Tell me again why he's the right man for the job when he cannot recruit to save his life?
Pitino had 23 total losses in his last five years at Kentucky. Pope will have more than that in his first two years.
- Thread starter Son_Of_Saul
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It's absolutely confounding that this is happening. You can't sugarcoat it
Because he took over a team that had become a laughing stock, and got it going the right direction,
He built the same team that was the laughing stock.
How many top recruits does he have coming in next year? Is that going in the right direction?
Just stop. Pope is getting better every game. He’s facing much better competition than Pitino.
SEC was a joke when Pitino coached here.
Your talking to a guy that would shine little Ricky’s shoes with his tongue if he asked. Never seen anyone so stuck in the past.
Florida, Mississippi State, and Arkansas were all Final Four teams when Pitino was there. Arkansas won a title and also a runner-up. It wasn't as deep as it is now, but Pitino crushed it and he backed it up by going 22-5 in the NCAA Tournament.
Try again.
If you can't get a top 50 high school recruit then it's hard times. BYU a lot better since he left. You can't win with disgruntled number 5 or 6 best players on good teams wanting to make more money. Those people are who can be role players to help elite talent. Other teams would pay more to keep them if they couldn't do without them.
You mean stuck in the past like a grown man who still regularly watches wrestling?
How many Pitino have his first two years I honestly don't remember, but I think it was a lot. And yes, he had to rebuild a team on probation and Pope has had to rebuild a team as well. Also Pope beat Pitino this year didnt he
pope wins big and loses big. beating tenn, ark, duke, gonzaga are nice....but nice isnt the assignment. i dont have much confidence in pope delivering on expectations. but he will get a 3rd year no matter what, we just have to hope he performs.
He actually only had 20 total losses in his first two years, and they were both probation years.
Pope has already tied that in the NIL era where you can replace rosters in two months.
Pitino was here 8 years. He only lost more than 7 games once - in his first season.
pope will probably get another 16M-20M for the 2026 roster. that will probably be in the top 5 in money spent. he is currently tracking like the Mets vs the Dodgers, but all he needs is to strike gold one time. he has 1, maybe 2 years to do it.
retain: williams, moreno, chandler, hawthorne and maybe jelavic. lowe if he is fine coming off the bench. keep costs at around 5M
spend the remaining 8M-10M on a PG / PF / wing scorer / back up big man. probably will need to overspend to get the best dudes
retain: williams, moreno, chandler, hawthorne and maybe jelavic. lowe if he is fine coming off the bench. keep costs at around 5M
spend the remaining 8M-10M on a PG / PF / wing scorer / back up big man. probably will need to overspend to get the best dudes
You were literally crying last year the SEC was too hard now and hoped some of the coaches would get hired elsewhere.
Pitino was our best coach since Rupp. By far.
Pope is gonna ruin my thesis that any non drunk will win a title here.
You mean stuck in the past like a grown man who still regularly watches wrestling?
Nitro thinks it’s real lol. I may unblock him to see how bad he is making a fool of himself. Nah, just joking Nitro. Not reading your **** ever again.
BYU has lost 6 out of the last 8. They sure are progressing.
The talent at BYU has probably gotten better, but the results are pretty similar. They had a lot of hype preseason because of Dybantsa, but unless they win the B12 tournament they'll probably have 10 losses again which is exactly where they've been for the last 15 years.
Pitino's last 5 seasons at UK is arguably the best half of a decade stretch since Wooden was at UCLA.
Cal's first 5 years here were far worse than Pitino's last 5.
Cal's first 5 years here were far worse than Pitino's last 5.
Pope offensive systems to be successful requires:
1) multiple players that can shoot the 3
2) Big that can pass
3) players that have been in his system multiple years in order to run it efficiently
last year ,#3 was covered by having super experienced players.
last year team they did t have defensive toughness. Pope tried to address it by getting Mo Diabate, JQ, DA And returning Garrison and OO. He obviously mismanaged the 22 millions spent on this team, since he didn’t have the conditions 1, 2, 3 met.
unfortunately, it took Pope all pre SEC games and few SEC game to realize that the he built a team that doesn’t fit his offensive system. Now that’s coaching….because you should be able to adjust your style based on the type of players you have.
now that Pope eventually gave up on his system and he playing to the strength of current roster, create offense via iso for OO, DA, run few things so Chandler can shoot the 3 or post play for MM our offense looks some better.
unfortunately, pope wasted a lot of time. Our players still:
-have to tell each other where to go on the floor. Frustrating since we are on Feb 14.
- dont know how to defend pick and roll or go under screens living 3 pts shooters wide open
- rebound with one hand or the bigs bring the ball down
- make silly mistakes in reading defense
- don’t push the tempo or don’t press full court
- don’t know to play zone
- don’t shoot FTs at decent %
in an era of massive roster turnover the coach needs to be able read his team fast so he knows what works and what doesn’t . Pope is still learning …
on the current roster, we don’t have a dominant player, or a NBA 15 pick talent that can play….Next year, we didn’t recruit anything. Chandler has progressed and developed nicely , MM has promising skills… everyone else is either work in progress or questionable because of injuries, playing time ,etc….
I would keep MM and Chandler plus develop JJ ,KW, Jela……. Mo, Garrison are role players…JL i would not touch again… JQ is gone…
the big question who is Pope bringing to make next year better than his first 2 Years?
Pitino tried to help Pope in so many ways… Pitino would have kill it at Kentucky with 22 mil budget,,,,
1) multiple players that can shoot the 3
2) Big that can pass
3) players that have been in his system multiple years in order to run it efficiently
last year ,#3 was covered by having super experienced players.
last year team they did t have defensive toughness. Pope tried to address it by getting Mo Diabate, JQ, DA And returning Garrison and OO. He obviously mismanaged the 22 millions spent on this team, since he didn’t have the conditions 1, 2, 3 met.
unfortunately, it took Pope all pre SEC games and few SEC game to realize that the he built a team that doesn’t fit his offensive system. Now that’s coaching….because you should be able to adjust your style based on the type of players you have.
now that Pope eventually gave up on his system and he playing to the strength of current roster, create offense via iso for OO, DA, run few things so Chandler can shoot the 3 or post play for MM our offense looks some better.
unfortunately, pope wasted a lot of time. Our players still:
-have to tell each other where to go on the floor. Frustrating since we are on Feb 14.
- dont know how to defend pick and roll or go under screens living 3 pts shooters wide open
- rebound with one hand or the bigs bring the ball down
- make silly mistakes in reading defense
- don’t push the tempo or don’t press full court
- don’t know to play zone
- don’t shoot FTs at decent %
in an era of massive roster turnover the coach needs to be able read his team fast so he knows what works and what doesn’t . Pope is still learning …
on the current roster, we don’t have a dominant player, or a NBA 15 pick talent that can play….Next year, we didn’t recruit anything. Chandler has progressed and developed nicely , MM has promising skills… everyone else is either work in progress or questionable because of injuries, playing time ,etc….
I would keep MM and Chandler plus develop JJ ,KW, Jela……. Mo, Garrison are role players…JL i would not touch again… JQ is gone…
the big question who is Pope bringing to make next year better than his first 2 Years?
Pitino tried to help Pope in so many ways… Pitino would have kill it at Kentucky with 22 mil budget,,,,
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Pitino also erased Coach K and the runs he was on. One of the things rarely discussed. He took the program of the decade right out from under coack K and was turning int the top name brand in the sport over coach K.
pope is not half of the coach Pitino was back then.
How many did Pitino have in his first two years? Let’s compare apples to apples and not cherry pick.
What was the number of wins for Cal and Pope at the same point at their new places I saw last week? The same?
I’m confused by the question. Pitino took over a team gutted by the NCAA and didn’t have an NIL war chest. Pope took over a program in pretty good shape, was given a war chest, free transfers, and still struggled to land players.
There is no comparison in Pitino and Pope. Pitino is one of the greatest, came in off probation and took team of the decade away from coach K.
Pope isn’t even capable of something like that. Pope is nearly in year 3 with that war chest and sitting unranked, again. Same war chest, no signed recruits, rejected at every turn. And player evaluation? Pitino is the goat of player evaluation. Pope? He’s whiffed badly at roster construction and player evaluation. I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying? And cal is washed, why are we comparing outselves to a 66 year old washed up guy at Arkansas? This is a blue blood program.
Actually you are wrong. Compared side by side both had the same results in championships, final fours and elite eights. Their records were very similar in fact.
I think the Pope pumpers, the little we seem to have on this board, don’t comprehend that when we criticize the direction of the program, it all started under Cal. His last years were putrid. And Pope really hasn’t proven he’s any better so far. In fact, we are losing worse now than we ever did under Cal
Absolutely not but he’s done as bad there as Pope has here with infinitely better talent. And to compare Pitinos last five to Popes first two while ignoring his rough beginning is dumb.
stop saying "with better talent" as a way to diminish what a coaches done, do u think teams like duke care that they have good talent, or arizona
I'm not all in on Pope by any means but FFS you're comparing arguably the greatest 5-year stretch of UK basketball (with the exception of 1946-1951) and saying "well this isn't nearly as good". Well no $h!t it not as good! There are very few periods that were anywhere close to that
But didn't we want to improve over Cal? Wasn't that the point?
It's not at all. That's the standard we want to get back to.
What rough beginning? You can literally buy a brand new roster. You can bring players with you with instant eligibilityvia the portal. You can grab HS and international players as always. This whole rough beginnings ******** is tiresome.
Look around. Other coaches are building contenders a lot quicker.
Two years of probation is equal apples to apples with two years within instant oatmeal NIL?
I don't think so.
Even so, Pitino had 20 total losses in those first two probation years, which will be 4 to 7 less than Pope depending on how he finishes this season.
I'm not discussing Cal. You can start a thread where you do, but that's not the comparison in this thread.