Pope has only had one opportunity at UK to recruit the high school ranks and he was in on most of those guys late. When he got here last April, there were no top 5 high school guys left to recruit and most of the top 5 2025 guys had already been courted by or committed to other schools. He got in on Jasper Johnson and Moreno late and was fortunate to land them. I'm not going to sit here and act like Pope can't recruit top five players just yet. got to give that one some time.
I used an example of two or three guys to show we can't just get anybody we want. There are several others in that category. Pope did a tremendous job in the portal last year and milking everything he could out of it. He now knows what it takes in the SEC and seems to be going after athletic players which is the right thing to do. I am looking at the whole blanket of recruits that are available, who we have contacted, who we know we can't get now, who we have not contacted and who we have back to go with them.
How many recruits when Cal was here said Kentucky was their dream school and they didn't pick them? The answer is multiple recruits. It was so bad people started using it as the kiss of the death of a recruit said it. Kentucky is a blue blood program and well known so almost any recruit will acknowledge that or say they were a fan growing up or it is a dream school. Could also be a little hyper bowl from the recruit. So, in this case since he was from California and wanted to go home, he said the dream school thing to get UCLA to match or beat Kentucky's offer.
If guys are leaving those schools it's because they couldn't make it there. Why would we want them or think they could make it at UK?
I get that to when Cal was here stuff recruits said that crap all the time. I figured it would be different now that Pope was coach. We honestly needed Dent and Pope didn't close. Hopefully we can get a great PG out of the portal to replace Butler. I’m a big fan of Lewis but he’s only a freshman and we all see that experience is what you need nowadays unless you’re a transcendent player!
Dent wasn't interested enough to even visit.
I have no doubt that Pope can recruit “Top 5” high schoolers. The question for me, however, is how much effort and resources should he put into that? Is it a value proposition or a vanity proposition? I tend to think it can quickly become the latter if you’re not careful and get caught up in the hype of recruiting one-and-done freshmen.
No offense, but this is more Gas Lighting! Fact remains 2 cycles in, and Pope has not hauled in a single Top 5-10 freshman or portal stud, when every other powerhouse/ Blue Blood has!
That second sentence is the key one one to go off, especially one 3 word sequence. “ 2 cycles in” he has barley been at Kentucky, this is stuff people nitpick about in years 3 or 4
The top five players from this past recruiting cycle, went to Duke(1), Baylor(1), Rutgers(2), and Texas(1).
imo, this is the type of guards that are neededWonder if we will get involved with this guy?
3. QUIMARI PETERSON, ETSU
(Photo: Courtesy of East Tennessee State, 247Sports)
2024-25 Stats: MIN: 34.5 | PTS: 19.5 | REB 4.5 | ASST 3.7 | FG 46.8% | 3FG 42.2% (6.4 ATT)
Overall Portal Ranking: No. 25
Peterson earned SoCon Player of the Year honors this season and enters the portal as a grad transfer. The biggest strength of the 6-foot-1, 175-pound lead guard is his ability to drill shots from three, both off the catch and pull, shooting 42.2% from behind the arc on 6.4 attempts per game. Peterson also has active hands on defense, averaging a career-high 2.0 steals per game in 2024-25.
yes, they were very good, but a superstar is Cooper Flagg, someone that dominates games
The fact remains if you are calling last year a recruiting "cycle" when every top 5-10 kid had already committed when Pope got the job then you apparently have an agenda. I personally think this year is even iffy on what you could include as a cycle since most of these kids go based on connections already made but I could also still see that they had a year to make up ground. However, to even call last year a cycle is a joke and shows you are just nitpicking.
the only thing that I will disagree with you about is, that there are no players in the portal similar to Dent. He was/is much better than anyone else entered at this time
We will just have to agree to disagree. While I prefer Dent, I think Demary and Thomas are both in the same tier.
yes he did
hopefully you are right & Pope can land both of them along with some shooters/scorers
Yeah that isn’t the definition of gaslighting. I’m not saying the statement didn’t happen, or people shouldn’t have the opposing perception/definition of superstar to invalidate their opinion. Just stated that both things can be accurate. Providing an opposing take or context for consideration while saying the initial view is valid isn’t gaslighting, it’s discussion.
Last year the same was said about Greg O and Pope ended up finding a more productive player. Give him time.
Not necessarily.
I keep seeing Hubbard, and Gillespie as names that are going to enter. Have you heard the same
I thought he was one that we were in on and was close to getting when he first hit the portal… I’m curious as well as to what happened here…
I understand time but if there is a portal stud you take them now instead of letting him go somewhere else. I mean they’re going to cost some $ and sometimes you got to spend the $ to get them. I’d rather they come here instead of going to another SEC school. If we want to be on the same level as the final four teams we have to upgrade our roster simple as that….
Been quite with him till today. Then I see his list of some good schools he is considering.
