Honestly one of the few guys I wanted to portal but glad we dont have to worry about him now.
Arkansas Billy Richmond to the draft.
- Thread starter Anon200440
- Start date
Interesting, I thought he might return and Thomas be the one who left. Cal did recruit an awful lot of wings so would make sense to have the departure(s)
Richmond out, Meleek Thomas probably back to Arkansas I would guess
Dude has potential and uber athletic but I think for sure not ready for the NBA. But him leaving hurts Arkansas so I'm all for it.
Best of luck fella!
Best of luck fella!
Id rather see him back than Thomas
Wish we had kept Cal at this point. I'd love to have seen Acuff, Thomas, Richmond and soon Smith Jr. in UK blue.
Definitely would be more entertaining than whatever popes doing
he didn't have donor support, wed have more oakland and st peters losses. some of our fans are NBA crazy so I understand them wanting cal but nah I'll pass.
Me too. I was ready for Cal to be gone but I didn’t think our jackass AD would hire Mark freakin’ Pope.
yeah not getting players because of lack of donor support, playing worse schedules and getting beat by Oakland and st peters. so entertaining
true colors of all the pope haters in one thread, cal lovers. as long as we getting nba players, who cares. barf
I mean id much rather have their teams than us, they win more (sect as well), and their actual style of play is VERY fun to watch, threes and dunks
win more with crappier schedule and no major injuries and didn't we beat them last year? with acuff didn't they get blown out by Auburn, Arizona and Florida?
And our coach is still on the hotseat, stop trying to act like its sunshine and rainbows
there are plenty of coaches I wish we had . John Calipari is absolutely not one of them. You are the ultimate Cal nuthugger
right it's not really an either / OR .... there were lots of people better than Pope on paper we could have hired, BUT had we known Mitch was going to hire Pope and it was either / OR ... I would bet most of the fanbase would vote to keep Cal and let him retire same time as Mitch here at the end of the contract which would be like Now... but instead we are locked in with Pope for who knows how much longer. Another sweet 16 and he gets another year of buyout added on again.
The pope vs Old Arkansas Cal is a wash as far as wins / loses etc. ...Point is pope and Cal at arkansas equal right now, both not good by UK standards.
But I would have taken Cal if i was told do you want to Gamble with Pope for 3 years or Gamble with Old Cal for 3 years. I gamble with the hall of famer and hope maybe he randomly puts together a NIL super team and remembers how to coach defense.
In that scenario on paper it also looks better your old Hall of Fame coach retiring here instead of hiring in one of your own to eventually fire him possibly after just 3 years.
lott of hypotheticals.
Mitch just sucks.
Then you’ve given up on UK basketball competing for championships.
What did Cal do the last 4 or 5 years that you would want him back?
That's just not the case. Cal could have spent whatever he wanted. Just like Pope.
But you’re overlooking the 35 million dollar buyout you keep with Cal . I would take Pope seven days a week simply because we can get rid of him if he doesn’t pan out . We were stuck with Cal . We got extremely lucky someone took him off our hands .
Cal had the 13th most difficult schedule in the conference last year. He had possibly the 2nd or 3rd most talented player he’s ever coached.
He got to play 2 exhausted double digit seeds in the sec tournament before beating a borderline top 20 Vandy team for the championship.
He got to play 2 double digit seeds in the ncaa tournament before getting boat raced by the first decent team he played (as usual).
He had about everything fall his way and he STILL didn’t get past the sweet 16.
Cal has been to his last elite 8 . Pope may never get there either. At this point I’m saying neither will have enough success to be here .
But next year might be Popes last year whereas Cal might have been here 5 to 10 .
He wasn’t Pope and that’s enough for some. Personally I don’t want either coaching here.
Cal would have 3 years left on his contract if he was still coaching after this coming season at UK, buyout would be manageable at 27 million or less I believe. Pope's Buyout will be roughly 17 million after this year IF he doesn't make a sweet 16.... if he makes a sweet 16 his contract gets an extra year adding to the buyout amount ... and we probably keep him anyway for year 4 whether we like it or not.
but yea both aren't fit for the job at this time. The fact that we would still owe Cal 29 million after this year speaks even more volumes to how crap that contract was mitch gave him and how lucky we were cal broke the contract, you are right about that. I forgot it went to 2029, though feels like Cal was going to hang it up before playing indiana at indiana again, and retire after 2027-28 season
So yea, there is a 8 to 12 million buyout difference Pope vs Cal had he still been at UK.
Bottom line . Cal is a “has been” …….Pope might be a “never was”. lol
This is all thanks to Mitch the gift that keeps on giving....
I think most of us that wanted to change, wanted the athletic director to change before any changes at the head coaching position. Or the very least Barney had to recuse himself.
I think these numbers are wrong. After 26/27, Pope's buyout will be $13.5M. He got an extension for making the Sweet 16 in Yr 1.
Calipari's buyout would have been $33.4M if he hadn't left for Arkansas after 23/24, but it would have dropped to $13.0M after 26/27 if he was still here.
Cal is keeping kids tweeners in college vs NBA Dleague....and it's making his teams better for it