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Nonconference Schedule Release

We need to win the Louisville game in Rupp. Both first year coaches. I don’t want to hear Louisville fans gloating that they have the better coach, if they come into Rupp and win.
I could actually see beating Duke and losing at Clemson and Gonzaga. But ofcourse I hope we win em all
 
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While there is so much turnover in rosters, below are the NET rankings for those teams from last year.

Wright State- 153
Bucknell- 277
Duke- 10
Lipscomb- 166
Jackson State- 300
WKU- 136
Georgia St- 222
Clemson- 35
Gonzaga- 17
Colgate- 125
Louisville- 216
Ohio St- 49
Brown- 177
I love seeing many teams under. 200 for the cupcakes and December is a tough month. Obviously we have no idea how they will shake out this year but I guarantee UofL will be way above 216 as much as I want them to stay below that.
 
11-2 at worst, or some fans on here will be calling for Pope's head.
If we go 10-3 or 9-4 in those games, I don't think people will be calling for Popes heads, as long as he doesn't pull a Cal and lose to somebody like Lipscomb. or Louisville, we have to beat Louisville. But yeah, realistically, I can see an 11-2 out of that slate pretty easily.
 
If we go 10-3 or 9-4 in those games, I don't think people will be calling for Popes heads, as long as he doesn't pull a Cal and lose to somebody like Lipscomb. or Louisville, we have to beat Louisville. But yeah, realistically, I can see an 11-2 out of that slate pretty easily.
I was referring to the crazies that would except nothing less than 11-2 / 12-1 in the OOC schedule and 25-5 / top 2 seed for the year. BUT, a few post down I stated IF he went 9-4 in OOC games AND finished .500 or close to in the SEC, he WOULD catch some heat and it would be deserved. That would be 13/14 losses. Are you OK with 13/14 losses with THIS roster ? I hope not. I think UK will be in the 22-8 / 21-9 range, and I would be OK with that. I will NOT expect him to go 25-5 / 24-6 in year one. I think we will be very good this year, but early on we may take some lumps trying to get everyone on the same page and figure out the rotation. SOME fans just do not have reasonable expectations no matter who the coach is or roster looks like.
 
I can see them 3 losses tops with that non-conference schedule. Gonzaga in Seattle and Clemson no doubt tough, Duke in the Champions classic. They should beat Diebler's OSU team in his first full year. Everyone else on the non-conference Kentucky should beat, especially Kelsey in his first game at Rupp with Loserville.
 
Same for Pat Kelsey, Calipari, and a few other new coaches. This year doesn’t count.


So you want Kentucky basketball fanatics to not talk trash or fan the rivalry of our biggest in state rival or conference rival that has our former coach? Good luck being disappointed, I plan on talking as much trash as possible.
 
We need to win the Louisville game in Rupp. Both first year coaches. I don’t want to hear Louisville fans gloating that they have the better coach, if they come into Rupp and win.
I could actually see beating Duke and losing at Clemson and Gonzaga. But ofcourse I hope we win em all

UK should always beat UL for the most part. Cal lost 3 times to them by a total of 9 points. Those were our NIT team, dog crap 9 win team and surprisingly Fox and Monk and Bam team.

UK owns UL so bad they made up covid to avoid another loss.
 
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So you want Kentucky basketball fanatics to not talk trash or fan the rivalry of our biggest in state rival or conference rival that has our former coach? Good luck being disappointed, I plan on talking as much trash as possible.
Nah, I just want to have higher standards than lesser programs like UL and Arkansas. This year isn’t a free pass and it absolutely counts. It counts for them and it definitely counts for a legit Blueblood. Coach Pope doesn’t even want lowered expectations and knows the deal, he said so himself in his introductory press conference.
 
I'd say as soon as the contracts expire that's history.
Maybe Pope will try to bring back the old 4 team UKIT tournament.
Most years there was at least one solid team in that.
That UKIT hasn't been played since 1989 and the last time it had a team from a major conference in it was 1979 (Purdue). That tournament went downhill in the 80's is whey they got rid of it. Unfortunately, you're not going to get a major team to come to Rupp for something like that unless you return the favor.

Overall, I think the schedule is pretty good. Similar to or better than what we have always played.
 
That UKIT hasn't been played since 1989 and the last time it had a team from a major conference in it was 1979 (Purdue). That tournament went downhill in the 80's is whey they got rid of it. Unfortunately, you're not going to get a major team to come to Rupp for something like that unless you return the favor.

Overall, I think the schedule is pretty good. Similar to or better than what we have always played.
I'm aware of that. I wasn't thinking a powerhouse would come. But I think they could get a good mid major team to show up.
 
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Wright State 18-14 Horizon. Should be a easy 15 plus point win.
Bucknell 14-19 Patriot. Easy 20 plus point win.
Duke in Atlanta 27-9 ACC E8. I think we get them this early in the season due to our experience by 5.
Lipscomb 20-12 Asun. 10 plus point win.
Jackson State 15-17 SWAC. 20 plus point win.
Western KY 22-12 Cusa R64. Id Western will be fired up to play in Rupp but we should still win but it might be a little closer then we like.
Georgia State 14-17 Sun Belt. Easy 20 plus point win.
@Clemson 24-12 ACC E8. Gonna be a tough game I say we drop it by 3.
Gonzaga in Seattle 27-8 WCC S16. We owe them win by 6.
Colgate 25-10 Patriot R64. Tougher then expected but we win by 8.
Louisville 8-24 ACC. Gonna be a battle but we pull away by 10.
Ohio State in NY 22-14 Big Ten. We roll over them by 13.
Brown 13-18 Ivy. Easiest game we have 20 plus point win.

12-1
Ha ha. And you will be the FIRST person on here blasting Coach Pope when it doesn’t go by your prediction.
 
Like that we get 2 real games before Duke.

Wait, Bucknell is a real game? 277th in kenpom sure doesn't make me think it's any different than what we've been scheduling. Interesting how our fanbase might treat the scheduling of a team like Bucknell now, as opposed to a year ago.

This is going to be interesting to me. To see how fans react to the scheduling now under Pope, compared to Cal. I personally don't see it changing much, aside from maybe adding an early season tournament and maybe adding IU. But it's still gonna be a lot of cupcakes. As it should be.
 
Ha ha. And you will be the FIRST person on here blasting Coach Pope when it doesn’t go by your prediction.
0dd he has us ONLY beating Lipscomb by 10 or so, but several by 20 or more ? Is Lipscomb better than the other scrubs we play ? Also, has us "rolling" over Ohio State by 13 or more ? Ohio State will be good, not a "cupcake" like Lipscomb. I am willing to bet any amount of money, we beat Lipscomb by more than Ohio State (if we win the game). Also, I think Wright State will be better than Lipscomb.
 
Wait, Bucknell is a real game? 277th in kenpom sure doesn't make me think it's any different than what we've been scheduling. Interesting how our fanbase might treat the scheduling of a team like Bucknell now, as opposed to a year ago.

This is going to be interesting to me. To see how fans react to the scheduling now under Pope, compared to Cal. I personally don't see it changing much, aside from maybe adding an early season tournament and maybe adding IU. But it's still gonna be a lot of cupcakes. As it should be.
No, by real I mean non-exhibition games. Our players will be more motivated to try.
 
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Next year assuming I’m not missing anything, the non con will have:
Michigan St- neutral
Indiana- December 20th at Rupp
ACC Challenge game at Rupp
Louisville- road
Gonzaga- Nashville
UCLA- neutral CBS sports classic
And semi confirmed Saint Johns at Rupp

That’s pretty loaded, especially if we get a bigger name than Clemson in the ACC challenge.

That is a packed schedule. I wish they would drop the CBS sports classic.
 
I’m thinking we finish 9-4 and that’s me trying to be realistic. Duke, at Clemson, and Gonzaga in Seattle will be very tough. We could easily lose those three. Throwing in one more unexpected loss as well.
Duke will be insanely good until someone figures out how to slow down Flagg (he's supposedly better than Zion and potentially AD good) so we probably lose that one. Clemson and Zaga should both be tough but winnable games.
 
Wow, which game are you excited to see at Rupp Arena. Bucknell? Colgate?

We saved paying Cal 5 million dollars. You'd think that money grubber Mitch could afford to enter a home and home with somebody decent. You play games for exciting basketball. Not to best up little sister's of the poor so you can hoard ticket dollars for yourself.

This administration rewards New Yorkers with in person Kentucky basketball more than students or Kentucky fans.

Cue December questions of why the stadium is empty and NIL dollars are light. I hope Kyle Tucker tweets empty seat pictures all season long.
This is either sarcasm or you don't realize non-conference schedules are made a year or more in advance sometimes. Cal left in April so I'm sure a good chunk of these games were already scheduled.

Goodness.
 
Dang people it's my first initial thought about the team were playing, record last year, conference they come from, roster and how they should match up with us and were we play them. I did do a little research and each team and took some things into account like most of these will be in a packed RUPP arena. If Flagg doesn't play like Barkley I'd say our experience wins out in the end in Catlanta. I'm sure Clemson coming off a E8 with several players back in their arena in gonna be hard hince a loss. Etc etc. it's not like I'm from the future or this is set in stone somewhere in hollow earth. I just added to what other people said about out OOC record with a little more about what I think the score will be a why. And no I will not blast Pope like someone said if this doesn't turn out to be exactly true, my god lol.
 
Lots of pick up games between the team. Midnight madness scrimmage. Blue-White game. 2 exhibition games. 2 real games. All before Duke and I think we will be ready and win by then.
 
Kudos to Pope for scheduling Colgate. Made the NCAA Tournament 5 of the last 6 years. Lost the 2020 Patriot League title game to Boston University before it all shut down. That game will be closer than people will think and have the Chicken Little's out in full force.
 
There was a year (maybe years, can’t remember now) where they had the Champions Classic as the first game of season. Luckily that was short lived.
It seems it has happened twice. But generally speaking, we seem to try for 2 games before the CC, which makes sense. Trying to open the season with a young team was silly to me. However now that we have Pope.. I'd prefer to play the CC early, especially if it's against Duke. I wonder when their game against us will fall.
 
It seems it has happened twice. But generally speaking, we seem to try for 2 games before the CC, which makes sense. Trying to open the season with a young team was silly to me. However now that we have Pope.. I'd prefer to play the CC early, especially if it's against Duke. I wonder when their game against us will fall.
Looks like it might be their second game, with first being vs Maine.
 
Looks like it might be their second game, with first being vs Maine.

I trust Pope's ability to get this team going fairly early. Plus Kentucky just went from being one of the youngest teams in the nation for the last 15 years, to one of the oldest. I like our chances against Duke early.
 
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