Pope badgers should be ashamed of themselves
- Thread starter RuppFan
- Start date
Reread his post, from a neutral point of view, instead of his stance which is he knows it all and everyone who disagrees with him is wrong or stupid.
Look at the wins he had. Nobody had a better set of wins, except maybe Auburn and/or Florida.
Yup, had 10 losses, but you have to ask yourself, why were we a 3 seed? Answer: because we played the 3rd strongest schedule.
You can't just look at the amount of losses and claim it's a bad season.
Don't compare it to any of Cal's seasons, he never played a top 10 SOS, let along a top 3 SOS. He gad some 30 win seasons, but he never did that against a strong schedule, he played cupcakes and a weak a$$ SEC.
Also, Pope started out with ZERO players in mid April. The portal had already been picked through, yet he put a good team together and if Carr and Butler weren’t hobbled and Robinson wasn’t out, that team absolutely was a FF threat.
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No, it's a common sense thing.
We're literally just taking a wait and see approach. Why is that so hard to understand?
Pope was always getting a 3rd season, unless he bombed in years 1 or 2, that didn't happen. So what good does it do to flip out on here every day?
Also, everyone you tagged, has literally said Pope never should have been offered the job and also, all of us have the same concerns you Pope haters have, we're just not flipping out over it.
Question for you. Was 2013/14 a good, successful season?
Was 2010/11 a successful season?
He definitely bombed in year 2. I don't know what else you'd call it.
That's not what I said. I pointed out where we were positioned at the time. If you want to blame it all on that injury that it is up to you. I tend to think it partly just coincided though it obviously had some impact. There were many posters on this board talking about UK having a real chance to win the league prior to that first Florida game. I was not actually one of them at that point but mathematically we were still in position to have a chance.
If you get just one more win you are tied for fourth out of 16 teams. Obviously not the goal but not near the tragedy so many are making out the season to be.
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2014 yes we went to the championship game
2011 was the bare minimum of a susscessful season. Won the SEC tournament and went to the Elite Eight.
2025 we won no SEC regular season or tournament titles and went to the Sweet Sixteen
2026 we won no SEC regular seasons or tournament titles and lost in the second round
25 and 26 are below average seasons, 11is average season, 2014 was a successful season
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My bad I was mixing up 10 and 11. 10 was bare minimum successful, 11 was successful.
35-3 #2 AP finish and Elite Eight is bare minimum to you?
9 days since this thread was created.
Still not ashamed and never will be.
Still not ashamed and never will be.
For the hundredth time we finished tied for 7th and we were a very suspect call from a likely tie for 4th.
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No, BCG bombed his 2 years and Cal bombed in 2021. Pope didn’t bomb this year. He had a bad year, but getting a 7 seed when two of your best players were out for all but a few games, is not bombing. No AD is firing a coach in this situation.
You guys think too much like fans. No school is going to fire a coach after one bad season, especially when that coach still got a very broken and injured team to the tournament and won a game and also after the season Pope had just 2 years ago.
Now, I get it, Pope blew a lot of money on that roster and he did a poor job, a very poor job, but if you fire a guy after 1 bad year, you won't get another coach.
Heck, if UConn thought this way, Dan Hurley wouldn’t be at UConn right now.
Okay, so success to you, is just a good tournament run then. Good to know, because that team lost 10 games against an extremely weak schedule. Pope had to play a top 4 SOS both years. If 2014 had to play a top 5 scheduke, they don't make the tournament. So they never get to go on that run.
Again, 2011 played a weak schedule and lost 9 games. If they played the schedules Pope played, they may not even make the tournament. They also didn't have any injuries to key players.
You're just counting wins and losses and not even considering SOS, so this discussion is not worth having.
2010 was bare minimum successful???? My God. You guys live in fairytale land.
You’re splitting hairs. I say he bombed, you say he did a very poor job. Either one doesn’t cut the mustard. It’s like arguing your term paper got a D instead of an F. It’s still sh*t
I will agree that he bombed if the $22m spent for the roster is even close to true.
But, what is your opinion of the job he did in 24/25? I say B+
Reason I ask is, every coach has had a bad year, maybe this was Pope's bad year. The team didn't fit, they didn't like each.other, they lost the only pg they had and tgey.played a top 4 SOS. That's a lot of things working against you, especially with the pressure at UK.
B-. Overall pretty good but the 2 postseason losses left a bad taste in my mouth. But he had some big wins and a very well-constructed roster so I couldn’t go lower than a B-
You're ignoring the elephant in the room, namely that recruits are shying away from Pope in the offseason and that kind of shunning begets more shunning. Did you see Draft Day? Pope is turning UK into Bo Callahan. All top recruits are going to avoid us like the plague. We're in a decline and the hill just gets steeper.
Your self delusion prevents you from seeing this very obvious phenomenon.
Well yes and no. Mostly tournament success. But a conference regular season and conference tournament championship ot both can boost a an average or below average season to a good season. I think a great season is usually a Final Foir, but yes an elite eight cam be a good seaso.... If it comes with other accomplishments
I really thought he could build off the 24/25 season and fix the things that went sideways.
He tried to recruit guys that would be good defenders, but it went the wrong way.
At least he is willing to recognize his faults to a point, but he’s still very hard headed on most things. It’s his career, not mine.
What self delusion do I have? All I'm trying to do is look at this in a positive light. Why are you struggling to understand that?
I have no idea why so many of the portal guys and hs recruits came in, looked around and went elsewhere. I don't know why and neither do you.
I have a feeling some of it is Pope's cheeseball personality, but I also THINK he could be telling these kids that they'll be playing less than 30mpg. That's his thing and it’s stupid. If he is planning on continuing that dumb substitution pattern, then he will be gone for sure. He obviously doesn't understand individual and team momentum if he continues with that method.
Like I have said a hundred times, I have the same concerns you have, I'm just taking a wait and see approach, but Pope is on extremely thin ice with me (and many others). If the same things happen in November of the 26/27 season, I'm out.
Well, Pope's first season wasn't a failure, UK's standard is high, but it isn't FF or bust.
A 3 seed and a sweet 16 is in the wheelhouse, especially given the circumstances. That was a damn good first season.
Season 2 gets a D in my opinion, because he did still sweep UT, he won at Arkansas and he made the tournament and won a game. Honestly, it is a failure given the money that was spent on the roster.
So, he has a chance to either redeem himself, or show everyone that he can't do this. It’s all on his shoulders.
I would feel so much better about Popes first season if it didn't end up in a blowout to Tennessee for the first ever time meeting up in the tournament. It's like come on man at least have a close game to a team you already beat twice. Tennessee was confident and cocky for a reason. That little ziggler pg they had flipped us the bird and fckd us after literally saying F Kentucky.
Yeah on paper I liked the mindset going into last season. We got beat up on the road in SEC his first year, so bringing in guys like Dioubate and Aberdeen made total sense. But he lost the locker room very early and I just don't think Pope is very good at coaching defense. We had the individual pieces but our defense was still crap. So I think the only path forward for Pope is to just stack the team with shooters and try to make a better version of his first squad. But it doesn't look like he's doing that so idk anymore...
The real head scratcher for me last year was the abundance of scoring and / or FG droughts. It boggles the mind that a team could go 5-10 minutes without scoring, let alone an offense-oriented team like the way Pope coaches. Like the friggin UNC game. It was so winnable if only we didn't just stop playing for a 10 minute stretch.
Games like that are why there are so many "Pope badgers"
And right before that Bama beat us by 29 in the SEC. The Gonzaga game this year made people forget about how bad that was but that was a real stinker
Both seasons, Pope's guys have had several important games where they just didn't show up. That's a culture problem and it falls at his feet.
Yup, team came out uninspired and that's on Pope.
But just like 2024, the loss to Oakland doesn’t take away from what was a good season.
I agree an a lot of things here, especially the lost team part.
But, on the defense, going into the tournament, we were rated 28th in total defense. Honestly, that's very good considering the team didn't like each other and we were missing 2 starters.
Our defense was rated higher than our offense.
Actually yea the oakland loss does take away from the good season. To most anyway. Why do you think he still catches hell about it on here. Who remembers what happened that season besides losing to Oakland?
It comes down to how you look at it. Cal flipped us the middle finger his last 4 years. He didn't care about UK, or winning titles, he only cared about individual goals and accomplishments. He refused to play the best combination of players and that sucked, but Reed, Rob and Reeves made it a fun season. Cal gonna Cal though
No, we were no longer winning anything, Cal was unhinged, he didn't get along with the donors, or Mitch and it was clear where his priorities were.
Cal left on his own too, yeah, there was pressure, but Cal clearly didn't care.
It wasn't just about wins and losses.
Looks like some of the donors don't like Pope. I don't blame them, he screwed up bad last year and got careless with a large sum of their money.