I'm not saying good players are a bad thing to have. I'm saying that if news came out that we have a starting five of players that all rank outside of top 50 and one that ranks 46 everyone would freak out. But Florida won a championship with that starting lineup.
Well we are stuck with Pope another year either way. So I agree, but if we can get rid of Mark Fox and get someone in here that is a defense guru, with the right transfers we can be alright.
i mean pope has not high ranked rosters like golden and does worse so idk ur point
If the measurement is only the final championship there will be disappointed teams over and over. I'd take Duke's season over ours any day except for the way it ended for them. If not for a bonehead play they would have been in the Final Four. Kentucky? All the winning teams have very talented players especially at least one great strong front court player and one great guard who can drive and get you a basket despite contact in crunch time. Of course it is more than 2 but it takes at least 2 elites in those positions.
The majority on this forum would be questioning Scheyer if he was our coach and we had the last three seasons he had..
True but their floor was elite 8's. Give me talent with a chance to win the title but a guarantee top 10-15 team.
What a dumb argument, Duke has been to what, 2 elite eights and a final four over that stretch? They lost 3 games this year by a combined 5 points.
This! Lmao @ “copium”! Even when the hard evidence is presented to folks, they STILL refuse to back off their stance. It’s pretty damn incredible, isn’t it?! Blah, blah, elite players! Blah, blah, five star recruits! Blah, blah, Mark Poop sucks! **** gets old.
Lmao I mean he just laid out the starting lineups of the most recent FIVE national champions and their “rankings”. Are E8s and F4s the real goal here or are titles?! Also, duke is a poor argument when judging their “success”.
If titles are the goal, then you agree with me, that Mark Pope should be fired, correct? Because if you aren’t satisfied with final 4 and elite 8. You must be ready to put “For Sale” signs in Mark’s yard.
You are ignoring the fact UF had a lottery pick in Haugh last year, and UConn had 2 in Castle and Clingan. We have 2 years of data, plus many more if we count Pope's time coaching BYU, and he has yet to put together a team capable of these claims you and a few of these other posters keep claiming. You just keep shouting about how others are doing it. That is nice and all but Pope is not them.
The goal sure isn’t sweet 16 and second round exits. Pretty sure our players portal rankings were better than some of those national championship teams so why didn’t pope win more?
I think it's two things -- quality coaching and maybe more importantly, quality TEAM building. Calipari's strategy was take the highest ranked players he could get, even if it meant having 3 point guards and no one who could shoot. That's dumb. It's about recruiting good (top 50-100) players who actually fit together as a team.
People would wonder could he get over the hump, and rightfully so , with the choke jobs.
Castle was the ONLY highly rated player of the 3, so no, nobody is ignoring ****. That’s kinda the point of this OP. Also, the first team Pope constructed was pretty damn good. Good enough to beat that Duke team AND that Florida team. That was when they were healthy, though. Yall like to ignore that fact, since we’re talking about ignoring ****.
You seem mad, which is odd. Pope had one "good" team, which still lost double digit games and peaked at a S16. He then followed that team up with a team that was higher rated and achieved less. I'm not understanding the argument. Do I hope he does good this year? Of course but nothing in his career tells us that will happen.
Cowtown that is not evidence it wouldn’t be accepted for any major institution. It’s so incomplete and doesn’t explain what it thinks it does. Teams with better players have better odds, it’s a ridiculous post. It literally shows that you’ve got a few guys who are excellent evaluators and know how to search out their needs, both still recruited top players. Hurley wanted Flagg. They are not sitting there going “well top players are bad” get #144. And I believe Golden to be one of the best evaluators in the game. Mark needs better players he can’t coach nore evaluate his needs like Golden. He needs the “top 25 cheat sheet”.This! Lmao @ “copium”! Even when the hard evidence is presented to folks, they STILL refuse to back off their stance. It’s pretty damn incredible, isn’t it?! Blah, blah, elite players! Blah, blah, five star recruits! Blah, blah, Mark Poop sucks! **** gets old.
You are so correct in your post.
UK has finished in the AP top ten 3 times in the last eight seasons and finished number 12 last season. We have fallen short of the success we all want to see but the exaggeration and lack of knowledge about the actual facts gets ridiculous.
www.sports-reference.com
UCONN can do that because they have a superior coach who knows what he’s doing, who develops the players that are ranked in the 100s, gets his teams to buy in to what he’s selling, and gets them to play hard.
Incredible. Statistics and facts that debunk the Rafters experts. Shocking!
“Yeah but WHUT about this year!? If this year is bad, that nullifies 41 years of data.”
Bottom line no sidestepping Pope has a better record than Hurley in their first years
