Imo they can. But they need pieces around them that they can play off of. With Jax/butler healthy Brea would be lethal! Now he gets the most attention defensively. And nobody to burn them for overplaying him!
Will we be more talented in the coming years?
- Thread starter movershaker74
- Start date
True, but injury will matter more with having brea/kellan type player on the team...
In 2022, tyty had injury and we went from a hot team beating kansas to first round exit bust...
Funny how only two of those guys have us a championship and that’s because 1 of them was a generational Collegiate player and one of the best freshmen of all time. Rutgers has Bailey & Harper and they’re not even going to make the tourney. It’s a different time.
It's hard to win a national title. We have 4 in 65 years. Relying on raw freshmen to win them clearly wasn't a recipe for success.
I put that on cal and not so much the players though. We also had injuries that derailed probably titles in 2014 and 2015. Cal may still have blew it but I doubt it.
I agree. That was kind of my point. I agree with injuries in 2014 but the 2015 team had quality depth that injuries weren’t an issue with. We just blew it and Cal blew it.
I believe they would have with a good coach not just roll the ball out offense
I would take the roster we have right now, without injuries and with a full 29 games playing together to be in the mix for a championship:
Williams: has he become the best big man in the conference? He bested Broome yesterday.
Butler: healthy with a full season at PG
Oweh
Robinson
Carr: he is playing hurt. He’s a factor at the 4 when healthy
Pope’s first roster, pieced together from the portal has proven they are good enough to win it all.
Williams: has he become the best big man in the conference? He bested Broome yesterday.
Butler: healthy with a full season at PG
Oweh
Robinson
Carr: he is playing hurt. He’s a factor at the 4 when healthy
Pope’s first roster, pieced together from the portal has proven they are good enough to win it all.
Dean Smith made 11 Final Fours and won two of them despite having edges for many years in talent and arguably the greatest basketball player of all time.
Imagine what he would have done if he hadn’t just rolled the ball out.
Very true, also Auburn and Alabama are going to take big steps back next year. Both of them got lucky that they got a Mid Major player that turned out to be a superstar. That will not happen very often. It was pure luck for both of them. They will be good but not like they are this year.
Agree with this. Really Pope only missed twice of significance imo with the roster. Garrison and Chandler.
Garrison stinks and they overpaid due to a HS recruit ranking with him also having one of his fluke games against this staff.
Then Chandler I blame him a lot less for due to the preexisting relationship and obviously unique circumstances. But I’m sure the staff expected more from a 21 year old former top 40 prospect, even knowing it would take time.
The main guys he did pretty well with.
I don't have any crayons, so I probably can't say anything that you would understand. Just f*ck off. I'm so sick of fans who are only fans when things go their way.
I don’t really think you can say he missed with those two, they’ve both shown flashes and can improve if they stick around
That was a terrible last game. But it’s hard to knock a 38-1 team.
You won't. Anybody who sits around on another teams message board trolling, clearly lacks all talent , intelligence, and dignity .
"We" will be fine. You will continue to suck.
From TankedCat
"I believe Pope will be in the mix with talent but we have to move away from thinking that landing a 5 star kid is more meaningful than landing a 4 star veteran guy that took his team on a deep NCAA tourney run.
It's about "buying" the pieces to a team in the transfer portal, not recruiting athletes that have zero experience competing at the next level."
Agree completely!
The elite freshmen are most likely going to do the following:
1. Go to NBA draft after 1 year - for the $$$, NIL cannot compete
2. Transfer - I did not have a draft type year - Must be the coach!
Coach Pope has done a marvelous job with a new staff and players that never played together before this season. Plus, the injuries in the toughest (top to Bottom) SEC that I have seen in my nearly 60 years of being a UK fan. Yes, we lost some games that maybe we should have won but also won some games against more talented teams that had returning players and coaches.
As far as putting together a roster, I believe you need a balance of returning players, recruits from the portal, and high school. What is the mixture? With the ridiculous NIL and transfer portal that is presently in place, every team in the nation is going to have upheaval in the roster every year.
- The returning players have to judge both playing time and $$$ when deciding to stay or leave.
- The transfer portal had over 2,000 players in it this past offseason. A coach and his staff have to somehow sift through this list and determine the character, fit, and yes the money. You cannot get multiple 5* and the top portal players.
- Most, if not all, of the 5* freshmen think they are going to the NBA. So their focus is usually on the $$$ and the coach they feel will propel their status and not so much on winning a championship in their 1 year in college.
I think Rick Pitino is correct in focusing on the Portal players to build his team at St Johns. Every player (high school to graduate player) has to be considered a "1-year rental." As Tanked stated, do you want a 5* kid that has proven he can play on the scholastic level or a less talented player who has proven he is a good player on the collegiate level? I prefer recruiting proven college "basketball players" over high school athletes with great measurables.
I am hoping that Coach Pope will get 4-5 guys from the portal who have more that 1 year of eligibility at UK. This year he was hamstrung by the lack of time he had to evaluate portal guys and did an admirable job getting the guys presently on our team. Maybe not the most talented, but a few years down the road we may see them as the catalyst for bringing UK back.
"I believe Pope will be in the mix with talent but we have to move away from thinking that landing a 5 star kid is more meaningful than landing a 4 star veteran guy that took his team on a deep NCAA tourney run.
It's about "buying" the pieces to a team in the transfer portal, not recruiting athletes that have zero experience competing at the next level."
Agree completely!
The elite freshmen are most likely going to do the following:
1. Go to NBA draft after 1 year - for the $$$, NIL cannot compete
2. Transfer - I did not have a draft type year - Must be the coach!
Coach Pope has done a marvelous job with a new staff and players that never played together before this season. Plus, the injuries in the toughest (top to Bottom) SEC that I have seen in my nearly 60 years of being a UK fan. Yes, we lost some games that maybe we should have won but also won some games against more talented teams that had returning players and coaches.
As far as putting together a roster, I believe you need a balance of returning players, recruits from the portal, and high school. What is the mixture? With the ridiculous NIL and transfer portal that is presently in place, every team in the nation is going to have upheaval in the roster every year.
- The returning players have to judge both playing time and $$$ when deciding to stay or leave.
- The transfer portal had over 2,000 players in it this past offseason. A coach and his staff have to somehow sift through this list and determine the character, fit, and yes the money. You cannot get multiple 5* and the top portal players.
- Most, if not all, of the 5* freshmen think they are going to the NBA. So their focus is usually on the $$$ and the coach they feel will propel their status and not so much on winning a championship in their 1 year in college.
I think Rick Pitino is correct in focusing on the Portal players to build his team at St Johns. Every player (high school to graduate player) has to be considered a "1-year rental." As Tanked stated, do you want a 5* kid that has proven he can play on the scholastic level or a less talented player who has proven he is a good player on the collegiate level? I prefer recruiting proven college "basketball players" over high school athletes with great measurables.
I am hoping that Coach Pope will get 4-5 guys from the portal who have more that 1 year of eligibility at UK. This year he was hamstrung by the lack of time he had to evaluate portal guys and did an admirable job getting the guys presently on our team. Maybe not the most talented, but a few years down the road we may see them as the catalyst for bringing UK back.
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Auburn, Bama, A/M, will all lose a ton. Florida will lose those guards, Tennessee will lose a bunch. I don’t see it being near as tough next season!
Valid. One problem I've watched all season is lack of effort on 50/50 balls and rebounding. That is effort and can be fixed in practice
Truthfully I think alot of our fans are overestimating how much talent we will have going forward when they say this will be our least talented team. While they weren’t highly ranked in the portal, they were pretty damn talented and age played a factor in that. We will be considerably younger moving forward. The players may have more “talent” but will it translate to college?
I’m going to have to see it to believe it. Between the last decade of Cal and then how this year started amazing and fell off a cliff, my optimism and ability to believe things will be good just isn’t there.
I’m going to have to see it to believe it. Between the last decade of Cal and then how this year started amazing and fell off a cliff, my optimism and ability to believe things will be good just isn’t there.
Yeah I’ve never seen so many players just ball watch so much, it kills me.
I didn’t count Perry as I viewed the KY boys as guys 11 and 12 on the roster preseason. For long term developmental guys I have no problem with either of them.
I think having his play style on display this year in high profile wins will help him attract really good players in the portal. I believe we're still the 3rd highest scoring team in the country. The freshmen next season will be better than the freshmen this year, and the freshmen this year will be a year older. He can build around the pieces he has (most notably Oweh) in the portal rather than needing to fill an entire roster. The returning players will have a year of familiarity running this offense and can help other guys get up to speed faster. Pope himself now has a year of experience in the SEC (and a second year of experience coaching in the best conference in the sport, going back to last year in the B12). Not all of these directly address your question of talent, but more generally relate to the improvement we should see year 1 to year 2 (and beyond).
Someone posted a while ago on this board the jump that many good coaches make their first to second seasons. I don't remember who all was included in their examples but I'll give you a few from my own quick googling:
Pitino @ St Johns (and he's done the same everywhere he's been)
Year 1: 20-13
Year 2: 25-4 (so far)
Nate Oats @ Bama
Year 1: 16-15
Year 2: 26-7
Todd Golden @ Florida
Year 1: 16-17
Year 2: 24-12
Roy Williams @ UNC
Year 1: 19-11
Year 2: 33-4
Pope is having a better first year than all of the above, especially factoring in the difficulty of the conference and the quality of wins (not to mention injuries). We have 19 wins now, I think it's reasonable to think we'll get to 22 or 23 wins. A good jump next year might look like 26-28 wins. If next year's SEC is anything like this seasons, that's probably a top 4 finish in conference and a 1 or 2 seed in the NCAA.
(Other top coaches took longer than two seasons to flip it. Bruce Pearl didn't have a winning record at Auburn until year 4. TJ Otzelberger at Iowa St had a worse year 2 than year 1 and then made a big jump in year 3. It took Rick Barnes 3 seasons to get a winning record at Tennessee.)
1) Pope won't be starting out in future years with 0 returning players, and with all of the top recruits already committed to other schools, and already a step behind other coaches in recruiting the top portal players
2) Players now have a season of watching how he coached (style of play) at UK, last year's guys could have looked at what his BYU teams did, but couldn't assume that would be the same at UK. We are a top 5-10 offense this year, players will like that (both recruits and transfer portal guys)
3) Pope has 3 top 30 FR coming in next year already. That is consistent with the types of recruits in most of Cal's classes his last 7 years at UK (w/ only about 4 top 10 guys, so mostly guys in the 11-30 range). And a lot of coaches already have those relationships built with players more than a year in advance, so he was starting out a step behind on this coming class too.
4) $$$NIL reigns now.
Now having said all of that, I think next year (unless the NCAA changes its eligibility rules) EVERY team will have a dropoff in talent, because the Covid 5th year will be no more. So, there will be less good transfer portal players than in prior years.
As long as the coaching and money is there, I'm not so sure. This league isn't an accident this year. These teams are good for a reason. Obviously things can change and most likely will.
Pope has my unwavering support to complete the “assignment” but, what’s up with this argument that he only had X amount of time to recruit the portal when he was hired?
Name me one player who was in the portal that he potentially lost out on because they committed somewhere else because he didn’t have any time to recruit them!
Truth be known, 99% of every portal player, went to the highest bidder, if all other factors were equal!
Name me one player who was in the portal that he potentially lost out on because they committed somewhere else because he didn’t have any time to recruit them!
Truth be known, 99% of every portal player, went to the highest bidder, if all other factors were equal!
On the other hand, the competition for portal players this spring will be brutal.
Who knows how many will actually be available.
I think it’s naive to think Pope is just going to pluck his first choices. Will test his salesmanship mettle.
Auburn is losing just about everyone. Likewise, so is Tennessee, Ole Miss, A&M. The lower teams in the conference are getting hit hard too, like Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina, Missouri, and probably Arkansas. Only LSU and Georgia look like they will be well off for 2025 from the lower half.
Bama, though, is likely to be the #1 team in the country. They should have Holloway, Stevenson, Dioubate, maybe Reid back. But they get Houston Mallette and Latrell Wrightsell back too from injury.
Other teams getting a lot back are Mississippi St and Vanderbilt.
Florida ~ likely all of their bigs are back, but Condon, and they lose their 3 starting guards. I can see them being a tourney team, but not a 1-2 seed.
I'd put the current rankings at Bama, MSU, Vandy, UK, Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, LSU ~ 8 bids sounds about right, as of now. I do think Pope, Pearl, Gates and Barnes will kill it in the portal though, and Florida will get a great SG to round out their team, so you could get up to 11 bids with Auburn, UT, and Missouri back in the mix.
I think Terry, Moser, and Paris aren't long for this conference.
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HMU if you think of any questions I didn’t answer hours before you asked them.
Grady was really good, until he got injured.
Reeves was good in yr 1, and extremely good in yr 2.
Reed was very good.
You are right, Brea is very good as a complimentary piece. He's just not "the guy", he's a role guy very good at his role, but not so much if ask him to step out of it and do more.
The name KENTUCKY on the jersey does NOT give us any magical answer to get a winning program any faster than anyone else. NIL has leveled the playing field in basketball. Not sure why we think we have an advantage over everyone when most big schools especially SEC schools that have deep pockets to buy a team. To expect Pope to compete in actually his first year of recruiting is just unfair. It will take Pope 3 years to get us to a level we want. Remember NIL is what some schools did under the table in money bags, now it is in the open and makes cheating legal. It is sad that NIL has destroyed loyalty, especially with unlimited transferring. We talk about who we have coming back next year from our current team like it is a slam dunk. With today's kids looking for a $$, who knows who will return from one year to the next. dontworryaboutit23, I wish you were correct in your post but you are so unrealistic in your thoughts that it would not be Kentucky anymore. We have not been the Kentucky you talk about for years. Why do you put that kind of expectations on Pope. You either wanted to keep Cal or you feel like there were better options as a coach when Pope was hired. If we had hired Pitino as many has posted, we would not be one win better than we are today. Why would we judge Coach Pope when he has not been here a year with 6 weeks to assemble a team.
Getting some fans out of the 2010s will be a tall task. We just over the 90s a couple a weeks ago. Lol.
The common thread for most of today’s top teams is older players and continuity. I would imagine most of the current top 5 returned more than zero players from last year’s teams.
I know some don’t want to hear it, but Pope is also on his own learning curve here. He spent one season coaching in the B12, the rest was in the WCC and WAC. The SEC has always been a physical, athletic conference and his first year happens to also be a historically great league year. He will adapt to the type of players that are needed for this league. He has developed a reputation and will have more time to recruit portal guys, to go a long with the current recruitment class. I look for year 3 to be when he really gets rolling.
No absolutely not. A sophomore Ament is possibly worth that but he's not physically ready at this level. He has plenty of basketball skills but that doesn't always translate to success against grown men.
There's plenty of more experienced college ready players we can acquire for much less NIL money. The money saved can be used to help fill out the rest of a roster.
As we seen, it's essential to have 10 ready to contribute players due to foul trouble, injuries, and attrition.
No we are going Billy style from 17 years ago and start recruiting elementary and middle school kids . Pope hates talented players makes you a better coach by coaching unathletic players . Go cats 😉
People misuse the term "talent." We have talent. We lack athleticism/quickness in many of our guys. We don't need EVERYONE to be a super athlete, but we need more guys who can stay in front of their man on defense and who can make opposing defenses pay for overplaying by beating them off the dribble.
I wouldn't pay 3 million to any freshman that's not a generational talent. 3 million would buy 3 players guaranteed to produce. Ament would be tossed around like a rag doll in the SEC then gone after his freshman year.
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