We were healthy and got them early with an experienced team. I was there. And still it took two huge Cooper Flagg mistakes for us to hold on and win.
He doesn’t make those mistakes anymore
Yaxel to Michigan.
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We were healthy and got them early with an experienced team. I was there. And still it took two huge Cooper Flagg mistakes for us to hold on and win.
He doesn’t make those mistakes anymore
The last 20 years, we won a championship and several final fours. You are one of the fans I question is really a fan. You been on here forever and seem like you thrive on negativity. Cals lifetime contract was bad but besides that uh no. Pope made a sweet 16 with a brand new team, and cal fans and rivals fans are posting **** hoping we fail.
I was really hoping UK would land him but to play devil’s advocate here if he really has said since the visit if he gets a first round guarantee of any kind he is gone, I wouldn’t blame Pope for not making him a priority. That would be a very high risk. In that situation I can understand Pope not tying up 3 million dollars. Still sucks though.
The portal isn’t even closed we have 9 players on next years team. How would you manage that and picking and choosing? If you recruit one kid, it might scare the next off? If you pay one kid 5 mil, are you going to pay them all 5 million? Probably not, a board of full of complainers who have the same solution or reason for problems.
If you want to compete for a title you would be very concerned we aren’t close with this roster and have yet to land an elite player which a couple are required now to get to the final four.
We’ve been doing these things
as long as I’ve been actually following Kentucky basketball (40 years).
I’ve seen and heard everything from fans. None of this is new to me.
If you are a fan and you aren’t going by to be patient after pope brought us a sweet 16 with a new team. I mean I question your fan hood. It’ll be different if we suit up a horrible team or lose a game, people are crying about what ifs.
The only thing Pope is lacking is an established identity.
To portal players and HS seniors, UK is still "Coach Cal"
He's was the coach most of their lives
This generation of players doesn't watch games except for highlights online.
Most all have never seen 1 BYU game and probably only highlights of UK games this year.
Pope's cred with players is not going to happen overnight .
How do you fault Yaxel with identifying with Dusty May more so than Pope.
May coached FAU to a FF of which Yaxel said he was a fan of that program.
He also put three guys( Davis,Martin and Goldin) at better school and they had success.
It didn't come overnight for May and it won't fit Pope but being at UK will speed the process.
To portal players and HS seniors, UK is still "Coach Cal"
He's was the coach most of their lives
This generation of players doesn't watch games except for highlights online.
Most all have never seen 1 BYU game and probably only highlights of UK games this year.
Pope's cred with players is not going to happen overnight .
How do you fault Yaxel with identifying with Dusty May more so than Pope.
May coached FAU to a FF of which Yaxel said he was a fan of that program.
He also put three guys( Davis,Martin and Goldin) at better school and they had success.
It didn't come overnight for May and it won't fit Pope but being at UK will speed the process.
This is the second player I really wanted who we didn’t get. I feel like for some of you it’s the 30th or 40th player you wanted that we didn’t get.
Yeah but the difference is I admitted I was wrong about one game, this guy is saying he will fail as a coach so comparing the 2 is silly. But pop off man
So, I keep hearing we’re waiting until April 7 for the revenue sharing decision. But, also that teams were scrambling to sign the best players prior to, because the April 7 decision might put barriers to what a player can be paid.
My question: Why would any player worth significant money wait until later to portal if it would cost him significant dollars?
That wouldn’t make sense. Let’s hope the cupboard isn’t bare during the next phase.
My question: Why would any player worth significant money wait until later to portal if it would cost him significant dollars?
That wouldn’t make sense. Let’s hope the cupboard isn’t bare during the next phase.
It’s just ironic coming from someone with your post history.
Alvaro (if we get him) is a much better fit for Pope's offense. Just sayin.
If we can get Alvaro and one of the three guards (prefer Pierre), I'd be ecstatic.
If we can get Alvaro and one of the three guards (prefer Pierre), I'd be ecstatic.
Yeah comparing hitting a curb to shooting somebody is equal man. Yall are calling him out as a coach long term, and I said they would lose one game, but it’s clearly the same thing.
That doesn’t matter anymore. Those schools are investing in basketball too now.
We miss the tournament on average every 7 years. With Barney as AD You know what it was pre Barney minus the probation years? Take away probation do you know Cals was the first losing no probation season in over 100 years. You guys don’t even know our tradition then tell me I’m not a fan. Beat it
How many times have the fans been told (by other fans) "let's see how everything plays out" and been disappointed?
How many of us correctly predicted the Shaedon Sharpe outcome before it actually "played out?" There's a reason why that is.
UK fans understand patterns and we've been around long enough to read the tea leaves.
Of COURSE we have to see how it plays out.
But we can be concerned when a dozen schools "eat first" before we do. It's concernING.
Are you saying before Mitch we didn’t miss the tournament every 7 years? Bad fans like the ones Indiana has is the reason why they are mediocre. Mitch hired stoops and he has bad seasons but he’s probably been the most successful football coach. He hired brooks and he’s a known winner. Cals first 7 years tops almost any coach at any program. Cal got sore here, true but could have happened to anyone.
I’m thinking Pope might need to hire a top notch experienced recruiter.
Well yeah, Eli did take all that USAID taxpayer money.
How about "not always" then? When's the last time we beat all of them for a stud?
I looked at the Kansas board a couple days ago and they were freaking out about their roster too. Alabama and Tennessee have lost a ton. Louisville still has a lot of spots to fill and they're "making it rain" with portal players so far. Plenty of other teams that otherwise wouldn't be considered by studs seem to have an endless supply of money now.
Point is there's still a lot of programs with deep pockets that have roster spots open. It's not like we can just swoop in and land a key player that withdraws from the draft. We may have to sweat through several more bidding wars before we fill out the roster.
Point is there's still a lot of programs with deep pockets that have roster spots open. It's not like we can just swoop in and land a key player that withdraws from the draft. We may have to sweat through several more bidding wars before we fill out the roster.
So stupid. Of course it’s now turned to the, “we didn’t want him anyways” nonsense.
Ugh yeah. We didn’t. Probation took two seasons other than that no. When did we miss the tournament last pre Barney, no probation which is more forgiveble than this because at least Sutton was trying to win. The problem is he was a sloppy drunk while other schools were much smoother. And your statement about stoops his program is sliding fast and he unmovable because of his contract. I don’t think you realize Barney was told he’s going to hire cal. He involved a guy who wanted to see UK get back to prominence.that’s why we got cal. Barney was so terrified of losing him that he panicked and gave the guy a contract that him and ellen celebrated as the beginning of his retirement.
My hope is for college to go the pro sport route with salary transparency. Set salary caps and stop acting like college is still amateurs.
I’ll be glad when it’s over so the negative people can cry in game threads instead is all I’m saying. If Mitch leaves and we still miss on people recruiting then what?
So the roster he assembled last year, all those top 15 wins, and the run to the Sweet 16 were what, exactly? Craziest lucky streak of all time?
Last season was not good enough for UK.
Make excuses or give reasons why last season was the way it was- but it wasn’t good enough. Was it bad enough to say next or the next after can’t be a whole lot better? No. But using it as vindication that he’s a UK caliber coach is just as silly as saying he is t based on last year.
His resume was not good enough to be hired UK. He needs to show this season he belongs here. And a repeat of last season will not suffice.
No worse than you choosing to totally ignore the kids own words.
"We didn't want him anyway" is no worse than "he's lying about the NBA"
What concerns me is he's "looking forward to" it. So he's going to be happy if the team sucks because that proves him right. What kind of fan looks forward to his team sucking so he can be right?
Still quite a long way to go. See my baker analogy a few days ago. Pope is still baking the cake. We don’t know everything that goes into these recruitments. After the cake is finished, we will be able to tell how Pope did. To another poster’s credit, the rankings don’t mean much in the portal era so you can’t even put stock in those. (Not a shot at Yaxel, who is obviously tremendous.) Wait until the end and if Pope did a bad job, we will all, as a unified fanbase, ask for another coach….I don’t see it happening. I’m still of the belief Pope knows what he is doing. We aren’t used to this different approach.