The Pain Before The Gain
- Thread starter LmdCat
- Start date
I graduated High School in 96, I remember very well. I understand having Pope back is exciting. Similar to how we felt getting Mike Anderson back, 40 mins of Hell, the glory days, it was awesome. It didn’t work for a lot of reasons but the primary reason was recruiting. He tried this, it sucked, we were meh…and that was that. I’m not trying to damper positivity or anything like that, but to suggest he’s going to succeed because tradition and nostalgia seems naive.
Pope is gonna have to start getting some dudes, there’s just no way around it. I hope he does, I want y’all to be good, the conference depends on it, and selfishly I just like it better that way. It’s not my business but the recruiting up to this point is a little concerning (from the outside looking in). Maybe I’m wrong and Pope is a wizard that can turn copper in to gold, it just seems like a poor strategy based on personal experience.
Who has Pope missed on that he was "supposed"to get?
He hasn't even recruited his first HS class yet.
If you want to call Davis a miss so be it.
It's only because UK wasn't willing to pay his price .
There's always going to be a group of kids in the portal that can be had by any school willing to overpay for them.
Yes from the outside looking in is why you don't have a clue what you are talking about. Coming from BYU with a subset of the overall recruiting pool to recruit from because of added BYU requirements isn't the same as coming from UK. Only someone who is clueless would think that it would be easy for Pope to attract players he had no previous contact with within a couple of weeks of taking on a new job. Pope will do just fine and not because of the reasons you stated. He will do just fine because he is a good coach who was doing well at BYU. His BYU squad was tagged as the 14 best team for the 24/25 season.
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Recognizing that you are suffering from it is a good start, so what are you going to do for a cure. The first thing you should do is get your nose out of CCC's ass. The additional oxygen gained from it will at least prevent you from losing additional brain cells.
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Why do you care? Are you here because there isn't enough fans on your site for a discussion?
Not just nostalgia for the past. I think he’s a good coach that had a huge hurdle in recruiting at his last stop and now he won’t have that roadblock.
The nostalgia isn’t for nostalgia’s sake; what I meant was he understands what the job is about. The whole job.
Calipari’s heart and soul really was about getting the elite kids drafted. I think he felt like winning was a byproduct of that. He commented after the title in 2012 that he could relax now and just coach. Which to me means the winning was secondary. I think his last results showed that.
Pope’s heart and soul is about winning for the fans and the school and being part of that tradition and getting his name and banners in the rafters. That’s why I think he will succeed.
You are here attempting to give fans reasons to question Pope before he has a reasonable chance to do anything. This board has enough homegrown attacks on our new coach, so the last thing we need is an interloper's attempt to disguise his unwarranted shots at our new coach.
Well to be fair it’s your program not Coach Pope’s, whether leadership at work, at a school, or in the government…asking questions isn’t negative. I’ve done absolutely nothing to anybody here, I’ve been nothing but respectful in my interactions, so I guess…you’ll have to find a way to deal with it.
I don't have to deal with anything. You will have to deal with it because I don't intend to make your visit comfortable when you come to this site to question what our coach is doing. It isn't your place nor should it be your concern. I see you!
Yeah bud, I’ve been here for a minute, you aren’t gonna make me “uncomfortable”, do what you do brother.
You should be worried about your coach turning gold into copper. He has a strong track record of doing it.
Well the good news is we didn’t sign him to a lifetime contract, so if that’s the case we’ll make the necessary changes.
If you are not uncomfortable, stop complaining. I guess the reason you are here because you can't find enough brothers on your site who care enough to discuss your feelings with you.
No, you won't get rid of him. You are so happy to have our left over that he will be there until he is ready to leave. Unfortunately for Arkansas, there isn't another program dumb enough to do for you what you did for UK.
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Even with his love for the program he will have to win big in a few years to keep the faithful. Joe B and Rupp both were sort of pushed out the door. You have no other choice but to compete for titles here.
Nah I’m here because:
1. I like basketball
2. because I can
3. because there are plenty of people here who actually like talking basketball and we’ve had great conversations and I appreciate that.
You don’t have to like it, it is what it is, I’m not breaking any rules, Im not flaming anybody, I’m doing what I do…I’d suggest you do the same.
This might come as a shock to you. Pope unlike Cal realizes that he is here to win and not to prepare OADs for the NBA.
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See, now I think you’re being disingenuous.
Arkansas has a bright future with a HOF coach and a top notch staff, to go along with a rich history. Seems like UA fans should have lots to discuss amongst themselves as they are about to revive their glory days.
Maybe you should join them in the discussion on your team’s board. That way no one will say negative things to you or disagree with you.
Because you’re trying to present as a rational, impartial fan that just wants to “talk hoops” yet you’re acting upset when UK fans are calling out your posts which, like LMD said, seem like more about trying to convince us why we shouldn’t be excited about the future of UK basketball than carrying on good conversation. And you’re doing it on our message board.
I’m going to amend my original response to your question on why anyone would be excited about UK without knowing our roster.
The real answer is we’ve been doing this shit better than anyone else for about 80 years and we know that it will always swing back our way. Not sure why people still don’t get the inevitability of UK.
Instead of giving suggestions you should take them. Since you have had great conversations with others, you should continue with them because I don't intend to have a great conversation with you. You are here to start trouble even though you are attempting to hide your true intentions. I see you for who and what your are.
Cool, best of luck to you. Guess we’ll all see together, that’s what makes it fun.
I'm confident that there will a night and day difference in coaching, and we will actually see improvement over the season. Something we haven't seen in years.
I think it may take a season of Pope being at Kentucky and becoming more of a household name nationally before recruiting starts picking up again.
I agree, but the NIL has closed the gap between the blue bloods and the others. Recruiting at Kentucky just became that much harder. Kids are going to follow the money for the most part and I don't blame them. A very small percentage of college basketball players make it to the NBA. If they can make a couple of more million somewhere else they will probably take it as an insurance policy..
My guy, you quoted me, I didn’t talk to you until you quoted me. It’s simple really, just stop quoting me. I’m sure there’s an ignore function, is there not? I promise it’ll be ok, just put me on ignore and keep trucking, problem solved.
Probably because no one but a couple were asked.
If you think nobody wants to coach at Kentucky, we can't have a serious conversation going forward.
I think he’s probably a bit inexperienced for the job, I think it’s gonna be hard for y’all to give him enough time to reach his full potential. That’s life though, I’ve been over my head plenty and you either rise to the occasion or get swallowed by it.
Full credit to him though, I think he put together a good staff. He also won the press conference and has the base excited, so that’s a pretty great start.
It comes down to recruiting, that’s the only question I really have about him, can he recruit well enough to win the games y’all want to win. How many 20 win seasons losing to the “Elite” will yall stomach before turning up the presssure from 2 to 10, because working under that kind of pressure can break anybody.
I hope the dude does great, I hope he leans in and embraces it, because I like seeing good things happen to good people and he seems like a great human being.
Yep we’ll see how it plays out.
You’ve given your thoughts on Pope, but what are your thoughts on Calipari?
He’s what he’s always been. He’s gonna get Elite players and hope they can carry him home. He’s not gonna wow anybody with strategy or adjustments etc.
The greatest of the great are both (strategist and recruiters), but if I had to pick between the two, give me the recruiter because in basketball if you get two great ones and the stars align…you’re gonna be in the mix and have a chance. A strategist is gonna need everything to work out perfect night after night, to be able to hide deficiencies and maximize strengths in his roster because he doesn’t have the horses.
I like Cal, I like the staff, I love the recruiting, it builds the brand and will be fun to watch. We will win a lot of games, will we win it all…no idea, in the dance anything can happen, but I’d prefer to have a high seed and have the dudes necessary to make a run.
Nice answer and thoughtful post as well. I think he’ll be given time to meet the expectations of UK basketball. We want to be relevant just like Alabama does in football. He understands the assignment. He will be successful based on the fact that he has surrounded himself with a staff that should be able to coach, recruit, and build relationships. He has a plan going forward which excites us as a fan base. His ability to rebuild a sleeping giant was obviously, one of the main concerns about him coming in, and he is outperforming most ppls expectations thus far. He understands and embraces our culture->Win. Peace.
No one here gives 2 shits what you think. Your act is annoying because you think you’re smart and coy.
Instead of worrying about Pope's ability to recruit, you should be worrying about your lousy ass coach inability to win with talent.
I understand why you feel the way you do about CCC. He has been getting a lot out of his last 8 recruiting classes. His great recruiting has won at least 6 NCs at Kentucky, right?
Call hasn't done crap since he lost the OAD competition to coach K. The only reason he had a great recruiting class last year was because other programs are going after portal players.
Well actually the dude literally asked me what I thought. Like legit word for word…
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