At the time horrible and now it's the best loss.

[JASUN74]

I don't know about down. I expected it. I didn't feel angry or mad. I came to expect it.

Yeah as bad as I hate to say it I was worried about it as soon as it was announced for the reason we all knew. I mean you could just see it and really right before the SEC tournament when he said his build for March pitch. Haha. Lord. It’s kinda funny in a way but still pisses me off.. Anyway, you guys and gals have a great night and don’t get all the info before the morning.

 

[yoshukai]

False. IU had a coach who won 2 titles before Knight. Branch McCracken. He also had a handful of final fours

Not false. IU had only 5 ncaa appearances before Bobby Knight arrived. They did win the National Championship in 1940 and 1952 when the NIT was the more prestigious tournament, during which time IU had zero NIT titles. Indiana is a one coach program.

 

[HeismaNole]

Since 2000, we have either lost in the opening weekend or didn’t even make the tournament 50% of the time.

Think about that. We haven’t been the most consistent program since the 90s. We’re not Indiana (thank God) but we’re approaching a final four drought like we had post 1998.

 

[IFerg1969]

I think Cal wanting to bring Brad on staff had way more to do with him leaving than any wins/losses last couple of seasons.

It's clear that Cal was so insulated from the fanbase that he just had no idea we really felt this way about things. How else do you explain the balls it would take to exercise nepotism and bring Brad in. I doubt very seriously that Brad would contribute in any meaningful way but would be drawing a paycheck from the university. To think we'd all just be okay with that, meanwhile Cal was not willing to change in any way to alter to results on the court. This is all the fans care about about, win and they'll deal with the bullshit, don't win and the bullshit gets tough to handle.

 

[Ron Mehico]

Cals master plan for Kentucky basketball was to replace John Welch with Brad Calipari and start a 16 year old at the 4. Next year would’ve been an absolutely unmitigated disaster and Cal spared us both that and 30 million. So thanks and goodbye.

 

[know1]

That loss was bad, I suppose, but I didn't expect us to get much farther anyway so it didn't matter that much.

For me, I have been mad at Cal for many years just because he refused to put the program first and do whatever he needed to do to coach the team to the best of his ability. It has been clear for at least 7-8 years he hadn't been putting much effort into the coaching side of things.

Given that, I'd become numb to the actual performance of the team by this year. Well really several years ago.

 

[m080470]

Indiana was a dying program the last 7 or so years under Knight.. Knight's behavior was always inexcusable but if you win, all is forgiven. Indiana had two things that were their undoing. Mike Davis getting to the title game as the interim coach wound up being a curse. An incredibly lucky run that kept him around longer than he should have been and they made the right hire with Sampson but then fired him because he ignored and lied to the NCAA over no contact phone calls. IU would probably be our main competition and probably about tied in titles if he was still there.

 

[meteordealer]

I think Pope can be our version of Coach K. He loves UK and is a brilliant coach. I can see him sticking around for 30 years and winning 4 or 5 Titles. Especially now that he finally has top notch talent to work with.

 

[m080470]

Cal was like a bad marriage that just wouldn't end. Everytime something good happened and you thought things were going to be better now, he'd do something that would remind you why you couldn't be with him anymore, over and over and over.
We got a huge season ending win at UT, everybody's feeling good about things but then the bull$hit starts immediately with the post game press conference. He's asked about seeding in the SEC tournament and he says "I don't care about that tournament" and it's here we f-king go again!! MF'er you know it's important to the fans, it's a good springboard into the NCAA.
Then we get to Selection Sunday, good seed, nice bracket and it becomes he's not going to respond to pressure , "what are they going to do, fire me?" and he's pimping his podcast with Obama rather than giving his attention to where it f-king needs to be right now and what happens. we lose to GD Oakland.
It's exhausting,I'm glad it's over.

 

[Girthang]

Cal was like a bad marriage that just wouldn't end. Everytime something good happened and you thought things were going to be better now, he'd do something that would remind you why you couldn't be with him anymore, over and over and over.
We got a huge season ending win at UT, everybody's feeling good about things but then the bull$hit starts immediately with the post game press conference. He's asked about seeding in the SEC tournament and he says "I don't care about that tournament" and it's here we f-king go again!! MF'er you know it's important to the fans, it's a good springboard into the NCAA.
Then we get to Selection Sunday, good seed, nice bracket and it becomes he's not going to respond to pressure , "what are they going to fire me?" and he's pimping his podcast with Obama rather than giving his attention to where it f-king needs to be right now and what happens. we lose to GD Oakland.
It's exhausting,I'm glad it's over.

Bullseye! The bad marriage where your spouse is telling you and the whole world with a smile on their face that you're paying for them to screw you over and do the opposite of what's expected. The lowest of dirt bags and the most bloated ego anyone's ever known in college basketball.

 

[kyboy1998]

Kentucky is the best ever at transitioning from coach to coach with a few hiccups along the way (the drunks). The odds are this works out.

I agree we have had success with multiple coaches. You are just ahead of yourself.

History would suggest Pope will do well and we will still run him off. The Drunk comes next.

I was in favor of getting Bob Huggins. Get the good coach and drunk out of the way in one hire.

 

[Rockfly78]

Still a horrible loss and I wish it hadn’t happened