So far it has been a huge success (not including last night) with wins at UT, Gonzaga, and vs UL, Duke etc... He put together a roster in very short time because of the late start. He needs time to develop recruiting lines, portal pick ups and a full year into the office. I believe he will have long term success here. This roster is good, not great and has some obvious flaws. The one thing Pope has to address in this conference is the ability to play defense.
You can't judge Pope until after year 2
- Thread starter mg0721
- Start date
Remember that there will be no more "five year eligibility 25 year old super seniors" anymore
Portal will be more limited, we may get worse portal players than we have in this year
And then next year we rely on three 15-30 ranked freshmens?
Portal will be more limited, we may get worse portal players than we have in this year
And then next year we rely on three 15-30 ranked freshmens?
Partly agree. There are aspects of coaching that he can be judged against right now, because they are part of who he is and very unlikely to change in the next couple of years or ever. One thing that I wish more people took notice of is that the poor defense isn't just because "lack of talent", it comes from the coach, too.
Would have thought playing for Pitino he would have realized how important Defense is.
In all fairness, we're playing a new lineup with freshmen getting a fair amount of clock. Cal recruits top freshmen and they start from day one but learn with that playing time. Our freshmen have not clocked significant minutes until the last few games, of course due to injuries.
I keep hearing how bad our young guys are but I disagree. I think they are all showing huge improvement right now., including Garrison and Chandler. Ya can't argue, they and Pope have been put into a tough place. Still, they are coming along and that'll pay off if/when we get healthy. For now, it's next man up, survive and grow. If we played our young guys sooner, we wouldn't likely have nearly the wins that we do to this point. Catch 22
I keep hearing how bad our young guys are but I disagree. I think they are all showing huge improvement right now., including Garrison and Chandler. Ya can't argue, they and Pope have been put into a tough place. Still, they are coming along and that'll pay off if/when we get healthy. For now, it's next man up, survive and grow. If we played our young guys sooner, we wouldn't likely have nearly the wins that we do to this point. Catch 22
Byu seems to be doing better this year and they have the number one recruit coming in next year that surprised me.
With some obvious exceptions (BCG) most coaches should probably have 3 years before their job is really heavily scrutinized. By then we'll know what he looks like with more talented players, how much improvement the returners show between seasons, how he can recruit, if he's having some postseason success, etc. The game to game scrutiny is inevitable but in terms of big picture, I think 3 years is fair.
The owner of the Utah Jazz basically threw pocket change at him. That's the problem I mentioned in another thread and this is a perfect example. BYU has essentially a techie billionaire. You could argue that this alone makes BYU ahead of UK when it comes to NIL.
Our "Unforgettables" season was year three for Pitino. Cal left us near the same place as probation did before Pitino. The portal saved our asses and this whole season.
BYU doing better now than earlier in the season, or better than last year? I would say they're basically on par with last year. They finished 5th in the Big 12 a year ago in what was probably a slightly better conference and it was their first season after moving up, so more of a learning curve. Currently BYU is 5th again. As for recruiting, that's an NIL thing. Losing Pope spurred some of the major Mormon donors to drop huge bags on the program.
Right, and I would say by then we had a pretty good idea that Pitino would be successful as a coach at UK. If I remember correctly there was also by then some notion that he may someday want to coach in the NBA, which, again, by year 3 you have a pretty good idea who your coach is.
I was surprised to learn that he was surprised to hear his teams shoot far more threes than Pitino’s later-era KY teams did.
Agree. No reasonable UK fan is judging him until after next year. Sadly, the 1% that's unreasonble (many that never even played a sport) never stop running their mouths.
Yeah Pope’s Cougs gave my Coogs all they could handle last year, and this year the Coogs handled them pretty easily iirc. Sure last year was at Provo but that was a tough win with Pope’s offense.
That's not necessarily true. There are lots of things that Pope can be judged on in year 1.
First and foremost, there is no reason that UK should be as poor as they are defensively. No one is saying they need to be top 10 or even top 25 when it comes to defensive metrics.
But I believe UK is now barely top 90 defensively. That is a joke, to be honest. There is no reason Pope should not have UK top 50. That is not asking for too much with this roster, in the slightest.
Pope's refusal to have his team fight through screens and instead sag off is criminal at this point. Also, UKs pick and pop/pick and roll defense is just as terrible as last year. Awful defensive coaching, and embarrassing at this point.
We all know UK, generally speaking, will be top 10 in most offensive metrics each year under Pope. My concern with Pope was defense after he was hired. He has done nothing to alleviate those concerns, and that is a problem.
Yes, three freshmen ranked 15-30, two former McDonald’s AA’s who were overrated, one solid but not great college player in Oweh, along with Perry and Noah. Year two could be rough.
two former McDonald’s AA’s? Which two? Colin Chandler is not Mcdonald AA, Brandon Garrison is.
Our only "athlete" currently is Oweh. The rest are just finesse guys. How about give Pope some time and see who he can bring here in the off season? Butler was a defensive dynamo but we may not see him again and that sucks. Gotts have a stud PG today. As of now we have none. It is what it is.
BIG12 is not as good as last year. This year BIG12 is the third best league while last season was first best. SEC and BIG10 are all significantly better than BIG12 this year.
Before year 3, Pope should have at least a sweet 16, otherwise he will be on the hot seat
They're about the same record wise tbh but without any signature wins like last years team had. Paying a lot more for staff and NIL too.
"Portal will be limited."
Completely disagree. Guys from mid majors will enter. Good players from Power 5 schools will enter looking to get the most NIL. College basketball has free agency. And it's NOT just 5th year super seniors.
Oweh and Garrison are prime examples.
Yes, we took a lot of super seniors. But we'll still see 3rd and 4th year guys that aren't good enough to go to the NBA enter the portal looking to go to a bigger school and/or get a fatter NIL check.
That’ll be a negative for me, he’s the coach and regardless what players he had to get or whatever, he’s still in charge of preparation and all that comes with it. We may not be as talented because of the time frame but you can see characteristics regardless who’s on the team. Effort, discipline, fundamentals etc…..all show signs of coaching, wins may not be there but are they giving max effort? Are they doing the little things like hustle and boxing out to give them the best possible chance for success. We should be the most fundamentally sound team in the country by limiting turnovers & making fts, blocking out and playing sound defense and help side rotations. So yes he may not have “his” guys or recruits but you can see trends and how the team plays & responds overall. It’s not about wins and losses at this point but that is coming I suppose in a year or so.
I wonder if in a couple seasons we'll be calling for Pope to hire a "defensive coordinator" like we used to want Cal to hire an offensive one. Maybe when the current (interim?) UVA coach gets fired we can add him to the staff.
They arent, they dont have any signature wins like @ kansas etc. They are on the bubble right now which is not better than last year. Granted they have a month to try and get in the tournament but so far they are losing their games to the better teams