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Adam Zagoria - Donovan (No Interest)

Pitino literally said Mark would be an unbelievable choice. Mark played for him and their friends. What did you expect him to say? Mark sucks. This article means jack squat.
I’d expect him to say- “I love all my guys, but it’s not my place to comment on another program’s search or their candidates.”
 
Why do y’all hate Mark Pope? I get he’s not a splashy hire but it can’t be a huge step down from Cal right? BYU’s hard to win at, and with KY resources y’all could have another solid 5 years of losing in the first round. I’m kinda joking, but seriously I don’t see how he’d be worse than Cal
 
Come on folks. Donovan has to say stuff like that now. His team is trying to get into the playoffs. What do you think he's going to say? Geez I hope Mitch gives me a call??!! 🙄
 
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Then respond and actually have a discussion. Otherwise it looks like fly-by woman shit.

I'm not saying Pope is a home run hire. But we're clearly striking out here, would we all agree? At some point, getting a young upstart coach, is better than getting these tier 3 and tier 4 guys.

And what if Pope hits? What if he is of a Hurley caliber?

Idk, I'm very impressed what he did with BYU, a mid major school, in the freaking B12 this year. If you ask me, BYU has no business being in that conference and winning anything more than a handful of games.
"Clearly striking out" in the sense that two championship coaches have said no...

...and you're ready to jump to a guy with as many NCAA tournament wins as you or me. A guy that absolutely no one here would have heard of, much less consider for the job, without the alum factor.

There is a wide chasm between the tiny handful who've won national championships and the zero NCAA game winners. Even the ones who've had a couple of plucky underdog seasons.
 
If you hire Pope it seems like some of the money they were floating around for coaches would have to go to Reed.
Can't see Reed taking a chance on Pope for anything other than a blockbuster NIL deal.

I know Pope might not deliver on wins.. but do you think there's any actual risk on Reeds part to play for him? What did Pope show at BYU that makes you think his coaching would harm Reeds career?

If anything I would think his parents would be fine playing for Pope, who I'm sure they know fairly well.
 
If you hire Pope it seems like some of the money they were floating around for coaches would have to go to Reed.
Can't see Reed taking a chance on Pope for anything other than a blockbuster NIL deal.
NIL doesn't Come from the same place coach money comes from
 
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"Clearly striking out" in the sense that two championship coaches have said no...

...and you're ready to jump to a guy with as many NCAA tournament wins as you or me. A guy that absolutely no one here would have heard of, much less consider for the job, without the alum factor.

There is a wide chasm between the tiny handful who've won national championships and the zero NCAA game winners. Even the ones who've had a couple of plucky underdog seasons.

I already said I don't really care about the alum factor. I like the hire because he took a Mormon mid major school and had them competing in what was a top2 conference this year. Idk why that's not impressive to more of you. I think that's a COY material.

Believe it or not, some of us don't just pay attention to UK ball. BYU was a great team all year. They beat Kansas at AFH.
 
Btw, BYU had zero 5th or 6th year seniors (a lot of the better teams this year had this advantage).
They had 2 seniors as big contributors.
And like 4 or 5 of their next best guys were Juniors and sophomores.

It's not like this was some super experienced team full of men. BYU won with moderately experienced team, who is probably going to have similar success with their returning players next year.. I don't see this year as a one-time thing for Pope.
 
I already said I don't really care about the alum factor. I like the hire because he took a Mormon mid major school and had them competing in what was a top2 conference this year. Idk why that's not impressive to more of you. I think that's a COY material.

Believe it or not, some of us don't just pay attention to UK ball. BYU was a great team all year. They beat Kansas at AFH.
Hiring a guy for a couple of decent seasons and a win over a rival is what got us Billy Gillispie.
 
Pitino said Pelphrey or Travis Ford would be great hires.

He also said firing Tubby Smith would set the program back 10 years.

I feel bad for Pope with everyone dumping on him. He's a good guy. I wish he wasn't in the conversation.
No guarantee Pope would come here. He's a devout member of of the LDS church, so like with Drew's decision that could play into his. How many coaches do you know that would do this for their employer ...

BYU Basketball Coach Mark Pope Signs Contract Extension Through 2026-27
 
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Hiring a guy for a couple of decent seasons and a win over a rival is what got us Billy Gillispie.

Then what's the play here? Sean Miller? Shaka Smart? These are retreads who aren't going to make this fanbase happy with 1st weekend exits.

At some point, if guys like Donovan turn us down, I think we need to find a youn coach.

Or we don't, idk. I'm tired of talking about it honestly. Hire whoever at this point. Probably not going to matter in the grand scheme of things.
 
Just remember - Donovan is the reason we ended up with Gillespie

If Donovan will commit, fine, but the guy is going to play it loose ,leaving his options open, and he has a habit bad habit of leading an AD or GM on and then bailing on them

I'd love to have Donovan as coach but IMO, he's got to be less coy and more up front about I want this and will walk away from the NBA for it
 
I say BS. Donovan is coaching for his job right now. Fan support has eroded. He may not want to come back to college at UK but he will be doing something other than coaching the Bulls.
 
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Only one hire outside of Donovan: Darth Vader welcome to the bluegrass



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Then what's the play here? Sean Miller? Shaka Smart? These are retreads who aren't going to make this fanbase happy with 1st weekend exits.

At some point, if guys like Donovan turn us down, I think we need to find a youn coach.

Or we don't, idk. I'm tired of talking about it honestly. Hire whoever at this point. Probably not going to matter in the grand scheme of things.
I honestly don't know. None of the 3rd tier options are that great, but hey, we're going to have to give someone a chance. My only hope is that Mitch isn't afraid to switch gears quickly if things aren't working out. I still think if he wasn't so awful off the court, BG would have been given a couple more years.

My fear with Pope is that if he isn't working out then he will get the good guy/alumni benefit of the doubt. That's how we turn into Indiana.

If we have to go the unproven route I'd rather it be someone from outside the family.
 
Zagoria literally shits on any coach we feel good about. We will feel good about it for like a hour then zagoria will absolutely crush it and say it never had any chance of happening
 
I know Pope might not deliver on wins.. but do you think there's any actual risk on Reeds part to play for him? What did Pope show at BYU that makes you think his coaching would harm Reeds career?

If anything I would think his parents would be fine playing for Pope, who I'm sure they know fairly well.
Reed’s biggest risk is coming back and not shooting an absurd 53% from 3, not the coach.
 
Personally, I don't want Pearl. I would rather find a young hungry coach than Pearl. If we are going to hire an old man why not Samson? He's a much better coach.
Samson literally runs a worse offense than Cal.

Talk about stepping back into the 80's.

Worse than Tubby Ball.
 
One of these decades we’ll figure it out with Donovan.
Never forget we shunned Billy Donovan when he was the heir apparent to Pitino when he left.

Our incompetent AD at the time chose Tubby over Billy the Kid and the rest is history.

I am sure that has played into some of his decisions on whether to come back to Kentucky when we need him most.

You reap what you sow.

We are reaping our bad decisions on coaching hires by incompetent AD'S.
 
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