BYU snags foreign star Egor Demin over Arkansas, putting together a good roster, Does this concern you about Jaxson Robinson staying at BYU ?

[docholiday51]

The European guy will be interesting because alot of the foreign players recently have struggled when they come to college ball

Just the ones who come to UK

 

[bnewt]

Not sure why you're getting heat for this. It's unfortunate that BYU seemingly went out and hired an NBA guy, who might actually be a BETTER replacement than Pope.. that type of coaching fill in doesn't often happen and it probably prevented some guys coming here.

But it seems the only BYU guy we brought in was Chandler, right? That's not exactly great. We didn't retain a single player from last years team, we get 1 guy from BYU to come over (off of a 6-seed team), and more of them actually went to Louisville, and our final grade on the transfer portal is.. decent? ok? I mean, it's a lot of mid major guys, and we we're told "thanks, but no thanks" by a lot of the top players. We got the 23rd guy, the 32nd guy and the 48th.. for top50 guys.. on a team that had literally no one coming in. I certainly wouldn't say that's "great".

You miss out on Jaxson and it's hard for me to give this offseason anything higher than a B. Keep in mind, we are still Kentucky.. we have a heck of a lot to offer, especially with NIL.

Everyone talks about the huge nil fund uk has, but there are no Tyson foods or Walmart or j b hunt in ky, let alone lexington. So just where is this huge bag of money coming from?

 

[Blue wood]

Lo

It kind of worries me thar BYU has gotten better with their new coach. 🫤

lol how do you know they are better? This is so stupid

 

[Blue wood]

Everyone talks about the huge nil fund uk has, but there are no Tyson foods or Walmart or j b hunt in ky, let alone lexington. So just where is this huge bag of money coming from?

The Crafts

 

[Padsfs07]

Hate to say it, but BYUs record stayed about the same with Pope. He didn’t exactly knock it out of the park.

In the last 30 years, Pope had two of BYUs top 3 highest seeded teams. 2 of the top 7 in BYU history.

He also had them ranked in the top 25 in 4 of his 5 years there, which hadn’t happened in the 9 previous years under Rose.

I’m not saying his resume is UK good, but BYU was significantly better than during the last 4-5 years under Rose.

 

[bnewt]

The Crafts

Great, but they need help and can't compete with those 3 at Arkansas. Are they the only source?

 

[dvillecatfan]

4 line topic.

 

[RunninRichie]

Did you mean "Club dismissed" or "Cult dismissed?" Lol

Cults dont usually refer to themselves as cults.

 

[W1LDCAT22]

Cults dont usually refer to themselves as cults.

That is very true brother lol. My apologies!

 

[Son_Of_Saul]

Not sure why you're getting heat for this. It's unfortunate that BYU seemingly went out and hired an NBA guy, who might actually be a BETTER replacement than Pope.. that type of coaching fill in doesn't often happen and it probably prevented some guys coming here.

But it seems the only BYU guy we brought in was Chandler, right? That's not exactly great. We didn't retain a single player from last years team, we get 1 guy from BYU to come over (off of a 6-seed team), and more of them actually went to Louisville, and our final grade on the transfer portal is.. decent? ok? I mean, it's a lot of mid major guys, and we we're told "thanks, but no thanks" by a lot of the top players. We got the 23rd guy, the 32nd guy and the 48th.. for top50 guys.. on a team that had literally no one coming in. I certainly wouldn't say that's "great".

You miss out on Jaxson and it's hard for me to give this offseason anything higher than a B. Keep in mind, we are still Kentucky.. we have a heck of a lot to offer, especially with NIL.

If we whiff on Robinson, I'd give our offseason grade a B-.

Coaching staff: A
Recruiting: C

We missed on every single top 20 target if we miss on Robinson.

Get Robinson, and I'd bump them up to a B.

 

[JAPierce_2]

Their new Coach, Kevin Young has an impressive NBA resume. I hope Robinsons relationship with Pope wins out.

They paid 1.5 million for a guy that isn’t guaranteed to be eligible next year. I mean, it’s just not good business, in our estimation.

 

[LineSkiCat14]

Everyone talks about the huge nil fund uk has, but there are no Tyson foods or Walmart or j b hunt in ky, let alone lexington. So just where is this huge bag of money coming from?

Its gonna have to come from the fans. Kentucky doesn't seem too promising from a standpoint of growing businesses. Cant see a scenario where the state ever gives UK a huge financial backer, in the way of a Tyson Foods, as you said. If anything, I think Kentucky's GDP and general wealth will continue to be a bit of a drag on Kentucky Basketball. Kentucky may be the top basketball program of all time, but when it comes to what the state can provide, it's pretty far down the list. For example, it seems Arkansas, of all places, has the ability to offer greater NIL funds. Kentucky's pedigree and fan support? A+. Kentucky's NIL opportunities? C, at best, it seems.

I now really think these next two seasons will be critical for Pope and UK. He's going to have to make a name for himself and make it very fast. Do a little bit of what Hurley is doing for Uconn, which is having a great basketball system, and delivering results that not only bring the fan support out in droves, but more importantly, draw the attention of recruits. The hard part, is this really has to be done rather quickly. There's not a lot of room for error here, because we're coming off of a poor 5-6 prior seasons.. if Pope doesn't work, or even if he's just merely decent, we are going to be set back that much further.

So we REALLY could use this season and next to make a bang. Make every recruit turn their heads to see what we are doing. Make Pope have to be the one to start turning down recruiting interest, not the other way around (as we saw these last few weeks). I believe this is an incredibly pivotal time for UK basketball.