So far it has been a huge success (not including last night) with wins at UT, Gonzaga, and vs UL, Duke etc... He put together a roster in very short time because of the late start. He needs time to develop recruiting lines, portal pick ups and a full year into the office. I believe he will have long term success here. This roster is good, not great and has some obvious flaws. The one thing Pope has to address in this conference is the ability to play defense.
You can't judge Pope until after year 2
- Thread starter mg0721
- Start date
Remember that there will be no more "five year eligibility 25 year old super seniors" anymore
Portal will be more limited, we may get worse portal players than we have in this year
And then next year we rely on three 15-30 ranked freshmens?
Portal will be more limited, we may get worse portal players than we have in this year
And then next year we rely on three 15-30 ranked freshmens?
Partly agree. There are aspects of coaching that he can be judged against right now, because they are part of who he is and very unlikely to change in the next couple of years or ever. One thing that I wish more people took notice of is that the poor defense isn't just because "lack of talent", it comes from the coach, too.
Would have thought playing for Pitino he would have realized how important Defense is.
In all fairness, we're playing a new lineup with freshmen getting a fair amount of clock. Cal recruits top freshmen and they start from day one but learn with that playing time. Our freshmen have not clocked significant minutes until the last few games, of course due to injuries.
I keep hearing how bad our young guys are but I disagree. I think they are all showing huge improvement right now., including Garrison and Chandler. Ya can't argue, they and Pope have been put into a tough place. Still, they are coming along and that'll pay off if/when we get healthy. For now, it's next man up, survive and grow. If we played our young guys sooner, we wouldn't likely have nearly the wins that we do to this point. Catch 22
I keep hearing how bad our young guys are but I disagree. I think they are all showing huge improvement right now., including Garrison and Chandler. Ya can't argue, they and Pope have been put into a tough place. Still, they are coming along and that'll pay off if/when we get healthy. For now, it's next man up, survive and grow. If we played our young guys sooner, we wouldn't likely have nearly the wins that we do to this point. Catch 22
Byu seems to be doing better this year and they have the number one recruit coming in next year that surprised me.
With some obvious exceptions (BCG) most coaches should probably have 3 years before their job is really heavily scrutinized. By then we'll know what he looks like with more talented players, how much improvement the returners show between seasons, how he can recruit, if he's having some postseason success, etc. The game to game scrutiny is inevitable but in terms of big picture, I think 3 years is fair.
The owner of the Utah Jazz basically threw pocket change at him. That's the problem I mentioned in another thread and this is a perfect example. BYU has essentially a techie billionaire. You could argue that this alone makes BYU ahead of UK when it comes to NIL.
Our "Unforgettables" season was year three for Pitino. Cal left us near the same place as probation did before Pitino. The portal saved our asses and this whole season.
BYU doing better now than earlier in the season, or better than last year? I would say they're basically on par with last year. They finished 5th in the Big 12 a year ago in what was probably a slightly better conference and it was their first season after moving up, so more of a learning curve. Currently BYU is 5th again. As for recruiting, that's an NIL thing. Losing Pope spurred some of the major Mormon donors to drop huge bags on the program.
Right, and I would say by then we had a pretty good idea that Pitino would be successful as a coach at UK. If I remember correctly there was also by then some notion that he may someday want to coach in the NBA, which, again, by year 3 you have a pretty good idea who your coach is.
I was surprised to learn that he was surprised to hear his teams shoot far more threes than Pitino’s later-era KY teams did.
Agree. No reasonable UK fan is judging him until after next year. Sadly, the 1% that's unreasonble (many that never even played a sport) never stop running their mouths.
Yeah Pope’s Cougs gave my Coogs all they could handle last year, and this year the Coogs handled them pretty easily iirc. Sure last year was at Provo but that was a tough win with Pope’s offense.
That's not necessarily true. There are lots of things that Pope can be judged on in year 1.
First and foremost, there is no reason that UK should be as poor as they are defensively. No one is saying they need to be top 10 or even top 25 when it comes to defensive metrics.
But I believe UK is now barely top 90 defensively. That is a joke, to be honest. There is no reason Pope should not have UK top 50. That is not asking for too much with this roster, in the slightest.
Pope's refusal to have his team fight through screens and instead sag off is criminal at this point. Also, UKs pick and pop/pick and roll defense is just as terrible as last year. Awful defensive coaching, and embarrassing at this point.
We all know UK, generally speaking, will be top 10 in most offensive metrics each year under Pope. My concern with Pope was defense after he was hired. He has done nothing to alleviate those concerns, and that is a problem.
