How do you get intimidated on Rupps rafters? Are we deadass
Pope's SOS and performance so far at UK
- Thread starter paulcalhoun_rivals397471
- Start date
You definitely do not recognize when you are typing it unless your entire game is just to troll.
Most of us just want a coach that will have us number 1 or 2. Not even in the country.....just in the SEC. It's possible. Just gotta remember this is Kentucky basketball we're talking about.
There are plenty of posters who have straight up said they are afraid to start a post trying to be positive because they know you guys will do exactly what you are doing here.
Well the second part sure..I don't think you're a drug addict...but you do call people angry all the time for having a normal conversation. You're not the only one tho so no biggy.
The guy has only been here two seasons under very difficult circumstances. He may be the guy to get us there or he may not and a change will be made in due time if not.
You better check again if you think the current coach is doing better than Pope. He had arguably one of the best players in the country and lost the first round of the tournament.
Calipari won the SECT last season. I'd kill for that.
Well Richie if you're gonna put 12 losses up there, you need to put a sweet 16 appearance and high school recruiting has been poor but we've got the second best portal recruiting this year. Last year was a bad year. There's no doubt of that, but the year before was a solid year.
Whining and attacking = "those who don't agree with @paulcalhoun_rivals397471"? Cool.
Lacks the mental or emotional capacity to handle a different viewpoint than his own. Don't agree with him? Be prepared for his name-calling retorts.
Do you even attempt to follow along? He was clearly referring to Kevin Young.
I was referring to the BYU coach because I believe that's what the message was about, but I could be wrong
Yea because believe it or not that means something. Just like the fans that booed in Bridgestone because they care. BBN would kill to spend an entire weekend in Nashville and bring home a banner. Yea it's not the national championship but at Kentucky we are supposed to win banners. Their boy Mark Pope said that in his introductory pep rally
Folks that are afraid to type something on a message board might need a little time away from said message board.
Just because you refuse to admit you're FOS with your abundance of Popesplaining doesn't make it false.
So if you are in Bridgestone and 19,999 fans are booing and you're sitting there not booing do you think you're right? Some people go against the grain for absolutely no reason at all. It never gets you anywhere.
Now you can be alone on other things in life and be just fine but some things are common sense. When you're coach is embarrassing the program he's gonna get booed even if Paul and Bum think it's morally wrong.
Paul would not boo- He thinks you have to have blind loyalty to a coach that is under contract. He cherry picks stats- very carefully mind you- but he always has ample excuses (injuries, schedule, etc) that offset Dope's actual on court performance.
You are just pulling things out of thin air to complain about. I never posted any complaints about the booing at Bridgestone.
Holy crap I thought you were calling everyone crybabys the entire thread for booing and stuff but maybe that was just bum. If so I was wrong and apologize.
How does your comment dispel the fact ( FACT) that he has played the toughest schedule UK has ever played 2 years straight? With massive injury both years. Then beat more top15 teams that anyone ever has??
The OP gave a you Fact. Then you argue your opinion.
It’s OK to admit he’s done something good. He doesn’t Need to be beaten down with every comment. Especially when some facts say otherwise. He hasn’t been perfect, but he also hasn’t deserved how lots of BBN wants to hate on everything he does.
I’m not a “booer” at games or watching in public, although I do act a fool sometimes when watching games at home. With that being said, if there was ever a game I understood it, it would be the Gonzaga game in Nashville.
It wasnt meant to dispel anything. It was meant to bring attention to the fact that Popes “successes” always have to be explained at length. Why? Because it’s really not all that successful. His original point was there should be patience. Pope is getting a third year. Should he have an equivalent third season to his first two, he will be gone and that will be well deserved.
Pope won what? 6 games against T15 teams? And lost 8? Another poster pointed out his win percentage against those teams or T25 teams was far lower than Cals. But he had more wins. Why? More opportunities.
My issue with him has ALWAYS been he’s just mid. Always has been. For every “success” there has to be an explanation. For every good win there’s always some head scratching loss. Here’s another fact. A FACT, as you say. The dude has lost 26 games in two years. You can’t Popesplain that away. Not at UK.
If Pope gets 3 more seasons, we will be so busted.
A new coach will be hired, we will resume our rightful place in the top 5 of basketball, Paul Calhoun will disappear, and people will look back with some combination of embarrassment, anger, frustration, and bewilderment (depending on their views today) when it’s revealed he was a UofL bot planted here to convince us to keep Pope around as long as possible.
Nothing else makes any sense. In fact, I suspect he can’t be the only one.
A new coach will be hired, we will resume our rightful place in the top 5 of basketball, Paul Calhoun will disappear, and people will look back with some combination of embarrassment, anger, frustration, and bewilderment (depending on their views today) when it’s revealed he was a UofL bot planted here to convince us to keep Pope around as long as possible.
Nothing else makes any sense. In fact, I suspect he can’t be the only one.
I think there are times that you actually DO have to explain success further. Otherwise, we’d all agree that Rick Pitino did a pitiful job coaching in 1990 when his first team went 14-14. Or we’d say Coach K was among the worst coaches for going 9-17 in 1980. Regardless of where anyone lines up on Pope, the “please don’t give me context” approach is baffling.
The 2025 season — a success IMO. If you look exclusively at a W/L record, it certainly won’t appear to be one. You need…context.
False, yet again. Your desire to stick to a simpleton approach devoid of context or nuance is very transparently meant to push your agenda.
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What does strength of schedule matter when you average 16 points per tournament loss since you came to Kentucky, have never finished top 5 in the conference, have lost 26 games in two years, have never landed a top 10 recruit, and have a career 64% winning percentage after 11 seasons as a head coach?
Seriously. The whole intent of this thread is an attempt to call off the dogs on Mark Pope. I can't recall one time when it felt like Kentucky was the favorite in a legitimate matchup with an elite team.
Seriously. The whole intent of this thread is an attempt to call off the dogs on Mark Pope. I can't recall one time when it felt like Kentucky was the favorite in a legitimate matchup with an elite team.
I think the SOS does matter. If it didn’t we’d see that at least one of those teams on the top of the list would have single digit losses.
None of that calls the dogs off on Pope. Such a statement just causes unnecessary division — as far as I can tell, virtually every Kentucky fan agrees that we want more and expect more from Pope.
As far as the 64% career winning percentage, we have to acknowledge 9 years of that were spent with midmajor resources and more than a quarter of those midmajor games were spent turning Utah Valley from complete dumpster fire to conference challenger.
Pope will be defined by what he does at Kentucky and should not be punished for taking a promotion to BYU shortly after doing the hard work of building a program at Utah Valley.
Also worth noting — the 64% argument is a weak one. It tells a “what” but not a “how” on a topic that demands the reason more than simply the result.
https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/mr-63-why-context-is-inseparable-from-the-statistic.8878496/
I always enjoy your comments, even when I disagree with them. You think outside of the box, and I like that. Yet let me ask you is it weak to make an argument that Mark Pope, at the ripe ole age of 53 (soon to be 54), might turn out like Coach K, Hurley, Lute Olsen, etc.? Pope was 7 years older when he started at Kentucky than Hurley was when he started at UConn. Self was 40 when he started at Kansas. Dean Smith was 27 when he started at UNC. Izzo was 28 when he started at MSU. Olsen was 48 when he started at Arizona. Coach K was 33 when he started at Duke. The list goes on. We have a guy who will be 54 this September leading a top 2 program, who has never won more than 75% of his games in a single season (UK has a 76% overall winning percentage, as you know), who has never signed a top 10 recruit, who has never advanced past the Sweet Sixteen, and who continues to fail at landing elite lottery picks.
Also, it should be noted almost all of those programs you mentioned were in disarray, with a few exceptions like the Duke program Coach K inherited. None of them were bluebloods (not even Duke at that time). None of them were knee-deep in top 10 NIL cash to work with.
So I wouldn't call it "weak", when your entire argument is "we can't predict" what a coach will do, so maybe Pope gets it done at an older age than all of them, at a school where he hasn't had a top 5 conference finish in his first two seasons and where he hasn't signed one top 10 player in three recruiting cycles. While your comment is true, it's just not the same as what Olsen, Izzo, Hurley, Golden, etc. inherited. They inherited garbage bins with very little expectation and most of them were in their late 20s through mid 40s when they took over those programs. Pope inherited the opposite of that, with the money to instantly win at a higher level, at an age that was older than all of them, and it most cases, MUCH OLDER than all of them.
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I’ll be frank… do I think it is LIKELY that Pope develops into a coach that resembles Coach K, Hurley, Sampson, etc? No I do not. Those types are rare, but it is the level of coach we hope for given our program’s history. I think that’s why Pope having a shorter leash is fair — I certainly don’t support the idea that he’ll be here no matter what. I think he will need to perform this year or the fanbase will mostly turn on him. I just don’t think we have seen enough to honestly say how good/bad he will be at Kentucky yet. There have been very promising things to hang your hat on about him and there have been struggles that we aren’t used to dealing with in a coach. Time to perform and prove he can do it.
As for being 54 — he’s still really young in terms of being a head coach. I don’t personally believe him being as old as he is affects him assuming he: 1.) Is willing to adapt to the current landscape of CBB, 2.) Has the awareness to know what works and what doesn’t, 3.) Has the traits to continue growing. Being honest, it’s tare to see coaches start their careers so late, so it’s hard to really say how much it affects his ability to succeed. But we have seen coaches become elite at an advanced age before so there’s precedence on that front.