Who you talkin to? Don’t play, you ain’t Mod’n the streets….
The latest intel on No. 1 overall recruit Tyran Stokes
- Thread starter Joe Tipton
- Start date
The coach should never be involved with negotiations.
He should say ”We can compete with anyone on nil and we are confident we can put together a package that will make you happy.”
And leave the room.
The gm handles the back and forth.
He needs to get over himself about having a “beautiful plan” where 8-10 players play equal minutes and get equal shots and anyone can be the best player in any given game.
He needs to embrace the star system and feed the studs because that’s what the top players are going to sign up for whether high schoolers or portal players. He also is never going to beat a good team as long as his team doesn’t learn to play defense up in the other team’s grill.
He should say ”We can compete with anyone on nil and we are confident we can put together a package that will make you happy.”
And leave the room.
The gm handles the back and forth.
He needs to get over himself about having a “beautiful plan” where 8-10 players play equal minutes and get equal shots and anyone can be the best player in any given game.
He needs to embrace the star system and feed the studs because that’s what the top players are going to sign up for whether high schoolers or portal players. He also is never going to beat a good team as long as his team doesn’t learn to play defense up in the other team’s grill.
Half the problem with this team is he brought in guys when other others thought they were the guy. Oweh and Harrison. You have to have a plan everyone understands. Aberdeen got more money and was the leader and Oweh isn’t handling it well. Mark has no idea what he’s doing.
When somebody is trying to do everything themselves as was suggested, sometimes it is ego and others it‘s because they don’t have the people to delegate to that he trusts to get the job done.
oh I’ve had a few to make threats etc.
Get over himself? I don't think envisioning 8-10 guys getting similar minutes is egotistical or anything, it would just take guys are willing to buy into that.
I did that once. Guy told me - Keep talking like that and I’m gonna send a toe-eyed cabbage to stare at you disapprovingly until you rethink your life choices.”
I could have easily kicked his *** but it really did make me stop and think about my life’s choices. true story.
But you're conveiently leaving out that he had zero players, or assistant coaches in April and those injuries did happen.
I would be in agreement with you on all points if those things weren't true. I think holding him to a FF standard and less than 10 losses last year, with all those circumstances, is ridiculous.
What's happening this year, is inexcusable, it's all his fault, but last year was an amazing coaching job, given the circumstances.
I get it, we expect final fours and 1 seeds, but I have never seen anyone else accomplish the things MP accomplished last year.
That doesn’t mean I want him to stay in this chair after what I've seen this year, but I can appreciate what he did last year after starting out in a very deep hole.
It's probably a stupid question, but are Collins and Stokes waiting to see if this JMI crap gets ironed? The optimistic side of me thinks they may just be waiting to see if UK does anything to straighten this out. Or most likely we are just going to whiff on them both regardless.
I felt that Tipton quietly told us UK has backed of of Stokes since the recent incidents. It wasn’t explicitly said so you can go back to his thread and review it.
There are multiple coaches who could have come here and brought most of their team with them. Imagine if we’d hired Golden from Florida instead of Pope. We might be sitting with a title.
It doesn’t matter anymore that he “pulled in a team at the last minute” because any coach we get will likely bring in their players from wherever they coached previously.
But Pope didn’t do well enough last year to absolve himself if he ends up under .500. Not with a $20 million roster at least.
Stokes is over. Tipton all but said it. He’s not going to be definitive. Not how this works. But stokes is over. We can say it’s all about his negative side but that side has always been there. Mark is in a bad spot. Next year would have been better for this to happen. This is just about the worst time to have this kind of fallout. I don’t totally blame him, it’s a culmination of 3 issues taking place all at the same time. But it’s his show.
I wonder who will revolt first, boosters or fans? We’re already getting booing at games, it’ll worsen if they continue losing games.
But we haven’t heard anything from boosters. What are they thinking? Kinda wish we could get some insiders to reveal how boosters and other people close to the program are feeling right now.
If I were to, guess I guess, I’d say some of them are paying very close attention to everything going on. They’ve never been the type to sit back and watch disasters.
Last year was exactly "average". Some great highs, some terrible lows. Averages out to meh. 'B' when graded on a curve, giving a boost due to the late start to recruiting. If graded straight up, it's probably more of a 'C' -- the blowout loss in the S16 was just horrible optics.
UK was picked to finish 6th SEC in the preseason -- the 8th place finish UNDERACHIEVED. The narrative that 2024 was some wild success is just not grounded in any facts or reality.
Edit -- they finished 6th. Exactly where they were predicted to be. So again, a 'B'. 'C' if you hold to UK standards.
Unless Mitch leaves before the end of this basketball season, Pope needs to get another year.
Not because he deserves it or is apparently in anyway qualified, but because nobody worth a bucket of warm spit is going to be interested in working for a arrogant condescending dumbass, who also by the way is a lame-duck,
who also passed out another lifetime contract special that handcuffs the 2 revenue sports.
Would anyone trust our current AD to be able to pick anyone anyway.
New AD then New Coach.
Anything else will simply end up with another contract that has to be bought out.
Not because he deserves it or is apparently in anyway qualified, but because nobody worth a bucket of warm spit is going to be interested in working for a arrogant condescending dumbass, who also by the way is a lame-duck,
who also passed out another lifetime contract special that handcuffs the 2 revenue sports.
Would anyone trust our current AD to be able to pick anyone anyway.
New AD then New Coach.
Anything else will simply end up with another contract that has to be bought out.
Amazing job by the staff! They have now taken two almost guaranteed commitments and screwed them all the way up. We aren’t getting him or Collins now are we?
This staff can’t afford to back up on anybody, especially the best player in the class.
Ideally a committee would be formed to push for a new hire, over Mitch’s head like what happened in 2009
It’s what I keep saying. Why get rid of pope when that’s not changing anything. Mitch just go, then look at options with new vision. President has to go to. Both need to be investigated.
Which would be fine but they would still have MB as a boss and the JMI handcuffs.
Beard is not a good recruiter.
He's all portal and the portal will never be as good as it was during the covid exemption years
Exactly.
Pope's in a position where he has to take the risk and hope it works out.
Mark has dug himself a big hole quick and the only thing he can do is win his way out.
Wins on the court and wins on the recruiting trail.
If he thinks he's got a couple more seasons to figure this out then he's more delusional than I thought.
Um...BYU hired their coach after we poached theira and they were in the sw16 too. Arky hired Cal 5 days before we hired Pope. They were in the sw16 too. It's really not the accomplishment you're pretending it to be.
Last edited:
We did essentially have the same outcome that BYU and arkansas had and they also hired their coaches about the time we hired Pope.
Beating top 25 teams is great, but how many bad losses did we also have?
Another issue people gloss over...several of those top 25 teams were dealing with injury issues themselves when we beat them.
Last edited:
So, you think Golden was just going to leave Florida? How do you know he wasn't offered? Pope wasn’t even close to the first choice, you have no idea who was and wasn't offered and up until the season ended last year, nobody, no you, not me and not Barnhart, knew that Golden was any good. Heck, he getting his butt kicked this year just like we are. He caught lightning in a bottle last year. Clayton willed them to the title, he doesn't have that guy this year and now he already has 4 losses. How is he any better than Mark Pope right now? Also, how do you know any of his players would follow him? You don't know their individual situations. You're playing Monday morning quarterback.
Name another coach that did anything close to what Pope did in year 1. You can't. He had some massive wins, some of them without a single pg.
Now, I'll give you an example where a coach did take his team and recruits to another school. It was just last year, John Calipari. He had way more pieces and talent than Pope and almost didn't make the tournament.
There's no script. Who onows where we end up in the tournament last year with a fully roster. That could have been a FF team with a healthy Butler and Robinson.
Nobody predicted the SEC to he as strong as it was. The predictions are nothing more than a guess and not one single person thought the SEC was going to be the best conference of all time. Coming in 6th with the injuries, after starting with no roster and no recruits, in that conference, is a heck of an accomplishment.
I get everyone being down on Pope, but you're just weak minded if you can't even give the guy credit for what he did last year. Y'all act like this is a video game, it's not.
Nobody predicted the SEC to he as strong as it was. The predictions are nothing more than a guess and not one single person thought the SEC was going to be the best conference of all time. Coming in 6th with the injuries, after starting with no roster and no recruits, in that conference, is a heck of an accomplishment.
I get everyone being down on Pope, but you're just weak minded if you can't even give the guy credit for what he did last year. Y'all act like this is a video game, it's not
So you're just going to ignore what BYU and Arkansas did in the regular season last year?
Btw, we didn't all play the same teams in the tournament, Arkansas caught fire, but for most of the 4egular season, they stunk and shouldn't have even been in the tournament. We had, by far, the better season.
Good points, but you're ignoring the fact that Arkansas had such a terrible season that they almost didn't make the tournament and you're also ignoring the fact that Cal took 90% of his recruits and all of his returning players with him to Arkansas. He had a very talented team, Pope didn’t have that same fortune.
Out of the top 25 wins UK had, who was dealing with injuries? I don't remember this. Florida and Tennessee certainly weren't. Duke had a guy cramp up, but that's a product of playing a team that rotates so many fresh bodies in. You can't discredit the win when it happened the way it was intended to happen.
But tell me who was injured, I don't recall injuries to teams we beat as we were injured all year long ourselves.
I guess we're going to knock our good wins down for made up injuries, but then not give Pope credit for winning with multiple injuries all season long? Seems fair.
Yes it was LMAO. BYU still had some players. Cal took nearly our whole roster plus recruiting class. Mark got the keys to the gym, an empty roster, and a go get em. If you are going to tell the story, don't leave parts out
Um, BYU went 26-10 overall. 3rd in the big 12 going 14-6. They finished ranked 13th. Arky went 22-14. 8-10 in the SEC. Without their intend PG most of the season. Then they made the sw16 heating higher needed teams and came within a hair of an E8. Oh, and they also beat the living hell out of UK in Rupp.
Leave anything out?
Pope wasn't allowed to bring players with him? He wasn't allowed to flip recruits?
Oh...wait... he could!!!
I would have to go back and look them all up, but I'll be happy to. However, off the top of my head,
Duke had Scion James leave the game injured and their 2 best freshman get cramps. Who was leading game then those things happened?
Lol, wasn't Fland out injured for Arky almost all year? Guess that's not an excuse? Yet they still pounded us.
For every good win we had a bad loss. And many of our good wins were the product of other teams situations. Sorry the truth stings, bud.
Arkansas got better when Fland got injured.
That team lost 14 games, one of them was to an awful South Carolina team by 30. They were an 11 seed, we were a 3. Who had the better season?
It's funny, you're bragging about Arkansas having 14 losses, but totally crapping on UK, who had 12 with a tougher SOS. They finished 9th, we finished 6th. Why was UK a 3 seed and Arkansas an 11?
Compare BYU's schedule to the one we played last year. Then they lost to Alabama by 25 and they had a full roster.
Again, I know Pope is not the right guy for this job, he's in over hus head, but you look foolish trying to brag about Arkansas and BYU, who didn’t do as well as UK, while trying to make it seem like UK was awful.
A whole bunch of people are just PILING on Pope, Reddit style, in his SECOND YEAR, and it's disgusting. The man cares, he's FAR more supportive of UK than most here could ever hope or claim to be.
I was about to say the same thing. He has Cal as coach of the year with 14 losses, but wants Mark out of here with 12 lol. I think this fella has the same Arkansas outfit Reed was sporting...