Theiro

Son_Of_Saul

Hall of Famer
Dec 7, 2007
45,736
101,121
113
Tearing those rims up, at the next level. Wish we could have had him for three years.
I wish we would have just kept Calipari at this point. Even in a good year, Pope is going to be a 25ish win, Sweet Sixteen playing for maybe an Elite Eight kind of coach. Cal's doing the same stuff down at Arkansas. If he stayed, we would have had Acuff and now Smith Jr., etc. Plus Cal's impact on the program post-coaching would have been immeasurable from a PR/recruiting/NBA standpoint.

I didn't think it was possible, but we did in fact downgrade, and given how bad Calipari was trending, that's saying something.
 
Jun 23, 2026
169
371
63
I wish we would have just kept Calipari at this point. Even in a good year, Pope is going to be a 25ish win, Sweet Sixteen playing for maybe an Elite Eight kind of coach. Cal's doing the same stuff down at Arkansas. If he stayed, we would have had Acuff and now Smith Jr., etc. Plus Cal's impact on the program post-coaching would have been immeasurable from a PR/recruiting/NBA standpoint.

I didn't think it was possible, but we did in fact downgrade, and given how bad Calipari was trending, that's saying something.
I wish we would have just kept Calipari at this point. Even in a good year, Pope is going to be a 25ish win, Sweet Sixteen playing for maybe an Elite Eight kind of coach. Cal's doing the same stuff down at Arkansas. If he stayed, we would have had Acuff and now Smith Jr., etc. Plus Cal's impact on the program post-coaching would have been immeasurable from a PR/recruiting/NBA standpoint.

I didn't think it was possible, but we did in fact downgrade, and given how bad Calipari was trending, that's saying something.
You don't crawl back to your ex that cheated on you because your current girl is also cheating on you. I believe Pope's two yrs are pretty similar to what Cal has or would do here. Except we dont have the disappointment of watching future NBA stars waste our time with hopes of a tweak will get them playing to their potential. And you don't have Cal talking to us like we're stupid because we expect the best players to play.

Im thrilled he is gone and if Pope doesn't work then we go find someone to get it where it needs to be. Cal simply wasn't living up to the standard and nothing he's done at Arkansas has wowed me. And no amount of NBA lottery picks will make me feel better about UK being mediocre.
 

Son_Of_Saul

Hall of Famer
Dec 7, 2007
45,736
101,121
113
You don't crawl back to your ex that cheated on you because your current girl is also cheating on you. I believe Pope's two yrs are pretty similar to what Cal has or would do here. Except we dont have the disappointment of watching future NBA stars waste our time with hopes of a tweak will get them playing to their potential. And you don't have Cal talking to us like we're stupid because we expect the best players to play.

Im thrilled he is gone and if Pope doesn't work then we go find someone to get it where it needs to be. Cal simply wasn't living up to the standard and nothing he's done at Arkansas has wowed me. And no amount of NBA lottery picks will make me feel better about UK being mediocre.
More like the 80%/20% rule. We left the wife who couldn't give us the 20% for the new wife that can't give us the 80%.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CELTICAT

Skyguyb27

All-American
Feb 12, 2008
4,862
8,086
113
Or some ppl understand you arent going to win every year, but will enjoy the privilege to have a top 10 roster every year loaded with stars.
Duke, Kansas, and a few others make deep runs and have a real chance to win every year. That’s all most of us ask for. Instead of being laughed at for knowing we would quit to people dreading seeing us in their bracket, big difference.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LongliveWildcatDon
Jun 23, 2026
169
371
63
More like the 80%/20% rule. We left the wife who couldn't give us the 20% for the new wife that can't give us the 80%.
Ehhhh. I don't think there's a dime worth of difference between what Cal has done in the last 2 yrs from what Pope has. Yes he has a SEC Championship. Some would at least like to have had the 5 stars but for me that made boring underachieving seasons less tolerable. I guess that could at least give you some hope. To each their own though.
 

BluWildcatz

Redshirt
Jun 16, 2026
44
46
18
It's interesting watching revisionist history unfold in real time. In Cal's first two years at Arkansas, Arkansas had the #3 and #4 recruiting classes. Cal had #1 recruiting classes for his first 5 seasons at Kentucky. Some people might even consider his 2013 class to be the greatest recruiting class of all time, which featured 8 recruits, 6 of whom were 5 stars, 5 of whom started in the national championship game — the modern fab 5, some people called it. That's obviously never been done again, and unless the sport drastically changes, never will be done again.

While Cal was at Memphis, Kentucky had several recruiting classes that were rated higher than his. Some people even say his teams were overperforming with respect to talent at UMass (although I cannot comment because that was far before my time.) So, no, his historic recruiting dominance did not start until he got to Kentucky. Keep in mind, recruiting was much different back then. What constitutes a #1 recruiting class now is technically considerably worse than what constituted a #1 recruiting class back then, due to a rebalancing of college basketball via NIL, 5-in-5, etc. Duke and Kentucky had a complete monopoly over college basketball. We had teams back then, which, by today's standards, would have been like having Arkansas' current recruiting class plus Tyran Stokes and Ryan Hampton, all on the same team....

tl;dr Cal has always been a great recruiter, and still is to this day, but his Hall of Fame level dominance from 2010-2020 (his prime), which ushered in a CBB revolution (everyone started trying to pay freshman), happened because of Kentucky, and claiming otherwise is just cope....
 
Jun 23, 2026
169
371
63
It's interesting watching revisionist history unfold in real time. In Cal's first two years at Arkansas, Arkansas had the #3 and #4 recruiting classes. Cal had #1 recruiting classes for his first 5 seasons at Kentucky. Some people might even consider his 2013 class to be the greatest recruiting class of all time, which featured 8 recruits, 6 of whom were 5 stars, 5 of whom started in the national championship game — the modern fab 5, some people called it. That's obviously never been done again, and unless the sport drastically changes, never will be done again.

While Cal was at Memphis, Kentucky had several recruiting classes that were rated higher than his. Some people even say his teams were overperforming with respect to talent at UMass (although I cannot comment because that was far before my time.) So, no, his historic recruiting dominance did not start until he got to Kentucky. Keep in mind, recruiting was much different back then. What constitutes a #1 recruiting class now is technically considerably worse than what constituted a #1 recruiting class back then, due to a rebalancing of college basketball via NIL, 5-in-5, etc. Duke and Kentucky had a complete monopoly over college basketball. We had teams back then, which, by today's standards, would have been like having Arkansas' current recruiting class plus Tyran Stokes and Ryan Hampton, all on the same team....

tl;dr Cal has always been a great recruiter, and still is to this day, but his Hall of Fame level dominance from 2010-2020 (his prime), which ushered in a CBB revolution (everyone started trying to pay freshman), happened because of Kentucky, and claiming otherwise is just cope....
Cal was a different coach back at UMASS in the 90's. I truly believe that when he got to UK he had more interest in being a GM more than a coach. Somebody that wanted to assemble the talent and then sit back and do interviews rather than coach.

You would see his desire to coach come out sporadically either when his back was pushed up against the wall or coaching against someone like Pitino. But to often he "rolled the ball out there."
 
  • Like
Reactions: KyKevin

KyKevin

All-Conference
Dec 28, 2021
2,004
3,096
113
This random thread has “UK fans” pining for Calipari. I wish I was surprised by that.




I would have like to have had Theiro, I don't care about Cal, and what he does at Arkansas. But the man can still recruit. I don't know if that's pinning for Cal, but it is what it is.
 

Beatle Bum

Heisman
Sep 1, 2002
42,883
65,257
113
I would have like to have had Theiro, I don't care about Cal, and what he does at Arkansas. But the man can still recruit. I don't know if that's pinning for Cal, but it is what it is.
I wanted Adou to stay and be a leader on Pope’s first team. I think he made the wrong move going to Arky.
 

FilsonCat

All-Conference
Apr 5, 2007
3,527
4,318
113
I wish we would have just kept Calipari at this point. Even in a good year, Pope is going to be a 25ish win, Sweet Sixteen playing for maybe an Elite Eight kind of coach. Cal's doing the same stuff down at Arkansas. If he stayed, we would have had Acuff and now Smith Jr., etc. Plus Cal's impact on the program post-coaching would have been immeasurable from a PR/recruiting/NBA standpoint.

I didn't think it was possible, but we did in fact downgrade, and given how bad Calipari was trending, that's saying something.
If Cal had stayed, I doubt he would have gotten his fire back. He was way too comfortable and in a real rut. We'd have kept "dog stroller on Richmond Road" Cal. Not the "lost 40 lbs and hungrier" version you see at Arkansas. And most definitely not the version of Cal that pissed John Chaney off so much that he threatened to kill him and tried to choke him at a press conference.
 

Johnnie Africa

All-Conference
Feb 27, 2003
1,005
3,129
113
If Cal had stayed, I doubt he would have gotten his fire back. He was way too comfortable and in a real rut. We'd have kept "dog stroller on Richmond Road" Cal. Not the "lost 40 lbs and hungrier" version you see at Arkansas. And most definitely not the version of Cal that pissed John Chaney off so much that he threatened to kill him and tried to choke him at a press conference.

Lost 40 lbs and hungrier but started last year 0-11 in the SEC and lucked into the tournament and then choked and then this year the last two top 15 ranked teams he played he lost by a combined 58 points. Cal absolutely sucks,and just because Pope sucked last year doesn’t make Cal any better. If Pope sucks this year we’ll move on to a coach that’s better than both.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LongliveWildcatDon

CatBearPig

All-Conference
Apr 26, 2024
861
1,922
93
To each their own. Cal from 2009- Final for night 2015 was a lot of fun. And I get why guys enjoy having those loaded rosters. I just found Cal ball awful to watch and he was such an ***. I’m not sure why everything has to be black and white. If you liked Cal great, if you didn’t that’s all good too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LongliveWildcatDon
Jun 23, 2026
169
371
63
I

entertaining though, plus doing better than pope so
3 games difference between the two in the last 2 yrs. One is a supposed HOF coach and the other is trying to handle his first major job. One has NBA lottery picks and the other has dealt with a rash of injuries. One is on the hot seat and the other coaches a garbage program where fans have to come here to learn about basketball.

Enjoy being "entertained" by loaded rosters that never live up to there hype.
 

Anon200440

Senior
Mar 28, 2026
389
755
93
3 games difference between the two in the last 2 yrs. One is a supposed HOF coach and the other is trying to handle his first major job. One has NBA lottery picks and the other has dealt with a rash of injuries. One is on the hot seat and the other coaches a garbage program where fans have to come here to learn about basketball.

Enjoy being "entertained" by loaded rosters that never live up to there hype.
Ill take that all day over rosters with no juice against elite teams