Mark Pope says UK is working on another exciting exhibition opponent
Pope likes these opportunities, as they bring energy early in the season.
www.aseaofblue.com
Wonder who mark has in mind
Uk planning another exciting exhibition opponent
- Thread starter jeffky
- Start date
www.aseaofblue.com
Wonder who mark has in mind
Can't they technically play against a pro team in an exhibition?
I think it would be fun to play the Thunder and let SGA use his connections to ensure an exhibition came against them.
I think it would be fun to play the Thunder and let SGA use his connections to ensure an exhibition came against them.
Speaking of SGA did you expect him to be basically the mvp of the league when he was at Kentucky? Crazy work from him
I never saw it coming. I thought he might be a 10 to 12 point/game scorer in the NBA and a nice rotation guard, but nothing close to this.
Same for Booker, Maxey, Bam, and Herro. All of them exceeded expectations.
It’s not against the rules but I don’t know of an NBA team owner in their right mind that would sign off on it.
I shudder to think about the game threads for EXHIBITION games against good competition. “Gonna be a long season guys” after finding ourselves down by 2 at the half against Purdue. 🙄
I shudder to think about the game threads for EXHIBITION games against good competition. “Gonna be a long season guys” after finding ourselves down by 2 at the half against Purdue. 🙄
It was all that good Cal coaching
Agreed on all but Maxey. Always thought kid would be a star.
To be fair, Cal’s system was built around preparing kids for the NBA. So at least some of the credit should go to Cal’s coaching. Just unfortunate that he de-prioritized winning games at UK.
I still think it will be Valpo, that's been the scuttlebutt. We get 2 exhibition games right ?
I like how the potential schedule is shaping up. Front loaded with Louisville and Michigan State is a good way to start the season next year, I think. Once we get the two exhibition games under our belts, we will know a lot more about where we will stand, for sure.
We will have St. John's and Pitino too, and the brutal SEC slate, it is shaping up to be the kind of challenging, competitive schedule that should help us come March!
I generally agree. I did think Bam was turn into a pretty good pro, but they've all kinda exceeded my expectations as well.
They should put together an alumini game. Alums vs new team.
I have to disagree with your statement that Cal wanted to de-prioritized winning at UK. Why would you say that??
So how is this gonna work playing higher level teams as far as home games go? Do we play at Purdue next season?
Just wonder about losing a home game, albeit an exhibition one, every other season from a revenue standpoint.
Just wonder about losing a home game, albeit an exhibition one, every other season from a revenue standpoint.
It's time for a throwback to Athletes in Action!
Because he put players first before winning games. He was all about putting players into the League.
... LOL, that brings back memories.
Cal definitely prioritized putting players into the league ahead of winning at UK, once he got his Title. This was one of the reasons he tried to convince BBN that draft day would become the most important day of each year for UK fans. Winning for the sake of winning wasn't important for him once he finally won the Title and secured validation as a coach. The Program and BBN are bigger than Cal's grand ideas and this ultimately exposed his flawed delusions and was his undoing at UK. At Arkansas, he will have to focus on the winning rather than his wholesale OAD BS because he's been exposed and pressure exerted on him at UK certainly brought unwanted national attention to his failings and delusions of "ending generational poverty" single-handedly. At Arky he will have to actually do his job and coach, if that's still possible.
Last edited:
Didn't they technically do that last summer? I thought they played UK's TBT team (Harrison twins, WCS etc…)?
Last edited:
So many reasons. He used UK to prepare players, on an individual basis, for the NBA, because that's where they were supposed to go and he relied on recruiting rankings to do it. He turned UK into individual-goals-and- accomplishments-U
The Dragon, BJB, Askew, Edwards, Wagner… they all played big minutes and lost games, while better players sat.
In 23/24, he had the best lineup in basketball, by a mile. He played it one time out of necessity (Alabama), never saw it again, because for him to play it, his promises would have been broken and those individuals wouldn't be able to improve their stock at the cost of winning.
It worked when he was getting the high end recruits he wanted, but once duke started taking his lunch, he stuck with his NBA first crap, but he had to do it with kids that didn't have the game, they were just athletes that might be good 5 years down the road. Again, he relied on recruiting rankings. How he thought the Dragon, Askew and BJB were any good, is beside me. He is supposed to be an ace evaluator.
He literally said it right after the 2012 title game "I says to Ellen, now that we got that done and out of the way, we need to make it about these kids…. ". You remember that?
I'll pass on that one I saw UK get the hell beat out of em enough when Cal was coach.Thunder would beat the pants off of us.
I absolutely believe he lost games on purpose the last few years. I’m probably wrong but it just doesn’t make sense. He didn’t even have to coach to win those games. He could have did his Gooooo and ran them teams off the court. His middle finger to UK fans on his way out because he knew he was leaving way before. He lost the support. My Grandad is a Memphis alumni/fan and absolutely cannot stand Cal. He always told me even back in 2010 when he left Memphis for us that he would burn it down before he left like every other spot and he ended up being right. Thankfully the Pope came to the rescue!
BYU would be obvious choice.
Others: UCONN, Memphis, Houston, Creighton, Wichita State.
Other than those maybe EKU, Murray, WKU, Georgetown (KY).
Others: UCONN, Memphis, Houston, Creighton, Wichita State.
Other than those maybe EKU, Murray, WKU, Georgetown (KY).
That's 100% going to happen if we drop one....
And if we win both, fans will basically say we are pre-season #1...
Shit gets real fast vs Louisville...
As to Maxey ... I'll never forget his first game at U.K. Maxey came off the bench for 26 points. Next game ... back on the bench to start the game. Go figure.
I thought for sure Bam and Maxey would be studs, Booker I knew had talent but I thought he would be 17/18 ppg scorer kinda like an Eric Gordon like career. Herro I thought could be good maybe like a sixth man, but not all star good.
I don't think he lost games on purpose, I just think he's lazy.
Looking at his last 5 years here, he lost games to bad teams, but then he would go and pull off a stunner, (@ Auburn, @ Tennessee @ Kansas), then lose to more bad teams. That's laziness. He puts effort into winning certain games and mails it in on the others.
Last season, we were clearly one of the games he had circled. Then he went and lost to South Carolina by 30.
He’s lazy, his top 5 priorities have nothing to do with winning and his style of play, is garbage.
Agree with this completely. That's what I said for years.
Finally someone who understands “early season energy”
Regardless of sport and whether it’s exhibition or regular season. This needs to be a trend. For all sports.
Especially now that NIL is a thing. Get some sponsors together and pay the players.
Specifically for basketball potential opponents. I think there’s a couple options. Obviously a more legit and traditional opponent in any number of college teams.
Then there’s the pro matchup. That would be more summer time and pre pre season.
They call them “open runs”…and it used to be a thing. Pros would get games together at college campuses in the offseason. Most famously at UCLA because everyone naturally hangs out in LA during offseason.
It actually went down here a couple times during Cal and legend has it our guys gave lebron, KD, Westbrook all they wanted. But it seemed to be kind of hush hush more closed off to public.
If you go down the YouTube basketball podcast rabbit hole you’ll come across dudes talking about “runs”…great stories…
Regardless of sport and whether it’s exhibition or regular season. This needs to be a trend. For all sports.
Especially now that NIL is a thing. Get some sponsors together and pay the players.
Specifically for basketball potential opponents. I think there’s a couple options. Obviously a more legit and traditional opponent in any number of college teams.
Then there’s the pro matchup. That would be more summer time and pre pre season.
They call them “open runs”…and it used to be a thing. Pros would get games together at college campuses in the offseason. Most famously at UCLA because everyone naturally hangs out in LA during offseason.
It actually went down here a couple times during Cal and legend has it our guys gave lebron, KD, Westbrook all they wanted. But it seemed to be kind of hush hush more closed off to public.
If you go down the YouTube basketball podcast rabbit hole you’ll come across dudes talking about “runs”…great stories…
If we have any players healthly by then. I know everyone wants to see good games but I think Pope needs to chill on the competition a bit. Can we stay healthy??
I would say you are just as much likely if not more to get hurt playing lower competition as good competition. We should have 2 exhibition games like every other year. Then get into regular season.
I started calling it out in the 20/21 season and up until the loss to Oakland, there were a lot of posters telling me to zip it and "who is out there that is better? " and "he's a HOF coach, it's the players".
I have no idea how so many "UK fans" were fooled when all the data was right there in front of them.
Truth is, they were Cal fans, not UK fans. No true UK fans should be okay with a coach putting himself and the players ahead of the program, then talking down to the fans as he loses at a historic rate, because he is prioritizing the draft.
Thank you Arkansas.
BJB played 42 games for New Orleans this year and put up 10.7 ppg. He was horrible here, I didn't think he would even do as well as he has in the league, I expected him to be out of the league already.
