How are yall going to feel

[Girthang]

 knowing that next year might not be a full roster of contributors as well?

We've seen what Coach Pope has done with a roster put together over just a few weeks, and that's been great up until the injuries started. However, it's possible we don't have a roster with 10 contributors going into next season as well, so 3 people injured might make things tough next year. How will yall handle it?

Of course we're still recruiting for the current class, and yes there will be free agency, but how do you put together a full roster able to withstand injuries without seeing what results such a roster can do this season? I thought it would be his 3rd season before he could show as a coach what his ceiling might be, then we got spoiled with that early season success (that more experienced players can give you). I didn't entirely abandon that mindset, so I didn't get as down as most here did over the last 7 games.

If we go through a stretch like this next year, are you giving up hope for Pope?

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

 knowing that next year might not be a full roster of contributors as well?

We've seen what Coach Pope has done with a roster put together over just a few weeks, and that's been great up until the injuries started. However, it's possible we don't have a roster with 10 contributors going into next season as well, so 3 people injured might make things tough next year. How will yall handle it?

Of course we're still recruiting for the current class, and yes there will be free agency, but how do you put together a full roster able to withstand injuries without seeing what results such a roster can do this season? I thought it would be his 3rd season before he could show as a coach what his ceiling might be, then we got spoiled with that early season success (that more experienced players can give you). I didn't entirely abandon that mindset, so I didn't get as down as most here did over the last 7 games.

If we go through a stretch like this next year, are you giving up hope for Pope?

Absolutely not. Pope understood his assignment this year and, as a fan, I understand mine. I’m supporting the coach until it is clear he isn’t the guy. This team should have been about an 18-13 team according to preseason projections and we look to end up there, but only after a multitude of catastrophic injuries. Pope has shown already that he can go toe to toe with the best coaches in the sport and I think things will only get better over time. Year 3 is where I will start to make larger assumptions about what level of coach he ultimately will be at UK

 

[SemperFiCat]

I will continue to look on the bright side and be optimistic until there's a body of work saying Pope isn't working out. Personally I think we'll have forgotten all about this stretch of losses in a couple years. I'm optimistic about the future and ready to charge forward with our coach.

 

[HoneyMoon155]

If he finishes out this year weak and then it’s more of the same next year it would make his first 2 years no different than Billy G. I would be a little concerned honestly. And I’m not saying he hasn’t done a good job so far either

 

[Creed Bratton]

 knowing that next year might not be a full roster of contributors as well?

We've seen what Coach Pope has done with a roster put together over just a few weeks, and that's been great up until the injuries started. However, it's possible we don't have a roster with 10 contributors going into next season as well, so 3 people injured might make things tough next year. How will yall handle it?

Of course we're still recruiting for the current class, and yes there will be free agency, but how do you put together a full roster able to withstand injuries without seeing what results such a roster can do this season? I thought it would be his 3rd season before he could show as a coach what his ceiling might be, then we got spoiled with that early season success (that more experienced players can give you). I didn't entirely abandon that mindset, so I didn't get as down as most here did over the last 7 games.

If we go through a stretch like this next year, are you giving up hope for Pope?

Welcome to the current state of college basketball where you will likely have 3/4+ of your roster be new each year. The days of having the majority of your players stay for 3-4 years are gone and aren't ever coming back. If you can't take it you may want to consider becoming a NBA fan where at least players are tied to multi year contracts.

 

[WeWant9]

I think a lot depends on how this year finishes. Lets say Butler gets back on the court, and the team gets to at least the SECT semis and is able to push through to say the S16. This stretch is forgotten and people will point to the highs and getting back into the second weekend. Momentum is rolling for next year. If this team doesn’t get healthy and limps to the finish line with no real results in March, pressure is on next year. If same results in year 2, year 3 will be an absolute pressure cooker, fair or not.

 

[FirewithFire]

We will see if Perry and Noah can cut it at this level. The experience they are earning this year should pay compounded dividends over the next couple of years. That means we should have a competent backup at point and the 3 or 4. Past that we need a stud player like Mashburn. Getting that all comes down to who he can pull out of the portal, and these days that has much to do with how much money he has to work with.

He also needs to study the Billy Donavan title teams. Donavan only started to win big after he figured out that soft ass playing won't cut it. He started to play physical defense and that coupled with his offensive game powered him to back to back titles. Pope makes the same realization or things will not go well for him.

I would say barring some major collapse he has three years of leeway to work with. If after that time he isn't competitive in the title chase then I could see his seat turning white hot.

 

[Cats192]

Pope put together this roster on short notice. He had no real "street cred" at that time. He even said kids that wouldn't return his call started returning it once he took the Kentucky job (in spite of his lack of street cred).

Now he's earned some street cred. Kids have had a chance to see this offense. It's a fun offense with a lot of cuts, ball movement, and 3's.
He'll have more time to work on valuable veteran transfers. A lot of things happen behind the scenes that we're not aware of. I think a lot of coaches have names of guys that expect to enter the portal after the season.

Short answer, I'll worry about next year's roster when Pope says it's final. I have a hard time stressing about Pope at all. He runs a very sophisticated, effective, and efficient offense. And I think that's actually the hard part. Mark Pope doesn't strike me as someone that is too proud to bring in help. If the defense isn't getting better, I fully believe he'll find an assistant who can/will fix it. But I have a suspicion the defense will be a lot better in future seasons.

 

[know1]

I will still enjoy watching UK more than I have for years with our other fraud of a "coach".

 

[ukfan1622]

Pope will have more time to put his team together next year and I think we'll have a lot more athleticism and there's no reason not to have 3 point guards with 15 available scholarships. I'm not saying that guy will be a high 4 star recruit but a lot of times the only difference between a 4 star and a 3 star is current level of development with both players having similar ceilings. It would be silly to not use most of the scholarships allowed. I don't really expect Perry or Noah to be in the rotation next year unless they take a big jump between now and then(but I expect both to be rotation players as juniors). UK will probably bring in 5-6 portal players and we have no clue who those players will be but I expect they'll be as good or better than the players we have now.

 

[Big BlueBeard]

Can’t forecast injuries. Every team deals with them. He’ll hit the portal hard. I think it’ll be fine.

 

[ukfan1622]

Pope put together this roster on short notice. He had no real "street cred" at that time. He even said kids that wouldn't return his call started returning it once he took the Kentucky job (in spite of his lack of street cred).

Now he's earned some street cred. Kids have had a chance to see this offense. It's a fun offense with a lot of cuts, ball movement, and 3's.
He'll have more time to work on valuable veteran transfers. A lot of things happen behind the scenes that we're not aware of. I think a lot of coaches have names of guys that expect to enter the portal after the season.

Short answer, I'll worry about next year's roster when Pope says it's final. I have a hard time stressing about Pope at all. He runs a very sophisticated, effective, and efficient offense. And I think that's actually the hard part. Mark Pope doesn't strike me as someone that is too proud to bring in help. If the defense isn't getting better, I fully believe he'll find an assistant who can/will fix it. But I have a suspicion the defense will be a lot better in future seasons.

I just realized I should have read your post before I did all that typing; you hit pretty much every point I made but right before me.

 

[TX-Wildcat]

This is an issue across virtually all teams. The lower/mid-tier teams will lose their top upperclassman talent to the upper tier teams/graduation and the upper tier teams will have roster turnover due to the draft/graduation. I'd rather be in the upper tier, bringing in top recruits and sniping talent from lower/mid-tier teams. Any team can be thrown off due to injuries (except Arky apparently, they lucked into an injury making them a better team). I just hope we avoid future instances where the 2 deep at a particular position (arguable the 1 and 5 are the most important in Pope's system) are not out at the same time.

Truth be told, it would take some real Billy Gillespie type results and actions for me to give up on Pope w/in the first 3 years.

 

[catben]

If he finishes out this year weak and then it’s more of the same next year it would make his first 2 years no different than Billy G. I would be a little concerned honestly. And I’m not saying he hasn’t done a good job so far either

I don’t recall Billy G beating UofL, UT and Duke in the same year, not even mentioning it being his FIRST!!!!

Without the injuries to BOTH of our PG’s, this season would have been much different record wise.

He just needs to get his players in here with more than 6 weeks to do it. And I have full confidence he can AND will!!!

 

[BigBlue1992]

There’s a real possibility of us losing 12 games this year and maybe getting bounced in the first or second round of the tournament. I’m expecting the worst but hoping for the best for the remainder of this year.

I am concerned about the roster for next year but that’s me. I trust Pope to get it right and think that he will.

It’s not Pope’s fault that we’ve not had much success over the last five years but this is the job he took knowing the assignment.

Assuming things don’t turn out rosy this year (hope I’m wrong), any UK fan would be lying if they said there wouldn’t be any pressure next year postseason.

Has nothing to do with Pope. I don’t care if Phil Jackson along with John Wooden and Adolph Rupp as assistants were coaching us, this fan base gets restless fast and would run that group off too.

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

I don’t recall Billy G beating UofL, UT and Duke in the same year, not even mentioning it being his FIRST!!!!

Without the injuries to BOTH of our PG’s, this season would have been much different record wise.

He just needs to get his players in here with more than 6 weeks to do it. And I have full confidence he can AND will!!!

This! Billy G also inherited Jodie Meeks, Derrick Jasper, Ramel Bradley, Perry Stevenson, Joe Crawford etc. That guy is out of his mind to put it nicely.

 

[runt#69]

 knowing that next year might not be a full roster of contributors as well?

We've seen what Coach Pope has done with a roster put together over just a few weeks, and that's been great up until the injuries started. However, it's possible we don't have a roster with 10 contributors going into next season as well, so 3 people injured might make things tough next year. How will yall handle it?

Of course we're still recruiting for the current class, and yes there will be free agency, but how do you put together a full roster able to withstand injuries without seeing what results such a roster can do this season? I thought it would be his 3rd season before he could show as a coach what his ceiling might be, then we got spoiled with that early season success (that more experienced players can give you). I didn't entirely abandon that mindset, so I didn't get as down as most here did over the last 7 games.

If we go through a stretch like this next year, are you giving up hope for Pope?

oh no way, I'm all in for Coach Pope ! I love that man. He is a great human being. I couldn't be happier.

well ... if we were undefeated and no injuries and .. well .. you get it. lol

 

[ukfan1622]

One more thing; I do not think Pope is a coach that doesn't care about defense or can't teach defense. It's just really hard to guard a guy who's quicker than you.

 

[HoneyMoon155]

This! Billy G also inherited Jodie Meeks, Derrick Jasper, Ramel Bradley, Perry Stevenson, Joe Crawford etc. That guy is out of his mind to put it nicely.

I believe the question was what if next season was like this season and we struggled not do I think it will be, he’s done a good job and has had some great wins, also some bad losses. There needs to be some improvement on a year to year basis, and that shouldn’t be hard for pope with the transfer portal. Seems like you just attack anyone who doesn’t think pope walks on water and unless they say he’s the greatest thing to ever happen to Uk they’re awful and terrible fans. You’re not a better fan than anyone else as much as you like to think so

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

I believe the question was what if next season was like this season and we struggled not do I think it will be, he’s done a good job and has had some great wins, also some bad losses. There needs to be some improvement on a year to year basis, and that shouldn’t be hard for pope with the transfer portal. Seems like you just attack anyone who doesn’t think pope walks on water and unless they say he’s the greatest thing to ever happen to Uk they’re awful and terrible fans. You’re not a better fan than anyone else as much as you like to think so

There’s a lake between Pope walks on water and Pope isn’t Billy G. Be intellectually honest, sir

 

[BC_Wader]

One more thing; I do not think Pope is a coach that doesn't care about defense or can't teach defense. It's just really hard to guard a guy who's quicker than you.

Yes. We definitely need more athletes. Outside of Butler, Oweh is the only one capable of sticking with his man. It's not hard to see. We'll get those dudes in time.

 

[JonathanW]

First of all, there is no reason to think we won't have at least 10 contributing players next year. Like you said last year he had only a few weeks to first get some assistant coaches to help him, and then get some players.
Secondly, last year he started with 0. Next year he will be starting with at least 2 (Oweh & Garrison) with possibly Kriisa or Almonor (but not both), and perhaps 1 or more of Noah, Perry, Chandler will be ready to be contributing players.
Lastly, having 3 guys injured at once, is more than rare. This is the only time I can think of it happening since I became a fan over 40 years ago.

 

[Padsfs07]

 knowing that next year might not be a full roster of contributors as well?

We've seen what Coach Pope has done with a roster put together over just a few weeks, and that's been great up until the injuries started. However, it's possible we don't have a roster with 10 contributors going into next season as well, so 3 people injured might make things tough next year. How will yall handle it?

Of course we're still recruiting for the current class, and yes there will be free agency, but how do you put together a full roster able to withstand injuries without seeing what results such a roster can do this season? I thought it would be his 3rd season before he could show as a coach what his ceiling might be, then we got spoiled with that early season success (that more experienced players can give you). I didn't entirely abandon that mindset, so I didn't get as down as most here did over the last 7 games.

If we go through a stretch like this next year, are you giving up hope for Pope?

Couple of things here.

We have as many players projected onto our roster for next season as any other team in the SEC (other than Miss St with 14/15) and I find our roster as being much less likely to transfer out than many others, meaning the current freshmen.

Secondly, you mentioned early season success, and I know what you mean, but the @UT and @MSU wins are likely our best two wins so far.

 

[HoneyMoon155]

There’s a lake between Pope walks on water and Pope isn’t Billy G. Be intellectually honest, sir

If he finishes the season say 18-13 and then next year is more of the same which is what the question was, how is that better than Billy g? I didn’t say pope was or that next year is even gonna be bad, if we get healthy I think there’s more than a good chance we finish strong this year, but IF not yes I would be concerned

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

If he finishes the season say 18-13 and then next year is more of the same which is what the question was, how is that better than Billy g? I didn’t say pope was or that next year is even gonna be bad, if we get healthy I think there’s more than a good chance we finish strong this year, but IF not yes I would be concerned

Not all 18-13s are the same. Context is king.

 

[HoneyMoon155]

Not all 18-13s are the same. Context is king.

We’ll have to agree to disagree there, I don’t think 18-13 is good in any context. I doubt we have to worry about it anyway, I just don’t see us going 3-6 the rest of the way

 

[king of cali]

One more thing; I do not think Pope is a coach that doesn't care about defense or can't teach defense. It's just really hard to guard a guy who's quicker than you.

There’s plenty that a coach can do scheme wise on the defensive end even when his team is at an athletic deficit.

For example, everyone on this board knows Wagner loves to finish with his . You can shade him and funnel him to his right where he’s less comfortable and for a jump shot.

Pope is an analytics guy, so I’m certain that he has the date on where guys are most comfortable on the floor and where they like to shoot from.

There are a myriad of things that a coach can do on defense.

 

[CatsnRoses]

Not all 18-13s are the same. Context is king.

This is Kentucky. Not Rutgers.

18-13 is a miserable failure. Some of you have completely lost the plot re: standards around here.

Probably how our halfwit AD got away with hiring a coach who has never won a NCAAT game.

 

[ImTheVillageIdiot]

This is Kentucky. Not Rutgers.

18-13 is a miserable failure. Some of you have completely lost the plot re: standards around here.

Probably how our halfwit AD got away with hiring a coach who has never won a NCAAT game.

Ok. “We are Kentucky”, therefore injuries don’t matter. Got it.

 

[Wildcat-in-STL]

This is Kentucky. Not Rutgers.

18-13 is a miserable failure. Some of you have completely lost the plot re: standards around here.

Probably how our halfwit AD got away with hiring a coach who has never won a NCAAT game.

You don’t think having 3 of our best 7 rotation players injured is a context for 18 wins be understandable?

 

[BlueSince92]

I’ll feel the same way I feel knowing that monkeys might fly out of my ass. It could happen. But I’d say it’s a pretty low probability.

 

[BlueSince92]

Speaking of which, several people in the Kentucky basketball reporting community are saying Pope and staff are all in, putting the full court press on Ament. And Trilly Donovan seems to think he most likely visits here soon replacing his canceled Kansas State visit.

 

[Cats192]

You don’t think having 3 of our best 7 rotation players injured is a context for 18 wins be understandable?

People have this wild mindset that we win no matter what.

There is no line where things become "acceptable."

Starting PG out? Oh well. Backup PG out? Tough. Starting PF also misses games? Everyone's got injuries

People act like no matter the roster or injuries--we should just sprinkle the ol' Kentucky pixie dust on it and win.

wE hAVe a sTaNDaRd

 

[megablue]

One more thing; I do not think Pope is a coach that doesn't care about defense or can't teach defense. It's just really hard to guard a guy who's quicker than you.

I agree 100% that it’s really hard to guard quicker players. My question is does Pope consider this when recruiting and building a roster … how big a part of his evaluation is assessment of defensive skills and to what degree does he evaluate the defensive side of a potential recruit’s overall skillset ?? Is he willing to overlook defensive liabilities in favor of shooting stroke ??

 

[jwphelps]

 knowing that next year might not be a full roster of contributors as well?

We've seen what Coach Pope has done with a roster put together over just a few weeks, and that's been great up until the injuries started. However, it's possible we don't have a roster with 10 contributors going into next season as well, so 3 people injured might make things tough next year. How will yall handle it?

Of course we're still recruiting for the current class, and yes there will be free agency, but how do you put together a full roster able to withstand injuries without seeing what results such a roster can do this season? I thought it would be his 3rd season before he could show as a coach what his ceiling might be, then we got spoiled with that early season success (that more experienced players can give you). I didn't entirely abandon that mindset, so I didn't get as down as most here did over the last 7 games.

If we go through a stretch like this next year, are you giving up hope for Pope?

Just another troll.

 

[ukfan1622]

I agree 100% that it’s really hard to guard quicker players. My question is does Pope consider this when recruiting and building a roster … how big a part of his evaluation is assessment of defensive skills and to what degree does he evaluate the defensive side of a potential recruit’s overall skillset ?? Is he willing to overlook defensive liabilities in favor of shooting stroke ??

Well, I do not know the answers to those questions; somebody would have to ask Pope that. He came in late and I'm pretty sure he got the best players he could get. I don't think he recruited Butler, Williams, and Oweh for their shooting.

 

[CatsnRoses]

You don’t think having 3 of our best 7 rotation players injured is a context for 18 wins be understandable?

What context? Gee, that stinks. FWIW, Krissa is AWFUL. The fact people are holding up his injury as some excuse or reason we stink now is hilarious.

13 losses is still completely inexcusable and an objectively horrible season for a school like UK.

Keep it up with the gradual dipping of standards and we'll be Indiana in no time. Hopefully we get a real coach in here long before that happens but the way a segment of the fanbase is suddenly cool with losing, can't say I'm feeling confident about that.

 

[Butters' Dad]

Pope will always collect most of the criticism as long as he's here but he's really never going to be the issue with why we can no longer compete at the level we are all used to. Pope isn't writing NIL checks. His hands are somewhat tied. NIL is the limiting factor on our success and will be for the foreseeable future. We don't have a Billionaire club donating to UK sports like some of our rivals do. Those are the simple facts, but it's also the thing most here absolutely do not want to come to terms with. Y'all would much rather it be Pope.