Unless Pope is gone after this year, and with Barnhart as AD I give that a 5 percent chance, next year is going to be the real debacle…
1. UK has no recruiting class and Pope has shown no ability to sign difference making freshmen.
2. Clearly the players who could come back were massively overpaid. So you either throw good money after bad, or get rid of them all and start over.
3. What difference maker in the portal is going to come play for a coach who will clearly be a lame duck next year, with no real track record of getting guys into the NBA by improving their games or through deep connections in the league.
4. How can anyone trust this staff’s ability to find and develop diamonds in the rough?
I don’t see any way Pope bounces back from this year and assembles a Kentucky-worthy team. That will be much, much harder than when he was a fresh face with a lot of momentum, or a coach coming off a somewhat promising first year.
Top talents have much better options than to waste a critical year of college development playing for Mark Pope’s disorganized, low-energy program, and getting booed by the fan base.
The only possible answer is that he has to go. But Kentucky doesn’t have an AD with the courage or energy or passion to figure that out.
1. UK has no recruiting class and Pope has shown no ability to sign difference making freshmen.
2. Clearly the players who could come back were massively overpaid. So you either throw good money after bad, or get rid of them all and start over.
3. What difference maker in the portal is going to come play for a coach who will clearly be a lame duck next year, with no real track record of getting guys into the NBA by improving their games or through deep connections in the league.
4. How can anyone trust this staff’s ability to find and develop diamonds in the rough?
I don’t see any way Pope bounces back from this year and assembles a Kentucky-worthy team. That will be much, much harder than when he was a fresh face with a lot of momentum, or a coach coming off a somewhat promising first year.
Top talents have much better options than to waste a critical year of college development playing for Mark Pope’s disorganized, low-energy program, and getting booed by the fan base.
The only possible answer is that he has to go. But Kentucky doesn’t have an AD with the courage or energy or passion to figure that out.