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Injuries aside. What doomed this team?

Tri-Countycat

Tri-Countycat

All-Conference
Jul 1, 2025
1,282
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Hindsight is 20/20. But not developing players early in the season really hurt this team. You put JJ at point and actually coach him with what you need and want as a coach, and it isn’t NBA showtime step backs. Or roll with Chandler at point and get him attacking the rim, the only thing he wanted to do was shoot 3s. Having DA at point was the lazy way to do it. Pope just never developed anything that this team could do well, but Pope allowing terrible shots and not teaching his team. Kam was misused and had a ton more to offer, his handle wasn’t bad and could attack the rim. I’m rambling but Pope just did a terrible job.
 
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FatCatMan

All-Conference
Feb 19, 2026
1,355
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Let’s be honest: Pope never taught these guys any fundamentals. He relied heavily last year on older guys already knowing what to do, but these guys didn’t have that level of knowledge and Pope never bothered teaching it. We sucked at virtually every facet of the game, even free throws, which we used to give Cal a hard time over.
 
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Jimmy James

Jimmy James

Junior
Jul 3, 2025
71
316
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ZaytovenCat

ZaytovenCat

All-American
Apr 25, 2013
23,882
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There were those of us back in August that tried to tell yall that the roster he brought in wasn’t good enough. Not only was it not talented enough but it was horribly put together. We desperately needed a legit #1/2 scorer and outside shooting threat. Adding even just Wilkerson would have made this team look much different. You just can’t win with 1.5 decent 3pt shooters and that’s what we had.
 
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TomTraubertsBlues

All-American
Oct 13, 2014
4,890
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FatCatMan said:
Let’s be honest: Pope never taught these guys any fundamentals. He relied heavily last year on older guys already knowing what to do, but these guys didn’t have that level of knowledge and Pope never bothered teaching it. We sucked at virtually every facet of the game, even free throws, which we used to give Cal a hard time over.
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We haven't had a strong fundamentals coach since Smith. He had other weaknesses though. Cal gets talent and lets them play, but he's very weak on Xs and Os, and we all knew that.
 
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FitchandMurray29

All-Conference
Dec 11, 2021
2,395
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Too many players with fatal flaws:
-backup combo guard that couldn’t play point
-6 foot 5 PF that can’t shoot
-7 foot center that isn’t big enough to dominate inside yet too slow to move
-a shooting 4 that can’t shoot
List goes on and on

The injuries can’t excuse everything but that’s most of the story.

Of the 22M we spent, only 2 players had impacts on their teammates imo…Lowe and JQ. I think Lowe had the quickness and passing ability to create shots for others. JQ would’ve had a presence that changed how teams attacked us, taking stress away from teammates on the defensive end.

The other guys were mainly just average, low impact players. Oweh had significant plus and minus impact but his scoring downhill doesn’t really help any of his teammates lol.
 
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BleedBlue747

Redshirt
Dec 5, 2025
56
49
18
I think there can be too much nil money. Players can lose the fire that got them there driving around in a 200k car..
 
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FitchandMurray29

All-Conference
Dec 11, 2021
2,395
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loublue22_rivals308424 said:
I think overall, a theme from Pope's first two rosters has been SLOW. We are severely lacking in quickness and speed. Last year's team could cover it up with shooting, this year not so much.
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Agree with this. Our dumb media kept talking about how much more athletic we had gotten. The roster we ended up with wasn’t athletic in the slightest. Obviously that would’ve changed with a healthy Lowe/JQ but the rest of the players wouldn’t have magically gotten quicker or more athletic
 
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U

UKortho

All-American
Oct 13, 2015
4,994
9,549
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Tri-Countycat said:
Hindsight is 20/20. But not developing players early in the season really hurt this team. You put JJ at point and actually coach him with what you need and want as a coach, and it isn’t NBA showtime step backs. Or roll with Chandler at point and get him attacking the rim, the only thing he wanted to do was shoot 3s. Having DA at point was the lazy way to do it. Pope just never developed anything that this team could do well, but Pope allowing terrible shots and not teaching his team. Kam was misused and had a ton more to offer, his handle wasn’t bad and could attack the rim. I’m rambling but Pope just did a terrible job.
Click to expand...

I am convinced that JJ was encouraged by Pope to take those “show boat” shots. He never stopped taking them, and Pope was clapping after a couple of them.

Not getting a PG that could shoot (and have Lowe be a back up) hurt.

Jelavic is a starter? Seriously…for UK. That hurt.

Paying JQ $2MM or whatever was huge- but Pope would have overpaid some other 7-8th man.

His coaching and his coaching betas killed us. Boom anyone? Spare me.
 
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Tri-Countycat

Tri-Countycat

All-Conference
Jul 1, 2025
1,282
2,733
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loublue22_rivals308424 said:
I think overall, a theme from Pope's first two rosters has been SLOW. We are severely lacking in quickness and speed. Last year's team could cover it up with shooting, this year not so much.
Click to expand...
That was a glaring problem all year. Our guards were all slow. Speed matters.
 
D

Dward13

All-Conference
Feb 5, 2008
10,172
1,505
72
Catlogic1552 said:
Moreno, Jelavic, and Johnson didn’t improve one iota.
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Noah actually regressed from last season.

And I know he had some moments, but i thought Garrison got worse as well.

Player development in general in both seasons has been lacking. The only players i’d say for sure got better these two years were Butler and Oweh.

Carr, Noah, Garrison, Johnson, Williams, all arguably got worse.
 
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MarkPftw

All-American
Nov 19, 2016
5,247
6,772
96
Mark "The Dope" Pope. I mean, c'mon..this team had a National Title winner, FOUR players that made it to the Sweet 16 last year, 1 player that made it to the Final 4 two years ago and an Elite 8 last year. This team had plenty of talent and real experience. They just had a moron of a Coach coaching them like a complete and utter ***** *** ***** and they turned soft and turned to making excuses just like him.
 
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peterpiper09

All-Conference
Mar 19, 2006
1,042
2,077
112
Injuries caused the deformation of what Pope had to work with. Oweh is a good player, but not a good team player. Same for Aberdeen. We watched all year people wide open never got the ball, which led to deficits, which led to players not getting developed.
 
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FitchandMurray29

All-Conference
Dec 11, 2021
2,395
4,855
61
UKortho said:
I am convinced that JJ was encouraged by Pope to take those “show boat” shots. He never stopped taking them, and Pope was clapping after a couple of them.

Not getting a PG that could shoot (and have Lowe be a back up) hurt.

Jelavic is a starter? Seriously…for UK. That hurt.

Paying JQ $2MM or whatever was huge- but Pope would have overpaid some other 7-8th man.

His coaching and his coaching betas killed us. Boom anyone? Spare me.
Click to expand...
I think he encouraged him to shoot to try to get some value out of the kid that couldn’t do anything else.

He did not get any value…lol
 
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Genediesel

Genediesel

Sophomore
Mar 18, 2022
203
172
43
Tri-Countycat said:
Hindsight is 20/20. But not developing players early in the season really hurt this team. You put JJ at point and actually coach him with what you need and want as a coach, and it isn’t NBA showtime step backs. Or roll with Chandler at point and get him attacking the rim, the only thing he wanted to do was shoot 3s. Having DA at point was the lazy way to do it. Pope just never developed anything that this team could do well, but Pope allowing terrible shots and not teaching his team. Kam was misused and had a ton more to offer, his handle wasn’t bad and could attack the rim. I’m rambling but Pope just did a terrible job.
Click to expand...
Nah, completely disagree about DA.

DA turned out to be a pretty damn good point guard. Good assist to turn over ratio. Good clutch shots. Decent shooting and driving. Decent handles.

DA at point is one thing that actually worked out this season.

Chandler can't play point. Not good enough handles. Not as good of a passer. Not a good driver. His strength is spot up threes. His skills would never transfer to PG.

Additionally, JJ can't play PG either. He is WAYYY too selfish as a player. He wants to drive or jack up bad threes immediately as he touches the ball. He really should have played even less than he did during the back half of the season.

Lastly, JJ is just too tiny and weak to play ANY position in the SEC currently. He looks like a child on the court.

JJ also can't play defense. He only made shots in the first half of the season. He doesn't pass. He takes bad shots. He's too short and weak to enter the lane. He needs time to develop. He needs to get stronger with better decision making.

Please explain to me your logic in how Pope could have developed Chandler or JJ into a better PG than DA became, and how having DA NOT be the point guard would allow him to help the team more than DA was able to as a PG.

IDK, I basically disagree with your entire comment.
 
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BGCATFAN2012

All-American
Aug 19, 2020
3,765
5,299
113
Well the basic art of dribbling the basketball 🏀 was like nasa work for this team. 20 turnovers is beyond pathetic and we haven't had a point guard in 3 years now. I dont wanna tell myself we are still 5 years away from fixing this mess but we are UK and nobody gives a **** but us fans. No way Pope looks us in the eyes and sales us a full glass of hope for next year. We as fans know were the program and product is and its in the dumpster. Someone steal our team back so the March Madness last longer then round of 32.
 
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