Tennessee and Auburn will absolutely punk us

[Haggin_Hall_1983]

They are tougher, more physical and more athletic. I'm not bitching, just making an observation. Pope put together the best team he could with the time he had. He does need to find some"tough" type guys and some guys with mor athletisism.

The sheer level of hacking, grabbing and mugging that the referees allowed in this game reminds me of the old Big East conference 15 years ago. The majority of those teams all were ranked throughout the year, and several made the tournament in spite of losing 10+ games during the season. My memory is that most all of those teams lost in the tournament by the second round- their physical play resulted in fouls being called by the non conference referees in the NCAA tournament, and the teams were essentially beaten at the foul line. The SEC has got to do something about the level of physical play that is allowed- what I watched in this game was not basketball that I enjoy.

 

[Haggin_Hall_1983]

Um, 7.5 mins to go and it's 38-38.

and like only 7 fouls called in a game of MMA muggings by both teams on every posession

 

[Haggin_Hall_1983]

its called defense

And a nearly silent whistle. The SEC = the Big East of 15 years ago..... and those Big East teams usually flamed out early in the tournament

 

[Haggin_Hall_1983]

Tennessee shot 18% from 3
Auburn shot 15% from 3

Hope they do that vs us

They shot that low percentage due to having a body bump and a hand in their face on nearly every 3 point attempt....we will give each team a 5' cushion on defense on 3 point attempts, as we have given teams all season.

 

[Fox2monk]

Definitely would have preferred UT win today.

Yeah, there was so much contact in that game with no foul calls. Must be nice.

 

[mg0721]

The sheer level of hacking, grabbing and mugging that the referees allowed in this game reminds me of the old Big East conference 15 years ago. The majority of those teams all were ranked throughout the year, and several made the tournament in spite of losing 10+ games during the season. My memory is that most all of those teams lost in the tournament by the second round- their physical play resulted in fouls being called by the non conference referees in the NCAA tournament, and the teams were essentially beaten at the foul line. The SEC has got to do something about the level of physical play that is allowed- what I watched in this game was not basketball that I enjoy.

I agree 100%. That was the jist of my post. The way the game is officiated today doesn't really resemble basketball. And we don't have a team that is real physical or real athletic.

 

[Deli owl]

UK seems to play its best versus good teams

 

[Son_Of_Saul]

Did any of us truly believe our Cats would beat the top 2 teams in our conference this season? We take our lumps in the first 3 years and then Pope Ball is rolling!

You think that we'll have to wait till year four?

With the portal, I'm expecting big things by year three. At that point, you have some retention and development with guys like Noah and Lewis. Why would it take longer?

 

[Dncmaxwell]

Good post. There is no way Tennessee would ever lose to the Vandy team, 😏

 

[Digger-Cat]

They are probably saying the same about us. Good lord let’s have some pride about this team. SEC is rough this year. The league winner will have 5-6 losses in the league at least.

We can have pride in the team and still recognize there are issues, that doesn't make you a bad fan.

 

[Digger-Cat]

Like you said, it's happening because Pope for whatever reason won't make Amari play defense properly. I guess he's afraid of offending the guy.

I think Amari has a fragile personality and Mark is trying to be careful, but my goodness, it's game 19 and he's still defending the rim with his hands down and at his size, he should be ripping the rim down on offense, but he won't do it, he's too soft.

 

[Digger-Cat]

If these Pussies in here watched a game with me their asses would be stretched out cold.
Most aren't fans. The few that are never played competitive sports in their lives.
This fan base is the absolute worst in all of sports. Most entitled bunch of babies. Quit at the first sign of trouble.

Their asses would be stretched out??? What the hell goes on at your house during gametime?

 

[Digger-Cat]

Which really surprises me given that he played for RP and had so much success (both team and individual) under him. The UK teams Pope played on dominated defensively. I’m really hoping to see a return to that. Maybe it ain’t happening this year, but we have to make it a priority going forward.

Yeah, I'm thinking Pope doesn't agree with the approach RP takes and he has his own way of doing it, but MP came from the mid major ranks as a coach and things are different there. You can put your arm around the players and sing kumbaya and everything is cool.

But that won't work in this league. You have to play with a bigtime edge and toughness and we just don't have that.

 

[ArtLaibsGhost]

We have lost 2 straight. The first to a red hot ubber talented Alabama( who IMO will go farther in the big tourney than any other SEC team). Next we lose at Memorial to Vandy,who beat UT there last week. I've seen some awfully good UK teams lose in that place over the years. Why that equates to future losses is unclear to me. Why it should make so many of our fans quake at the knees about playing Auburn and UT is also unclear to me. Tenn is offensively challenged , stop Ziegler penetration and force someone else to score and they can be had. Auburn is good but officiating ( so far) has allowed them to hold,push and grab on EVERY defensive possession. I suspect when tournament play begins that will change and someone will upset them. Also that are just average on offense with Brooke hurt, he looked hobbled and struggled offensively Saturday. I knew when we lost a couple all the trolls, faux fans and chicken little would begin equalling just as I knew all the " we will cut Pope some slack this season" talk I heard this summer was pure bullshit. Those of you " dreading" these games DONT Watch them. What a bunch of limp existed shills on here.

 

[MadaboutBlue]

I'm not sure Auburn ot Alabama will end up with five or six league losses, It's possible of course,

 

[NociHTTP]

Their asses would be stretched out??? What the hell goes on at your house during gametime?

Apparently it's game-related, but I can't be sure.

(🫱)@(🫲)

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

They shot that low percentage due to having a body bump and a hand in their face on nearly every 3 point attempt....we will give each team a 5' cushion on defense on 3 point attempts, as we have given teams all season.

Kentucky will leave Lanier wide open, same with the other guys, because they don’t guard anybody. And then the same ones on here will wonder why people are concerned about this team

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

We have lost 2 straight. The first to a red hot ubber talented Alabama( who IMO will go farther in the big tourney than any other SEC team). Next we lose at Memorial to Vandy,who beat UT there last week. I've seen some awfully good UK teams lose in that place over the years. Why that equates to future losses is unclear to me. Why it should make so many of our fans quake at the knees about playing Auburn and UT is also unclear to me. Tenn is offensively challenged , stop Ziegler penetration and force someone else to score and they can be had. Auburn is good but officiating ( so far) has allowed them to hold,push and grab on EVERY defensive possession. I suspect when tournament play begins that will change and someone will upset them. Also that are just average on offense with Brooke hurt, he looked hobbled and struggled offensively Saturday. I knew when we lost a couple all the trolls, faux fans and chicken little would begin equalling just as I knew all the " we will cut Pope some slack this season" talk I heard this summer was pure bullshit. Those of you " dreading" these games DONT Watch them. What a bunch of limp existed shills on here.

Kentucky does not play good defense that’s why. Ziegler will be able to do what he wants because Kentucky doesn’t guard anybody. Lanier will go off because again Kentucky doesn’t guard anybody. The ones who acted shocked when the other teams hit 3s against us and funny to me, 90 percent of the time they’re wide ass open. And it doesn’t help that our dang 7 footer won’t contest shots at the rim and has his hands down all the time.

 

[Digger-Cat]

Kentucky will leave Lanier wide open, same with the other guys, because they don’t guard anybody. And then the same ones on here will wonder why people are concerned about this team

Hate to agree with you, but it's true. It appears Lanier is their only true shooter, but if you leave Gainey, Mashack, or Ziegler open, they will hit them and for wharever reason, we sag off shooters and if there's any kind of pick-n-roll action, somewhere a shooter will be wide open and at this level, that shooter is going to hit that shot.
You can't leave shooters open and it burned our asses again yesterday.

 

[Digger-Cat]

I would knock smart ass fake fans TF out. That plain enough?

Oh really? Who are these fake fans?

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

Hate to agree with you, but it's true. It appears Lanier is their only true shooter, but if you leave Gainey, Mashack, or Ziegler open, they will hit them and for wharever reason, we sag off shooters and if there's any kind of pick-n-roll action, somewhere a shooter will be wide open and at this level, that shooter is going to hit that shot.
You can't leave shooters open and it burned our asses again yesterday.

But we will both get called miserable for being honest. Kentucky can’t guard ball screen actions at all. We let the opposing teams beat player shoot wide open shots every time, every game. And then the kicker for me is when people act shocked when a D1 level player hits wide open shots against us. Yeah a guy will hit shots if he is wide ass open every time. Lanier will get his wide open shots Tuesday, so will Gainey, and so will the white guy.

 

[Digger-Cat]

But we will both get called miserable for being honest. Kentucky can’t guard ball screen actions at all. We let the opposing teams beat player shoot wide open shots every time, every game. And then the kicker for me is when people act shocked when a D1 level player hits wide open shots against us. Yeah a guy will hit shots if he is wide ass open every time. Lanier will get his wide open shots Tuesday, so will Gainey, and so will the white guy.

Yeah, they can call me a bad fan, or fair weather fan, I really don't care.

I think Mark Pope is amazing, but he's allowing piss poor effort and bad habbits to continue.

19 games in and we're still leaving shooters wide open and we have a trazan at center that plays as soft as Skal. The dude still won't put his hands up. Guards are laying the ball up right in his face and by not putting his hands up, Amari is actually screening for the other team. That's ridiculous.

Even without Carr, we had a 7 point lead, but then, we relaxed and didn't put our foot on their throat. We took bad shots and left their shooters open. We also turned the ball over more than we had all year.

This was after a week off to prepare for this 1 game.

And I'm sorry, I'm a fan of CMP, but those lineups in the first half made absolutely zero sense. If you are going to play Chandler, Perry and Noah, you stagger them, you absolutely do not pull Butler and Oweh and play those 3 together.

But the bottom line is, calling these things out does not make me a bad fan and it doesn't make me a fair wether fan, those things happened and they are a concern, ignoring them is just you pretending everything is fine because this is year 1. No, the players are better than what they are showing. This is a lack of effort, not a lack of talent.

 

[catlogic15]

“Lack of effort” seems to come up a lot. I think Pope's older players he brought in were from weak teams, and they’re conditioned to losing.

 

[UKAlum84]

Cal was able to get close to entire roster to follow him to arkansas....

Don't be surprised if Arkansas punks us...

My hope is the conf tourney will lead us to a good seed in the ncaa tourney.

This year should matter to the experts, though prior years reg season wins meant more.

 

[rivercatinfl]

Did any of us truly believe our Cats would beat the top 2 teams in our conference this season? We take our lumps in the first 3 years and then Pope Ball is rolling!

As long as Pope can get top tier talent I agree.

 

[UKAlum84]

If you really look at this year's team, we got one guy who went to final four last year.......the rest of the team is new as can be.

Pope has done wonder's with a team, arguably young and not top tier talented, make some noise and win some crucial games.

For example, we beat Duke.

 

[JFCats22]

If these Pussies in here watched a game with me their asses would be stretched out cold.
Most aren't fans. The few that are never played competitive sports in their lives.
This fan base is the absolute worst in all of sports. Most entitled bunch of babies. Quit at the first sign of trouble.

We don’t need to hear about the weird ass stuff you do in your free time.

 

[Ripcord65]

They are tougher, more physical and more athletic. I'm not bitching, just making an observation. Pope put together the best team he could with the time he had. He does need to find some "tough" type guys and some guys with mor athletisism.

I am a HARD CORE supporter of Coach Mark Pope. I completely agree that Coach Pope put together the best team he could with the time he had. But with that said ... I regret that it appears that the only real "tough guy" that we have is Otega Oweh. Amari would like to be perceived as a "tough guy", but his frequent lack of effort belies any toughness, IMHO. I particularly regret that Robinson is the antithesis of a "tough guy." I've never "seen or heard tell of" a player who on the one hand has significant athleticism, but on the other hand has such a completely passive temperament. For next season, Coach Pope does indeed need to find, or cultivate, some "tough" type guys and some guys with more athleticism.
But nevertheless ... Go 'Cats ! ! !

 

[Digger-Cat]

I would knock smart ass fake fans TF out. That plain enough?

Hey, let me ask you, if those fake fans are right and our beloved Cats get beat at Tennessee, like a lot of us are predicting (which makes us quitters apparently), do we get to "stretch your ass out"?

I'm not sure how one gets his, or her ass "stretched out" when one is getting "knocked out". I checked google and nothing was there, but now I am getting some strange pop ups, which is not awesome.

I mean, we're not on the team, so we can't actually get out there to prove we aren't quitters and I don't understand how we could be quitters if we're not playing.

Everyone handles this stuff differently, so I don't think it's fair to call obvious UK fans "fake fans" and threaten to stretch their asses out, when all they're doing, is venting, because they wanted to see a win to keep believing this team is good and is getting better. That loss, after a week off, was a big shot to the gut.

Stay safe and wink, wink, watch your ass out there.

 

[Digger-Cat]

“Lack of effort” seems to come up a lot. I think Pope's older players he brought in were from weak teams, and they’re conditioned to losing.

Oweh and Butler have really good fundamentals and toughness, but the guys that came from mid major teams and weaker conferences, have some really bad habits and a lack of toughness and I'm not sure if they will ever get it.

We're just going to have to try to put up 100 points each game and hope that's enough.

 

[TNTUK]

Obviously Auburn won't

They still play 11-12 more SEC games including us. They will lose games.

 

[CrustyCat]

Yay, now we get TN coming off a loss in Knoxville, losers 2 of 3 and desperate for a win.

They might be thinking something similar about us...

 

[Digger-Cat]

Well snow flake you will never be watching a UK game at my house. So you're pussy ass will not be knocked TF out.
Hell there are very few people from here that I would watch a game with and even fewer would be in my home.
I don't wanna be around whiney ass so called fans who love being miserable.
BAM TO IGNORE YOURE FAKE ASS GOES.

I was just asking simple questions, no need to go all ape-sh*t and why would we have to watch the games at your house, why can't it be my house, or a neutral place? I mean, I don't want to go to your house, unless it has a pool table and a cool mancave bar… .does it?

But I'll ask one more question if I may… .why is it not okay for UK fans to be upset and voice frustrations, but it's okay for you to do the same thing, only aimed at fellow UK fans with A LOT more anger?

You're the only one that is threatening to stretch and kick asses and typing in caps, while the ones you are mad at, are just fans that want UK basketball to be UK basketball. Seems to me, you're worse than the people you are threatening.

 

[NociHTTP]

I would knock smart ass fake fans TF out. That plain enough?

The help you need is beyond the scope of this board.

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

If these Pussies in here watched a game with me their asses would be stretched out cold.
Most aren't fans. The few that are never played competitive sports in their lives.
This fan base is the absolute worst in all of sports. Most entitled bunch of babies. Quit at the first sign of trouble.

Yeah your a much better fan because you tell people they suck as fans for sharing their opinions

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

I was just asking simple questions, no need to go all ape-sh*t and why would we have to watch the games at your house, why can't it be my house, or a neutral place? I mean, I don't want to go to your house, unless it has a pool table and a cool mancave bar… .does it?

But I'll ask one more question if I may… .why is it not okay for UK fans to be upset and voice frustrations, but it's okay for you to do the same thing, only aimed at fellow UK fans with A LOT more anger?

You're the only one that is threatening to stretch and kick asses and typing in caps, while the ones you are mad at, are just fans that want UK basketball to be UK basketball. Seems to me, you're worse than the people you are threatening.

Because people like him ignore reality and want sunshine pumped all the time. If you criticize anything your a miserable person or as this jerkoff says a pussy. I bet ones like this guy watched the Covid year team and thought they were a good basketball team

 

[NociHTTP]

Yeah, they can call me a bad fan, or fair weather fan, I really don't care.

I think Mark Pope is amazing, but he's allowing piss poor effort and bad habbits to continue.

19 games in and we're still leaving shooters wide open and we have a trazan at center that plays as soft as Skal. The dude still won't put his hands up. Guards are laying the ball up right in his face and by not putting his hands up, Amari is actually screening for the other team. That's ridiculous.

Even without Carr, we had a 7 point lead, but then, we relaxed and didn't put our foot on their throat. We took bad shots and left their shooters open. We also turned the ball over more than we had all year.

This was after a week off to prepare for this 1 game.

And I'm sorry, I'm a fan of CMP, but those lineups in the first half made absolutely zero sense. If you are going to play Chandler, Perry and Noah, you stagger them, you absolutely do not pull Butler and Oweh and play those 3 together.

But the bottom line is, calling these things out does not make me a bad fan and it doesn't make me a fair wether fan, those things happened and they are a concern, ignoring them is just you pretending everything is fine because this is year 1. No, the players are better than what they are showing. This is a lack of effort, not a lack of talent.

Beautiful post, could not have been stated better.

 

[Dontworryboutit23]

When snowflake, pussy, and being threatened come out you know your most likely correct. The other guy knows our concerns have validity to them, and is just choosing to ignore them

 

[Digger-Cat]

Because people like him ignore reality and want sunshine pumped all the time. If you criticize anything your a miserable person or as this jerkoff says a pussy. I bet ones like this guy watched the Covid year team and thought they were a good basketball team

Thing is, everyone handles losses and poor effort differently. He may handle it better today, but what he doesn't realize is, it might bother him enough down the road after a loss and he will lose his shit.

I don't think it's fair to call out 99% of the people on this board for being a bad fan, or a quitter. Most everyone here is well known and most have endured a lot of bullcrap the last 5 years.

We want badly to be UK basketball again and this team has the tools to do it, they already proved that.

The heartbreaking thing is, there is a lot of lazy play and a lot of bad habits that are not getting fixed. If these guys play with effort, they could be a top 5 team with a legit shot at a title and we, as fans, know that, so how fo we just sit quietly on a message board when we're fans amongst other fans that see the same things?

We gave that game away yesterday and the reasons why it happened, aren't fun to talk about.

 

[megablue]

UK seems to play its best versus good teams

We are better as the underdog, it seems.