Amen. If he cant get better than this type he won't last long in the SEC.
Aly Khalifa enters transfer portal with "do not contact" tag
- Thread starter PsychOfMSE
- Start date
Naw everyone is still drunk I think. We are gonna have a Wheeler or Julius Mays type point guard and these kids switching from byu jersey to Kentucky jerseys are still byu type players that won't win the SEC. It's facts Cal couldn't win the SEC with nba players I'm just not sold yet.
I watched tape on the soph guard and if we cant get better than him we are in trouble. If I was the Coach I am taking some of the NIL money and contacting the Davis kid from FAU.
If he is a 6th or 7th man than bringing in hall is fine, him being a starter is a problem but a bench role wouldn’t be bad
Careful the mafia will swarm you. Don’t mention Reed whatever you do, they’ll circle the wagons.
I wasn’t meaning necessarily him or only him, but players like him. Multi year guys.
He could be the most out of shape player to ever grace a court, I don’t know but DJ Burns says hello on the fat talk. Not saying this guy is DJ Burns but he could lose a pound or two as well. It worked out ok for him. I can’t comment on the work ethic of someone that I don’t know either.
I’m just excited to be out of the one and done era. We are going to get the version of Kentucky basketball that made us fall in love all those years ago, and I’m here for it!
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Getting a lot of Tubby\Gillespie vibes in this thread. This kid’s ceiling is a practice piece at UK.
This is going to be the first HUGE test for Pope. IF he brings role players like this with him from BYU, the slope gets even more slippy.
This is going to be the first HUGE test for Pope. IF he brings role players like this with him from BYU, the slope gets even more slippy.
If he brings a few guys that already know the system it will be easier to teach it to the newcomers. No reason not to use all of the available scholarships.
Those guys went 23-11.
Pope doesn't need half of the top 25 every year, but he certainly needs much more talent than his old roster to make it work here.
Nothing wrong with a couple of those guys, but...
I have no idea what "Kentucky-level players" means. You might mean "Calipari level" or "Gillespie level" or "Smith level" or "Pitino level" etc. Pope gets to pick "Pope level". That's his prerogative. Those players were there beating Kansas. So, getting snooty about BYU players is kind of strange.
Nice to have some bench/role players but he is going to have to get some names people get excited about - and quickly.
Khalifa can’t guard air, and BYU were better when he was off the floor. I’m fine with adding a couple of players but there are much better options than Khalifa
I agree with the last point...having 3-4 BYU transfers wouldn't be terrible if they are balanced... 1-2 wing players (G/F) and/or 1-2 post players.
I know any players can learn the system, but having 1 or 2 players on the floor at any given time who already KNOW the system just helps everyone play faster b/c hesitation is a killer. That doesn't even count all the off the court time when players are talking to and watching film w/each other. So, it brings up the level of the whole squad.
So, if the following BYU players transferred, I think it would be a huge net gain for the team. There would still be 9 scholarships for other players.
G - Dallin Hall
G - Jaxson Robinson
F - Noah Waterman
F - Aly Khalifa - it would do him a TON of good (quickness, jumping, etc) to lose about 25 lbs or so...he may still not be an elite athlete at that point, but playing without a 25 pound rucksack would still be beneficial
As far as actual playing time, that would work itself out, but adding these guys would probably provide quite a jumpstart to the season as opposed to the entire team learning everything from scratch.
Waterman was one I noticed watching some of their games the past few days that I could see being impactful here. Robinson is a for sure add, one of hall/knell/saunders should be a add, and waterman would be a good add
Go get that Townsend kid from Oakland who smoked us in Pittsburg. That kid is legit. SF but made shot after shot on our bigs 5 ft away from the rack.
He's not. Not by most metrics, anyway. But, we are hurting for bigs right now – especially if Bradshaw stays in the portal and Z follows Cal to Arkansas. He should get the minutes of an eighth man if he comes here.
That said, it looks like he could absolutely transform his body if he had UK's diet and S&C resources. So, might be a Harrellson situation where we just run the ever-loving s**t out of him and then he levels up. He'll get extra points from me if he rockets a ball off an opposing player's solar plexus to retain possession.
But yeah, as it stands, he's a defensive liability and cannot run the court effectively.
I get Pope's trying to fill out a roster but under no scenario should this kid play at Kentucky
Cal's issues with the leave-immediately-or-die HS AA types doesn't justify a complete swing in the opposite direction.
You can't just go as low as you want in the talent pool and still magically be competitive. His roster went 23-11 last year in a major conference, and if we're assuming he can coach, then that means it's the roster that needs some help.
Our first four and five stars weren't with Cal.
UK level player could mean a lot of things, but to be a NC threat, in general, you need to mostly fill the roster with either:
Kids who were (at minimum) in the top 100 out of HS
AND/OR
KIDS who have proven themselves at other schools and transfer in later.
I might be ok with adding him, but it depends on the intent. We basically have a coach, but no team right now. If Pope is intending to go the opposite direction from Cal and actually use all his scholarships, all 12 players he brings in (assuming Perry remains committed) aren’t likely to be stars, and a big body who’s an exceptional passer and respectable 3 point threat isn’t nothing as a depth piece. If he’s coming as the intended starting center, then yeah, it feels like we should be able to do better.
My issue here is you're fussing before you see the reality.
And remember the 169th ranked kid from a couple of years ago.
I'm not fussing in the big-picture sense. I'll reserve judgment for the actual roster coming out.
I'm just disputing the notion that we can't broadly quantify what it means to be good enough at UK just because Cal screwed with everybody's minds.
And for every 169th ranked kid who becomes a stud, the next 10 would be clean up minute guys on a final four level team. It's all about playing the odds.
The DJ Burns "path" may have been a fun watch but it's not the norm. So you want to be 17-14 and need to win 5 games in 5 days to make the NCAA Tournament?
The one and done era didn't go away btw--it's just packaged differently. With NIL and open transfers, you will continue to see a lot of guys move after each season. A great coach will understand that talent is necessary, but where Cal went all in with the HS path-it's finding different ways to acquire it.
When a formula used has produced the same amount of wins in the NCAA Tournament as if all of us combined were coaching then it needs to be altered. Mark is at UK now, and he's got resources to use and use on a roster he could never build anywhere else he's worked. All that's being said is use them.
"System" is nonsense. You can recruit to your system and unlike the past, you have thousands of people available to fit to your system that can replace what you were limited to work with at previous program. Explore those options.
They both terrible but Dickinson makes up for it by getting 18 points and 10 boards w game
Exactly. 6’11” 270 lbs and averages 3.8 rebounds. We need to go all in on Z.
Oh, I totally agree with going all in on keeping a few guys as holdovers from this season that appear they would fit well in Pope's system.
This core of a team I think would be a GREAT start:
G - Sheppard
F - Big Z
F - Thiero
Possibly one or both of
G - Hart
F - Burks
Then add the 4 transfers from BYU I mentioned above
G - Dallin Hall
G - Jaxson Robinson
F - Noah Waterman
F - Aly Khalifa - I agree with others that his commitment to transfer would be also a commitment to MAJOR conditioning and weight loss
If you could keep Boogie Fland and Travis Perry on board, that would leave 2-3 spots for the best portal guys to fill the biggest needs... probably a stud guard/wing and another big
I know this may be an unlikely scenario, but it seems it would be a great scenario of experience in system, returning talent, and adding talent.
Waterman definitely. Why? He is a 6-10 four man that is talented. Not that easy to get a guy that size and talented.
Pretty much agree with the BYU guys. But you have to take Chandler if he wants to come. A very high talent that would probably be a starter. An experienced 1 like Hall would be big also.
Yeah, he would fall into those additional 2-3 "best available" players... when I was listing BYU transfers, I was just thinking about players from the 23-24 roster.
Sounds like he’s visiting Louisville
😂. No contact tag!! Except, if you’re UofL.
Makes me wonder if Pope encouraged him to be open to other universities.
No shit. I can't believe after just watching him vs Duquense and KU that people think this guy matters more than a Ware. 1 fg 4 rebs combined. Yikes!
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