Pope converted a HATER

[ukfan1622]

Somebody posted a video recently from Sleepers Media on Youtube and a lot of folks rightly pointed out that they really didn't know much about Kentucky and one of the guys was just negative towards Kentucky and Pope constantly. All of which was spot on. So I decided to watch their recap of the Duke/Kentucky game. I always like it when somebody is man enough to admit when they're wrong and I've never saw one person go on for so long and list so many things they were wrong about. He had said Pope couldn't recruit and his offense was nothing special and our players were just not good enough. Just paraphrasing but he said:

I see it now, how the pieces fit together.
Pope's offense is beautiful.
He went down the list of the players we have that were better than he thought they were.
He has already proven he could recruit, that Jasper and Lewis were his 2 favorite guards in the class.
Pope didn't just put together a good team in 30 days but that he thought they were a championship caliber team.

It was interesting to see the conversion of one of Pope's biggest doubters into a fan.

 

[Neanderthal]

I love Coach Pope. I can pull for the Wildcats again. Left them when Cal was hired. Kentucky fans are the best in the nation. Thru always show up.

 

[will1976]

I love Coach Pope. I can pull for the Wildcats again. Left them when Cal was hired. Kentucky fans are the best in the nation. Thru always show up.

Wow that's along time to be away! Welcome back to the fold.

 

[Blue832]

I love Coach Pope. I can pull for the Wildcats again. Left them when Cal was hired. Kentucky fans are the best in the nation. Thru always show up.

I done the same thing brother! Didn't really like the Cal hire in the very beginning. I just couldn't get into it. Glad Pope is here. I was glad when announced that he was coming to be our coach. I hope that they get the mentality of "we will play any body and where, any time that Ricky P had with his teams.

 

[G-PIP]

I always like it when somebody is man enough to admit when they're wrong . . . .

Very few confident enough to do that, right? But yeah, when you see somebody that is man enough to admit a mistake or wrong opinion and discuss it, that's somebody to listen to. I enjoyed watching that clip and a few more from Sleepers Media posted on here recently.

 

[Allcats08]

I love Coach Pope. I can pull for the Wildcats again. Left them when Cal was hired. Kentucky fans are the best in the nation. Thru always show up.

lol you’re no fan.

 

[kywildcat41086]

Exactly regardless of the hire I bleed Blue first and foremost and always will!!!!

 

[Rockfly78]

I love Coach Pope. I can pull for the Wildcats again. Left them when Cal was hired. Kentucky fans are the best in the nation. Thru always show up.

Yeah I’m not buying this.

 

[UKSanders]

Yeah I’m not buying this.

I didn’t love the Cal hire, and I didn’t leave initially.

I thoroughly enjoyed the platoon season, and I have never, never seen a more dominant performance than the first half of the UCLA game that season.

However, Cal’s coaching (or lack thereof) had created a complete apathy to watch UK games the last few years, so I can believe some would have stopped watching long before I did.

 

[WallMashKyBall]

I love Coach Pope. I can pull for the Wildcats again. Left them when Cal was hired. Kentucky fans are the best in the nation. Thru always show up.

You left them when Cal was "Hired?" Come on Billy Clyde G, stop trolling this site.

 

[know1]

If he wasn't knowledgeable and basically didn't know anything about UK, how could he be a hater? These people just have extreme reactions to get views. They often don't even believe what they say. It's all entertainment.

 

[blue cincy]

Sleepers media is a loss away, from saying I was just leading UK fans on. I know Pope is bad, blah blah blah.

I have been to his site a time or two. That was enough for me.

He flips sides as much as ________________ input politician name here. lol

 

[IL Wildcat]

His obvious and contagious passion for UK is what sold me on him. I knew he could coach offense, so I wasn't worried about that, but bringing in defensive-minded guys through the portal was really wise. So, bottom line, I'm all in on Mark Pope. And he's already had a bigger win than UK has had over the last 4 years in game 3.

 

[ccukuk]

I didn’t love the Cal hire, and I didn’t leave initially.

I thoroughly enjoyed the platoon season, and I have never, never seen a more dominant performance than the first half of the UCLA game that season.

However, Cal’s coaching (or lack thereof) had created a complete apathy to watch UK games the last few years, so I can believe some would have stopped watching long before I did.

Your statement about the apathy rings true for me too.

 

[Rockfly78]

I didn’t love the Cal hire, and I didn’t leave initially.

I thoroughly enjoyed the platoon season, and I have never, never seen a more dominant performance than the first half of the UCLA game that season.

However, Cal’s coaching (or lack thereof) had created a complete apathy to watch UK games the last few years, so I can believe some would have stopped watching long before I did.

Fair enough. But you said you stopped once he was hired. That’s what I was questioning. Listen the first decade of cal was pretty good. The drop was sharp at that point.

 

[BlueSince92]

I won’t judge. When Cal came here some Memphis people were telling us exactly what we have been telling Arkansas for six months and of course we didn’t listen. If I had known then what I know now about Cal and I had chosen to turn away from watching what I knew he would inevitably do to our beloved program and traditions, I don’t think that would have made me any less of a fan.

 

[jeffky]

I love Coach Pope. I can pull for the Wildcats again. Left them when Cal was hired. Kentucky fans are the best in the nation. Thru always show up.

 

[UKSanders]

Fair enough. But you said you stopped once he was hired. That’s what I was questioning. Listen the first decade of cal was pretty good. The drop was sharp at that point.

Yeah, I hear you.

There were probably a few people that disliked Cal so much they left immediately, but they were few and far between. Most who became apathetic were probably more like me...skeptical of the hire at first b/c I didn't love Cal's history, then able to enjoy the ride while it lasted, then sort of left...

 

[KYExtemper]

I admit I wasn't a fan of the hire when it was announced but Pope has won me over. Jury is out on whether he will be successful still but he's off to a good start and has really rejuvenated the fan base.

 

[Mike-McD]

Yeah I’m not buying this.

Wow, you and I agree. Not sure how to feel about this.

 

[Rockfly78]

Wow, you and I agree. Not sure how to feel about this.

 

[ganner918]

I won’t judge. When Cal came here some Memphis people were telling us exactly what we have been telling Arkansas for six months and of course we didn’t listen. If I had known then what I know now about Cal and I had chosen to turn away from watching what I knew he would inevitably do to our beloved program and traditions, I don’t think that would have made me any less of a fan.

The end sucked and Cal should have been gone a couple years earlier, and yeah we all grew tired of a lot of how he ran the program, but let's be honest. After the mediocrity of the late Tubby years and the disaster of the Gillispie experiment, if someone told you "the next coach will be 14 years and will go to 4 Final Fours with 1 title" would you take it, or roll the dice on someone else? Sure, you can throw in a mediocre-by-our-standard 6/14 SEC championships and 6/13 SEC tournament championships, 2 NITs, a losing season. The biggest problem was Mitch giving Cal a lifetime contract and way too much loyalty instead of letting him walk away in 2019.

 

[BlueSince92]

if someone told you "the next coach will be 14 years and will go to 4 Final Fours with 1 title" would you take it,

I wouldn’t have taken it. I deeply believe and have said so many times here that titles are all that really matter. Final Fours are a nice icing on the cake but ultimately they are just consolation prizes.

That doesn’t mean I’m too prone to bitch when we don’t win a title every year, which we obviously won’t. But things like Cal saying in his postgame interview that he was glad he “finally got that monkey off my back” of winning a title “so I can just get back to coaching” absolutely boil my blood. I knew what he meant when he said that; it took most of us another twelve years to finally see it for sure.

I don’t mind the down years as long as they’re filled with the absolute striving to seize that golden ring. In fact in the very late stages I wrote a letter to Mitch begging him to stick with Billy Clyde, warning him that switching to Cal was largely a marketing decision and Kentucky ball was not about marketing, but rather about guts and glory, fighting through the lows to get to the highs with real heart. I admit I was naïve then, knowing not enough about BCG’s demons and nothing at all about Cal’s. But all the same, striving from the heart is striving from the heart. It’s shocking how prophetic my letter to Mitch really was now that all is said and done.

If someone had guaranteed me that Cal or anyone else would spend 14 years winning only one title and four or even more Final Fours, that would have been a hard pass for me. I’m in it to win it.

 

[ukcatz12]

Fair enough. But you said you stopped once he was hired. That’s what I was questioning. Listen the first decade of cal was pretty good. The drop was sharp at that point.

The first decade of Cal was one of the most fun runs the program has ever seen. I don't care how much people try to pretend it wasn't because they have some grudge against Cal. For the vast majority of that run we were THE team in college basketball, got to four Final Fours in six years and won a title. The '17 and '19 teams were each a single shot away from another Final Four.

If you told people in the spring of 2008 right before we hired Cal that the next coach would have that ten year stretch every single Kentucky fan on the planet would have signed up for it.

 

[yes_takeaside]

When that draft became the “greatest night in the history of Kentucky basketball” the bloom was off the rose.

Still things were good for awhile but it was bound to end the way it did and not soon enough.

Back on track now.