I know it's asking too much, but couldn't we just ONE TIME hear these kids say "I want to win a championship"? Just once? Instead, it's gimme, gimme, gimme. And the stench that Cal created is clearly still hanging around. It's going to take Pope some time until these kids start hearing "go to UK to win titles".
You have heard players say that a ton. Oscar taped posters with the number "9" all over his room and Wildcat Lodge.
Reed, Tre Mitchell, Reeves, etc. last year echoed "championship" a bunch.
The motto of this team that Pope put together has been "We Understand the Assignment" is to win a championship, and we have heard them say that over, and over, and over again, "We Understand the assignment", Including in all of their introductory press videos "I'm here because I understand the assignment".
Koby Brea on why he picked Kentucky,
"I was just looking for a program that was going to be able to compete for a championship. That’s my biggest thing, I wanted to be able to win this last year,”
Ansley Almonor just said 3 days ago in an article by Larry Vaught,
"We are going to shock the world when we compete at the highest level,” the Fairleigh Dickinson transfer said.
“A lot of people are not expecting us to go out and do what we plan and that is to win a national championship. We are going to shock the world when we win the national championship.”
Kerr Kriisa said in an interview this summer,
"I felt like we were really close at Arizona, and it didn't fall our way." the two-time transfer stated.
"Then West Virginia wasn't the type of season we wanted with everything that happened. My focus was getting back to place where I could win at the highest level and at the end of the day win a championship, that's my biggest goal."
I could keep going.
I agree with you that the culture completely shifted after 2017 (IMO) away from a championship mentality and championship mindset, but there has been plenty of that talk still and this team has already talked about it a TON.