "oh well...F-it" I'll just hire Mark....
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I don’t think that’s what happened. I think he spoke with Pope and was wowed out of his shoes.

Pope is intelligent and passionately loves UK to the point where the guy is filming videos of him supporting UK on BYU’s court, and there’s interviews throughout the years of Pope talking about how much he loves UK.

When you start to look at the records, style of basketball, what he was working with at BYU, it becomes clear that Pope is a much better hire than we gave Mitch credit for initially.

I think Pope will be here 15 years. That’s how much I believe in this hire.
 
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kyblue'92

kyblue'92

All-Conference
Apr 23, 2018
3,947
4,736
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They just couldn't go on with the status quo of Calipari with 10 losses and a first round exit. At a minimum, with a good roster Pope can do that in year one if not better depending on how things shake out.
 
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Bluegrass7914

Bluegrass7914

Senior
Dec 3, 2015
405
644
88
NiL money aint keeping Big Z. Not on board till i see real recruiting success. And not guys ranked #50 portal or high school or worse. Thats a joke.
 
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MonsterMash79

MonsterMash79

All-Conference
Apr 12, 2024
909
1,400
93
Why can’t it be about what the coach does with the talent that he has? Doesn’t have to be a 5* to succeed lol.. It’s how they’re coached and I think Mark can do an awesome job compared to Cal.. You can recruit the best but if you can’t coach, what are you really getting out of it? I for one can’t wait to see an actual offense being ran. Plays executed out of a time out, actual X’s and O’s 🙏
 
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M

mrhotdice

All-American
Nov 1, 2002
21,923
5,450
0
Chief Paducah said:
One thing I already like about him is who he will go get in the portal....shooters. BYU shoots a ton of threes, love to get up and go, shoot 3 pointers on the break. BYU presses at times, runs a zone when it is the right thing to do. Pope has a great demeanor and has an edge to him. People on here pine for the years of Pitino, well Pope is going to get us a taste of those years. He just has to be able to recruit and I think he will with his style of play and it just being UK with NIL.
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I pine for Pressing defense. I think Pope will bring it.
 
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billoliver40

All-American
Dec 16, 2015
6,736
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lpkilla77 said:
NiL money aint keeping Big Z. Not on board till i see real recruiting success. And not guys ranked #50 portal or high school or worse. Thats a joke.
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Just a real question :
How many players in the final four would have met that criteria?
 
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B

bigblueinsanity_rivals250340

Heisman
Apr 13, 2002
44,001
97,152
0
MonsterMash79 said:
Why can’t it be about what the coach does with the talent that he has? Doesn’t have to be a 5* to succeed lol.. It’s how they’re coached and I think Mark can do an awesome job compared to Cal.. You can recruit the best but if you can’t coach, what are you really getting out of it? I for one can’t wait to see an actual offense being ran. Plays executed out of a time out, actual X’s and O’s 🙏
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Don't have to be 5* but have to be much better than what he got at BYU. We're in this to win titles and Mitch paid him more than Danny Hurley.

So yes he needs to pull better guys.
 
B

Bank Cat

All-American
Dec 8, 2011
3,696
5,592
113
St.PatterSoN-54- said:
......reuniting the fanbase.

I'll admit that I'm not thrilled with the hire, but I like Pope as a person, and think he's 5 times hungrier than Cal was his last 9 seasons.

I'm hopeful Mark can pull together a strong class from the portal and start this thing off right.

At the very least, I'm still excited that Calipari is gone, and that's enough for me to live on until we give Pope a chance.
Click to expand...
I have some faith that he will, Bill.
 
M

Montana81

Heisman
Aug 12, 2004
82,725
29,405
113
St.PatterSoN-54- said:
......reuniting the fanbase.

I'll admit that I'm not thrilled with the hire, but I like Pope as a person, and think he's 5 times hungrier than Cal was his last 9 seasons.

I'm hopeful Mark can pull together a strong class from the portal and start this thing off right.

At the very least, I'm still excited that Calipari is gone, and that's enough for me to live on until we give Pope a chance.
Click to expand...

I’m not thrilled with the hire but i’m in the same boat.

Win or lose it can still accomplish a few things that were desperately needed.

1. A culture change from players firsr back to Kentucky first, aka winning games being the #1 priority.

2. Ripping the the band aid off that was Cal’s roster building and recruiting strategy. We knew no matter when or how he left we were going to go into that off season with an empty cupboard. I’ve seen a few Cal cultists and a few non cultists that insisted we needed to hang onto him because they didn’t want to endure a mass exodus with a new coach. It never made sense to me. We have some really dumb fans. It’s maddening.

These were bridges that we should have crossed years ago tbh. It’s about damn time.
 
M

mrhotdice

All-American
Nov 1, 2002
21,923
5,450
0
Bank Cat said:
I have some faith that he will, Bill.
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33,000,000 saved from Kals crazy contract alone will make recruiting easier. UK will no longer be a place for the one and done but the place to go if you want to win a championships. I hate the NBA. It takes players to win championships. That is not what the NBA is about. Its about money
 
Seth_C

Seth_C

All-American
Mar 12, 2017
4,204
7,498
96
dl51344 said:
This is what I am puzzled about when I keep seeing if he can recruit. You don't have to follow freshmen from grade school thru high school anymore. The Ky name gets you in the door and the money bags recruits the player. For the portal, if setup right, you tell your nil person who you want and they go after them with money bags in hand. Main thing is to make sure there is a good supply of money bags in nil, and it looks like there will be at Ky. As RP said yesterday we live in the ate of pro college basketball.
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This is the way. Pope is by all accounts a likable guy. He has an NCAA championship and a bit of NBA experience. He has the Kentucky brand. At that point, if he has more money bags than the people he’s recruiting against, he’ll do just fine.

People should take note of the “top recruits” the famed recruiter Calipari was getting in an NIL world. That’s what happens when you pissed off the money bag people. Give me someone who can actually coach and lots of money bags, please.
 
C

Codeartist

Freshman
Dec 8, 2018
82
91
0
I know I'm probably in the minority here but I was completely against Cal and I'm completely against this hire. As much as I disliked Cal I think Pope is a worse coach. I don't really see how that can be disputed if you look at their resumes? There were many coaches I would have been excited by but this isn't one of them. I think he's worse than Hurley, Donovan, Drew, Pearl and many other of the names going around this board just a few days ago.
 
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