A little perspective on class rankings and transfer rankings

Anon1774274437

Redshirt
Mar 23, 2026
14
31
13
Going back to 2021 (since 2020 had no tourney) we can see that having a team full of high transfers or recruits is just not what is needed to win the championship. I see a lot of people on this site saying we are only going after the worst mid majors, or we are screwed since we aren't getting any top high school recruits. That's just simply not needed in this day of basketball anymore.


View attachment 1240885
 

Anon1774274437

Redshirt
Mar 23, 2026
14
31
13
Going back to 2021 (since 2020 had no tourney) we can see that having a team full of high transfers or recruits is just not what is needed to win the championship. I see a lot of people on this site saying we are only going after the worst mid majors, or we are screwed since we aren't getting any top high school recruits. That's just simply not needed in this day of basketball anymore.


View attachment 1240885
Doesn't matter with Pope as our coach
 

Cowtown Cat

Heisman
Aug 23, 2015
23,959
54,338
100
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.
In the year that the SEC was the best it had ever been. Hell, it was the best conference of ALL TIME! Butler missed 9 games, Robinson missed 12 games, Kerr missed 27 games and Carr missed 1 game, but wasn’t 100% for the entire SEC slate. Butler played several games in a sling. Butler, Kerr and Robinson were our only effective PGs. That matters, despite it being downplayed. Robinson and Kerr were out for the tournament, Butler played in a sling and Carr was nowhere near 100%. Just having a healthy Butler and Robinson, that team makes the FF IMO.
 

JwUKFan11

Heisman
Nov 11, 2011
7,301
14,747
113
In the year that the SEC was the best it had ever been. Hell, it was the best conference of ALL TIME! Butler missed 9 games, Robinson missed 12 games, Kerr missed 27 games and Carr missed 1 game, but wasn’t 100% for the entire SEC slate. Butler played several games in a sling. Butler, Kerr and Robinson were our only effective PGs. That matters, despite it being downplayed. Robinson and Kerr were out for the tournament, Butler played in a sling and Carr was nowhere near 100%. Just having a healthy Butler and Robinson, that team makes the FF IMO.
But it didn’t make the final four, and wasn’t even close. Blame the injuries if you want but that team was getting blown out before the injuries. I said it was a good year, wasn’t anything great, but even for arguments sake we say it was great, explain why this year was so bad? Oh injuries again? Yeah this Pope guy just has the worst luck in the world I guess..
 

Cowtown Cat

Heisman
Aug 23, 2015
23,959
54,338
100
But it didn’t make the final four, and wasn’t even close. Blame the injuries if you want but that team was getting blown out before the injuries. I said it was a good year, wasn’t anything great, but even for arguments sake we say it was great, explain why this year was so bad? Oh injuries again? Yeah this Pope guy just has the worst luck in the world I guess..
We were getting blown out before the injuries?! Which games was that exactly? Only one I see was the Ohio State game, in which OSU played out of their minds. That’s just flat out inaccurate.
 

Cowtown Cat

Heisman
Aug 23, 2015
23,959
54,338
100
The woke losers among us are taking over the fan base, and they want to make damn sure that UK is never successful again!
I’ll ask you again, what’s this even mean?! Or are you just talking BS?! I asked once and you never responded. I don’t see the correlation.
 

JwUKFan11

Heisman
Nov 11, 2011
7,301
14,747
113
We were getting blown out before the injuries?! Which games was that exactly? Only one I see was the Ohio State game, in which OSU played out of their minds. That’s just flat out inaccurate.
Oh so the OSU game doesn’t count all of a sudden? UKs record under Pope speaks for itself
 
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JwUKFan11

Heisman
Nov 11, 2011
7,301
14,747
113
I’ll ask you again, what’s this even mean?! Or are you just talking BS?! I asked once and you never responded. I don’t see the correlation.
He means anyone defending what Pope has done to this point must have no other motivation but to want UK to fail. It’s fine to say he has failed so far but to hope he succeeds going forward. It is not fine to defend what he has done so far and act like the fans asking for more are the problem.
 
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Jul 30, 2024
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You ignore like 15 years of data on pope.
What makes you say that I do? How do you know that?

By the way, I don’t. I just don’t think it is relevant. His 63% winning percentage and recruiting background from a mid major are an apples-oranges comparison to coaching at a blue blood major college. If you want to say he didn’t have the resume and shouldn’t have been hired, GREAT — I agree. However, he was. Now, we have a two year sample size of him as Kentucky coach. One year was better than average. One year was far below average. That’s why people like Matt Jones believes he should get a year three. It isn’t that complicated really.
 

Cowtown Cat

Heisman
Aug 23, 2015
23,959
54,338
100
He means anyone defending what Pope has done to this point must have no other motivation but to want UK to fail. It’s fine to say he has failed so far but to hope he succeeds going forward. It is not fine to defend what he has done so far and act like the fans asking for more are the problem.
Thanks for answering. I would rather HIM explain it. Since, you know, HE keeps saying it.
 

JwUKFan11

Heisman
Nov 11, 2011
7,301
14,747
113
What makes you say that I do? How do you know that?

By the way, I don’t. I just don’t think it is relevant. His 63% winning percentage and recruiting background from a mid major are an apples-oranges comparison to coaching at a blue blood major college. If you want to say he didn’t have the resume and shouldn’t have been hired, GREAT — I agree. However, he was. Now, we have a two year sample size of him as Kentucky coach. One year was better than average. One year was far below average. That’s why people like Matt Jones believes he should get a year three. It isn’t that complicated really.
What is his UK winning percentage?
 

RunninRichie

Heisman
Sep 5, 2019
28,519
68,012
113
Going back to 2021 (since 2020 had no tourney) we can see that having a team full of high transfers or recruits is just not what is needed to win the championship. I see a lot of people on this site saying we are only going after the worst mid majors, or we are screwed since we aren't getting any top high school recruits. That's just simply not needed in this day of basketball anymore.


View attachment 1240885
In order to find these types, you need to be good talent evaluators. Something Mark Pope is not. Maybe the new staff will be better at that, I'm not sure.
 
Jul 30, 2024
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Would it be fair to say it is almost identical to the rest of his career? Even though you say it’s apples to oranges between mid major and blue blood.
Apples to oranges either way. Sample size matters on things like this. We have only two years and the record also only tells part of the story. Who you play, who you beat, who you lost to matters. Think almost everyone would agree this year was bad. Think almost anyone reasonable would recognize year one was good. Again, if we don’t go into with an agenda, we can all agree on basic things:

+ Pope’s body of work at UK hasn’t been good enough.

+ Pope has shown some potential to perform this job.

+ Pope has displayed some serious concerns about performing up to the standards of this job.
 

TotheMoon88

Senior
Apr 12, 2024
539
735
93
What makes you say that I do? How do you know that?

By the way, I don’t. I just don’t think it is relevant. His 63% winning percentage and recruiting background from a mid major are an apples-oranges comparison to coaching at a blue blood major college. If you want to say he didn’t have the resume and shouldn’t have been hired, GREAT — I agree. However, he was. Now, we have a two year sample size of him as Kentucky coach. One year was better than average. One year was far below average. That’s why people like Matt Jones believes he should get a year three. It isn’t that complicated really.
One year was not better than average. How is his coaching record not relevant? You pick and choose data to prop pope up
 
Jul 30, 2024
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12 losses and a seventh place finish in the sec is not average. We all know your intent
My intent is to be honest and use objective standards that apply to all seasons, not just the coaches/teams that I like or don’t like. And 12 losses tells me nothing until I know what the schedule was. Order of finish in the SEC tells me nothing until I knew the quality of the league and opponents. If only there was a metric that measured the entire body of work for a regular season….
 
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TotheMoon88

Senior
Apr 12, 2024
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My intent is to be honest and use objective standards that apply to all seasons, not just the coaches/teams that I like or don’t like. And 12 losses tells me nothing until I know what the schedule was. Order of finish in the SEC tells me nothing until I knew the quality of the league and opponents. If only there was a metric that measured the entire body of work for a regular season….
Your intent is to prop up pope, you can say it’s to find truth as much as you want. 12 losses and seventh place finish isn’t good enough at Kentucky
 
Jul 30, 2024
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Your intent is to prop up pope, you can say it’s to find truth as much as you want. 12 losses and seventh place finish isn’t good enough at Kentucky
You don’t decide my intent, I’ll do that perfectly fine without your help. It would be tantamount to saying you have nothing to offer any conversation if you don’t like Pope. That would be a silly way to converse and frankly insulting. You can name any season and I can immediately determine using objective standards whether it was a good year or not by the regular season, postseason etc. Such a thing is very fair and it doesn’t matter what my opinion of the coach is in my methodology. As far as propping up Pope, I contest that notion. I’d consider myself very critical of Pope but cautiously optimistic about his potential. That’s very different than you’re portraying.
 

TotheMoon88

Senior
Apr 12, 2024
539
735
93
You don’t decide my intent, I’ll do that perfectly fine without your help. It would be tantamount to saying you have nothing to offer any conversation if you don’t like Pope. That would be a silly way to converse and frankly insulting. You can name any season and I can immediately determine using objective standards whether it was a good year or not by the regular season, postseason etc. Such a thing is very fair and it doesn’t matter what my opinion of the coach is in my methodology. As far as propping up Pope, I contest that notion. I’d consider myself very critical of Pope but cautiously optimistic about his potential. That’s very different than you’re portraying.
You don’t decide my intent either like you try to do. It wouldn’t matter who the coach is for me when I tell you that 12 losses and a seventh place finish is not gonna work at Kentucky regardless of who the coach is. And potential based on what? His numbers have been pretty steady throughout his career, based on that he’s probably not gonna change much. It has nothing to do with not liking pope, data tells us that he’s a mediocre coach and most likely will stay that way
 
Jul 30, 2024
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You don’t decide my intent either like you try to do. It wouldn’t matter who the coach is for me when I tell you that 12 losses and a seventh place finish is not gonna work at Kentucky regardless of who the coach is. And potential based on what? His numbers have been pretty steady throughout his career, based on that he’s probably not gonna change much. It has nothing to do with not liking pope, data tells us that he’s a mediocre coach and most likely will stay that way
I didn’t assume your intent anywhere. Scroll up.

If you see no potential in Pope — fine. Idc either way — that’s a you thing and it’s understandable.

I don’t think comparing W/L in a vacuum is reasonable but if you want to do it, knock yourself out. I’ll bet you don’t think the 2026 Miami(OH) team was better than 2017 Kentucky though. Most people recognize WHO you played matters. The 2026 SEC is nothing like previous decades. For example, these past two seasons Pope played 14 and 13 top 25 teams respectively. You have to go back 23 years to find a season where Kentucky even played as many as ten. Like I said — apples and oranges.
 
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BlueBloodKyFan73

All-Conference
Oct 29, 2010
3,757
4,598
113
Great post OP. I’ve had this discussion many times with folks and I’ll give you a fair warning. Most of the people you interact with are going to miss the point. Every team needs talent, but stacking recruiting classes and PR wins does not equate to winning at the highest level. It isn’t copium — it’s honest assessment.
Ummm we don’t have ANY stacked recruiting this year or last year. So he better get ELITE transfers or he might as well get the U-Haul loaded.
 
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TotheMoon88

Senior
Apr 12, 2024
539
735
93
I didn’t assume your intent anywhere. Scroll up.

If you see no potential in Pope — fine. Idc either way — that’s a you thing and it’s understandable.

I don’t think comparing W/L in a vacuum is reasonable but if you want to do it, knock yourself out. I’ll bet you don’t think the 2026 Miami(OH) team was better than 2017 Kentucky though. Most people recognize WHO you played matters. The 2026 SEC is nothing like previous decades. For example, these past two seasons Pope played 14 and 13 top 25 teams respectively. You have to go back 23 years to find a season where Kentucky even played as many as ten. Like I said — apples and oranges.
To quote from you “it might be telling of your intent” And how many of those games were won? How many of those games were lost by double digits? How many of those games did we get down by double digits? How many of those games did it look like pope had absolutely no game plan? HOW you play against that type of competition matters too
 
Jul 30, 2024
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To quote from you “it might be telling of your intent” And how many of those games were won? How many of those games were lost by double digits? How many of those games did we get down by double digits? How many of those games did it look like pope had absolutely no game plan? HOW you play against that type of competition matters too
I agree that it matters how you played. Duh.

We can pick things from every year that need improvement. Ultimately, I see an above average year one:

Full body of work regular season: 3 Seed, fairly significant increase over an average year, which is between a 4 or 5 seed, closer to a 5.

Full body of work postseason: Sweet 16, perfectly average.

Overall: Above average.

Choose your own methodology and rate all the teams yourself. What you’ll find is most people don’t even try to be consistent.
 

BlueBloodKyFan73

All-Conference
Oct 29, 2010
3,757
4,598
113

TotheMoon88

Senior
Apr 12, 2024
539
735
93
I agree that it matters how you played. Duh.

We can pick things from every year that need improvement. Ultimately, I see an above average year one:

Full body of work regular season: 3 Seed, fairly significant increase over an average year, which is between a 4 or 5 seed, closer to a 5.

Full body of work postseason: Sweet 16, perfectly average.

Overall: Above average.

Choose your own methodology and rate all the teams yourself. What you’ll find is most people don’t even try to be consistent.
Above average, sure man
 
Jul 30, 2024
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I don’t look at star ratings I stated last year we had NOTHING but role players and sixth men. We needed players better than OO or even with OO to be better than season one.
You said we didn’t stack recruiting classes. We performed significantly better with a much lower talent pool (by way of recruiting classes) in year one. That’s why I sent that to you. You made the argument that I was wrong to say we stacked recruiting classes but I sent you a post that I made that shows that’s exactly what we did. A top 7 high school class and a top 5 portal class, top 2 according to On3. If you’re with me that fans’ view of talent shouldn’t be bound to expectations of class ratings, I agree. Welcome to the club.
 
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Skyguyb27

All-American
Feb 12, 2008
4,654
7,735
113
The majority on this forum would be questioning Scheyer if he was our coach and we had the last three seasons he had..
I would if his teams lacked fundamentals, didn’t play offense, defense was nonexistent, and got spanked by 20+ that many times as well. Don’t really care what the coaches name is but you can tell by the product on the floor how well they are coached.
 
Jul 30, 2024
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You can say whatever you want, it was not an above average year for Kentucky
Per you? What methodology did you use?

2000
RS - Roughly average
PS - Below average

2001
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Average

2002
RS - Average
PS - Average

2003
RS - Great
PS - Solidly Above Average

2004
RS - Great
PS - Below Average

2005
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Solidly Above Average

2006
RS - Bad
PS - Below Average

2007
RS - Bad
PS - Below Average

2008
RS - Very Bad
PS - Significantly Below Average

2009
RS - Awful
PS - Awful

2010
RS - Great
PS - Significantly Above Average

2011
RS - Average
PS - Great

2012
RS - Great
PS - Ultimate

2013
RS - Awful
PS - Awful

2014
RS - Bad
PS - Great

2015
RS - Ultimate
PS - Great

2016
RS - Average
PS - Below Average

2017
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Solidly Above Average

2018
RS - Roughly Average
PS - Average

2019
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Solidly Above Average

2020
RS - Slightly Above Average
PS - What If?

2021
RS - Awful
PS - Awful

2022
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Significantly Below Average

2023
RS - Slightly Below Average
PS - Below Average

2024
RS - Above Average
PS - Significantly Below Average

2025
RS - Above Average
PS - Average

2026
RS - Solidly Below Average
PS - Below Average


^ Consistent methodology.
 
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TotheMoon88

Senior
Apr 12, 2024
539
735
93
Per you? What methodology did you use?

2000
RS - Roughly average
PS - Below average

2001
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Average

2002
RS - Average
PS - Average

2003
RS - Great
PS - Solidly Above Average

2004
RS - Great
PS - Below Average

2005
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Solidly Above Average

2006
RS - Bad
PS - Below Average

2007
RS - Bad
PS - Below Average

2008
RS - Very Bad
PS - Significantly Below Average

2009
RS - Awful
PS - Awful

2010
RS - Great
PS - Significantly Above Average

2011
RS - Average
PS - Great

2012
RS - Great
PS - Ultimate

2013
RS - Awful
PS - Awful

2014
RS - Bad
PS - Great

2015
RS - Ultimate
PS - Great

2016
RS - Average
PS - Below Average

2017
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Solidly Above Average

2018
RS - Roughly Average
PS - Average

2019
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Solidly Above Average

2020
RS - Slightly Above Average
PS - What If?

2021
RS - Awful
PS - Awful

2022
RS - Solidly Above Average
PS - Significantly Below Average

2023
RS - Slightly Below Average
PS - Below Average

2024
RS - Above Average
PS - Significantly Below Average

2025
RS - Above Average
PS - Average

2026
RS - Solidly Below Average
PS - Below Average


^ Consistent methodology.
Yeah I watched the games, I saw how they played. It was not an above average season
 
Jul 30, 2024
5,747
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Yeah I watched the games, I saw how they played. It was not an above average season
Anyone can throw an opinion doused in emotions. Can you parse seasons like I did? Did you see how lines were clearly drawn? I think at least if you don’t agree with my opinions, you could at least appreciate that. I bet if you judge regular seasons and postseasons most people won’t parse it out like that. Being consistent is very important to me.
 

TotheMoon88

Senior
Apr 12, 2024
539
735
93
Anyone can throw an opinion doused in emotions. Can you parse seasons like I did? Did you see how lines were clearly drawn? I think at least if you don’t agree with my opinions, you could at least appreciate that. I bet if you judge regular seasons and postseasons most people won’t parse it out like that. Being consistent is very important to me.
How does me saying it wasn’t an above average year mean I’m not consistent?