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Goodman: Osobor Out

I’ll retract part of my statement then as I appreciate your response and understand where you are coming from
I wasn’t one who, as you said, shit on the Pope hire. I liked it but did have concerns. Most of those have been alleviated by the staff hires.

For me, I recognize what the struggles will be this season. Mark is having to build a roster from scratch..and he isn’t a known name in coaching circles. What makes me happy, personally, is that he’s working his ass off to get some solid players. In my view he’s having to change the culture and the image of what Kentucky basketball is.

You are correct that we do need impact players to make the upcoming season a successful one. We can only hope he’s able to land one or two..

My biggest issue with your statements is that it seemed like you won’t even give the man chance to prove himself. If I’m wrong about your intentions I apologize
I understand and agree with caution…but I also think we should allow ourselves some optimism after what this program has gone through

Side note..you called me by my name, do we know each other? Lol
lol no we don’t know each other. I just said it to show that im not some new guy trying to troll. I’ve seen you post here for years.

As for Pope. I know I come off and not even willing to give him a chance but I guess that’s because I see all these posts hyping up stuff that we would have made fun of even 2 months ago and it causes me to go the other way, probably too far.

My overall take on Pope: I really hope he works. Nothing would be better for the program than having an alum become successful as the coach. He would likely stay until retirement, assuming he kept winning. I think he’s a very, very good coach. My concern, and it’s a major one, is the recruiting.

You can be the best coach in the world but you still have to have great players. I just feel we are in the exact opposite situation we were with Kal. He could get the players but he was one of the worst coaches in the country. Now we have a great coach but I worry the talent won’t be there.

So far, it feels like the roster is full of solid/good players but not great players. If these are the role/bench players then I’ll be thrilled but I’m worried they will be starters for the most part and that’s just not good enough to win at the level we want to win. It’s odd, he ran a system where everyone could shoot at BYU but looking at who he’s gotten it’s mostly defensive minded guys who are average shooters and not big scorers. If he could get 3, 2 at the very least, of Richmond/Davis/Robinson/Osobor/Smith/Small then I’ll be more than happy to admit I was wrong about the recruiting side.
 
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lol no we don’t know each other. I just said it to show that im not some new guy trying to troll. I’ve seen you post here for years.

As for Pope. I know I come off and not even willing to give him a chance but I guess that’s because I see all these posts hyping up stuff that we would have made fun of even 2 months ago and it causes me to go the other way, probably too far.

My overall take on Pope: I really hope he works. Nothing would be better for the program than having an alum become successful as the coach. He would likely stay until retirement, assuming he kept winning. I think he’s a very, very good coach. My concern, and it’s a major one, is the recruiting.

You can be the best coach in the world but you still have to have great players. I just feel we are in the exact opposite situation we were with Kal. He could get the players but he was one of the worst coaches in the country. Now we have a great coach but I worry the talent won’t be there.

So far, it feels like the roster is full of solid/good players but not great players. If these are the role/bench players then I’ll be thrilled but I’m worried they will be starters for the most part and that’s just not good enough to win at the level we want to win. It’s odd, he ran a system where everyone could shoot at BYU but looking at who he’s gotten it’s mostly defensive minded guys who are average shooters and not big scorers. If he could get 3, 2 at the very least, of Richmond/Davis/Robinson/Osobor/Smith/Small then I’ll be more than happy to admit I was wrong about the recruiting side.
Again I appreciate your response
It feels that you and I are on the same page here
I do think the idea is the role players are our foundation and that the staff is going for those impact players; Mark has put together team that will accomplish that. I also think it’s going to take a year or two before we see the full results. I hope the fan base is patient.

I’m choosing to be optimistic that it will all come together because, frankly, I’m tired of cynicism brought on by the prior regime
 
Yeah, it's really hard to tell what is actually real news.

Again, I'm drawn into the drama of young men whom I have no control over. I'm excited for the team finally, but I'm trying to backoff looking at updates every 15 minutes. I wasted some hours last week on this stuff, and I think I'll just tune in once or twice a day to see what's happening.
Jones confirms on KSR that Osoboro is out. 20 min before that D Franklin posted he saw Brea, Osoboro and the coaches eating at Jeff Rubys.

Weird.
 
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Jones confirms on KSR that Osoboro is out. 20 min before that D Franklin posted he saw Brea, Osoboro and the coaches eating at Jeff Rubys.

Weird.
MJ is a douche. He repeats what others reports and acts as if it's his own. If he was totally out osoboro would not be going out to Jeff Ruby's with Pope.
 
Seems to be the growing sentiment. Guess never say never but not looking good.

Sad to see the Osobor ship leave harbor, but I get it. Now, I'd love to see us add another depth piece to the frontcourt. Preferably one with a few years left.

Seems to me like Osobor missed his chance because he was dead-set on taking visits. That's fine. Both parties are still well off.

If there's a bright side to all this, it's that we don't have to deal with a year of fans misspelling Osobor a thousand different ways. I swear "Osobor" would've been the new Patrick Towles... Er... Towels.
 
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Jones confirms on KSR that Osoboro is out. 20 min before that D Franklin posted he saw Brea, Osoboro and the coaches eating at Jeff Rubys.

Weird.
Jones is just making a logical deduction.

It's hard to see Garrison, Williams, and Osobor all coming to UK, because none of them is really a 4 man, and even less in Pope's system.

Jones has been behind the 8 ball in terms of internal information. There's no way he is going by anything than inference with the Osobor update, but it also makes sense logically.
 
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Sad to see the Osobor ship leave harbor, but I get it. Now, I'd love to see us add another depth piece to the frontcourt. Preferably one with a few years left.

Seems to me like Osobor missed his chance because he was dead-set on taking visits. That's fine. Both parties are still well off.

If there's a bright side to all this, it's that we don't have to deal with a year of fans misspelling Osobor a thousand different ways. I swear "Osobor" would've been the new Patrick Towles... Er... Towels.
Still so odd — for this to all come out in the MIDDLE of a visit when we were the perceived leaders for so long …

Would love to know what really happened behind the scenes ..
 
Still so odd — for this to all come out in the MIDDLE of a visit when we were the perceived leaders for so long …

Would love to know what really happened behind the scenes ..
I think a young buck saw an opportunity and jumped on it before Osobor. Great was a take, but he wanted to go through his visits. I do think it's unfortunate that Great and the coaches are parting ways (allegedly). I think Osobor would've enjoyed playing with his buddies Williams and Carr.
 
I think a young buck saw an opportunity and jumped on it before Osobor. Great was a take, but he wanted to go through his visits. I do think it's unfortunate that Great and the coaches are parting ways (allegedly). I think Osobor would've enjoyed playing with his buddies Williams and Carr.

I don't think it's over, and I'm not taking the word of Goodman and Jones over that of Osobor. If HE eliminates us, fine. But I'm not going to put any stock in any other person's vote one way or another.
 
The most simple answer is usually the right one. Osobor probably was all along a heavy lean to his old coach Sprinkle, now the new head coach at Washington, as well as a guy who liked the west coast.

He and Pope talked candidly about it, and Pope moved on to Garrison. I'm not seeing a big mystery here, nor am I seeing Pope recruiting over him because he wanted to take other visits.
 
I also dont think Garrison affects Osobor's decision as much as his visit with Washington will. He needs to take stock of the talent thats around him when he visits the Huskies. Having a coach you're familiar with is comforting, but having a team and system that complements your play is more important. He needs to develop his shot from more than just the paint, and will with Pope. Having someone on the bench that can spell you with meaningful minutes is important also.
 
Osobor wants to go where he can be "the man". Nothing wrong with that. Pope doesn't run that type of system. You won't see "stars" on Pope's teams. Washington probably would be more to what he needs. JMO
 
I don't think it's over, and I'm not taking the word of Goodman and Jones over that of Osobor. If HE eliminates us, fine. But I'm not going to put any stock in any other person's vote one way or another.
Which is fine. I don't trust Jones for just about anything since he's not proven at all, in my opinion, to have decent connections to the program. I also don't trust Goodman. One doesn't go from being a douche to being a reliable source just because they're a "Pope guy" – whatever the hell that means.

That Gershon dude seems pretty connected with his CatsPause cred, though.

Lots of smoke saying we don't land Osobor, but I'm like you in that it's not over till Great signs somewhere.
 
We need Pope to demonstrate he is willing to fight for the best players. So far if there is any whiff of a bidding war he walks away. And to be fair you only dig your heels in for the top guys not the Mahaney’s of the world. But Great is a consensus Top 10 player in the portal and for those guys you fight.
 
We need Pope to demonstrate he is willing to fight for the best players. So far if there is any whiff of a bidding war he walks away. And to be fair you only dig your heels in for the top guys not the Mahaney’s of the world. But Great is a consensus Top 10 player in the portal and for those guys you fight.
How do you know he "walks away" and that he isn't "fighting?" You don't and he can't get them all.
 
We need Pope to demonstrate he is willing to fight for the best players. So far if there is any whiff of a bidding war he walks away. And to be fair you only dig your heels in for the top guys not the Mahaney’s of the world. But Great is a consensus Top 10 player in the portal and for those guys you fight.
Willing to fight? Ha, what does that even mean? You have to be young, because that makes no sense, and you have no idea what transpired. I am far from a sunshine pumper, but to act like Pope didn't really try to get him, if he did indeed really want him (not convinced given he accepted Garrisons commitment), is just silly.
 
We need Pope to demonstrate he is willing to fight for the best players. So far if there is any whiff of a bidding war he walks away. And to be fair you only dig your heels in for the top guys not the Mahaney’s of the world. But Great is a consensus Top 10 player in the portal and for those guys you fight.

Isn't stating that he just walks away at "any whiff" a huge assumption? Making definitive declarations like that based on one side of the story is not a great method, much less hearsay based on one side of the story, which is the best we can assume from Twitter guys with "sources".

Maybe Osobor will commit elsewhere, but based on what I've read over the past couple of weeks, I have a hard time stating that Pope appears to timid about going after players... lots of reasons he and his staff may or may not aggressively pursue a player, and considering they've spoken to them and met them face to face in many cases, to assume the commits haven't happened just b/c of a fear of a bidding war seems a bit shortsighted.
 
Isn't stating that he just walks away at "any whiff" a huge assumption? Making definitive declarations like that based on one side of the story is not a great method, much less hearsay based on one side of the story, which is the best we can assume from Twitter guys with "sources".

Maybe Osobor will commit elsewhere, but based on what I've read over the past couple of weeks, I have a hard time stating that Pope appears to timid about going after players... lots of reasons he and his staff may or may not aggressively pursue a player, and considering they've spoken to them and met them face to face in many cases, to assume the commits haven't happened just b/c of a fear of a bidding war seems a bit shortsighted.
It is an assumption….this is an internet message board we post about mostly speculation especially during the off-season. But there kinda appears to be a discernible trend in the recruitments of: Brea, Davis, Great, and Mahaney that if the players camp asks for more NIL after our initial offer we walk away. We appear to have “lucked” into Brea with the musical chairs stopping and the only seat after Kansas took Griffin’s commitment, UNC took Tyson’s commitment, and UCONN took McNeeley and Mahaney’s commitments.
 
who knows what the truth is.......is UK in or out, but this guy keeps talking about wanting to play with Carr & Williams. If that is true, what is y our hold up? Want a guaranteed starting spot? Don't like the competition? Want too much $? Maybe the coaching staff didn't like his attitude. This guy may be an outstanding player, but he seems to want to play inside. Now if UK is going to run an open offense, they can't have a forward & center inside blocking the lane. Seems to me that the offense needs athletic wing guys, that can drive and hit the 3 point shot. Neither of these seem like a strong suit of this guy. The game now is geared toward the athletic shooting type of player.
 
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Jones confirms on KSR that Osoboro is out. 20 min before that D Franklin posted he saw Brea, Osoboro and the coaches eating at Jeff Rubys.

Weird.
Not that weird. Sounds like there were no hard feelings, but he made the decision he felt best with.
 
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It is an assumption….this is an internet message board we post about mostly speculation especially during the off-season. But there kinda appears to be a discernible trend in the recruitments of: Brea, Davis, Great, and Mahaney that if the players camp asks for more NIL after our initial offer we walk away. We appear to have “lucked” into Brea with the musical chairs stopping and the only seat after Kansas took Griffin’s commitment, UNC took Tyson’s commitment, and UCONN took McNeeley and Mahaney’s commitments.

Sure we speculate and discuss... the part that stood out to me on your post was making such a definitive statement about Pope's strategy based on a ton of unknown and speculation.

Just seems to me that making that strong of an assumption about the coach's motives not matching your (or any fans') expectations just sets you up for a lot of frustration, most of which may be based upon something that isn't even true.

Maybe that wasn't your intent, but that's just the way it reads, so that's what I was speaking to... as far as discussion & speculation, that's often the fun part of being on here.
 
Not that weird. Sounds like there were no hard feelings, but he made the decision he felt best with.

The timing is the weird part... so, the recruit is in the MIDDLE of his visit, yet outsiders like Goodman, Jones, etc all already know the player has decided against playing at UK?

Maybe they will end up being correct, but I just don't trust they had real info that said he was out already at that point.
 
Think the staff likely wanted a commit while he was on campus and realized it wasn’t going to happen. Probably wasn’t 100 percent on it happening after his other visits either, BG was ready and willing so they made the safe play here then take a chance on missing out on both.

Or when BG became available and the staff being very high on him, changed what they were willing to pay GO.
 
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