If Pope whiffs this year we need to grab Donovan, if we can. Sore subject for many I know, but he would win here. Things chsnge over the years and he might want the challenge.
I'll take just about anybody with a winning history. We cant be that picky when Pope is our current coach. Donovan hasn't really excited me but I reckon he would if we ended up hiring him. I think he could still succeed at the college level.
To be clear, because I don't think it completely is, the Smith in question is Dean Smith.
Probation and no NIL. Great comparison.
Year 3 will be the biggest regression. About 80% of the fanbase at least seems to have a grasp on how ugly next year is going to be. The rest are in for a rude awakening.
While the stats are great and all, most of these were back when it took a couple of seasons for the coaches to get “their guys” in there. And naturally, if you are hired as a new coach, chances are you inherited a subpar team.
Pope is what he is. Like you said he has been coaching 12 years and most games he has ever won was 25 in a season and had never won a tournament game. Be best day in Kentucky's history when the fire Pope, even better than Cal's draft day.
I would say that kind of was the case in year 1 for Pope, and he did fairly well given the circumstances.
New (2) AD's. Eli seems hell bent on hiring two for a multi faceted approach. One for fundraising and the other to focus on the athletic department priorities.
Your point has credence here with merit to Pope's age. He is no spring chicken but plenty young enough for a coach, albeit I'm not sure how that correlates to his ability to continuously improve. Some do, some don't. People are different, but i do know he's still hungry due to lack of success (wins/losses); in life, he's set.
Given the circumstances, not really. A completely new team, a historically tough schedule, some bad injury luck. 24-12 looks bad on paper, but a lot of seasons that would have been 26-10 or 27-9. Pretty similar to 2015-16, actually, except 1 round further in the tournament.
You can’t villainize the players for wanting to maximize their worth. Other programs are having no issues with the new landscape.
Probation, no NIL, no transfer portal, and having to rely on retention from a roster that lost some of it's best players to transferring out.
Every year you build a new team in the world on NIL so I don't use that excuse.
Yeah that was my first thought on reading this thread. Those numbers are interesting and do tell a piece of the story but we need the whole pie.
Yes, he had nothing to work with but leavings because of when he was hired (there was no portal then). Which is precisely why it is so amazing that his second year was so good, it brought his two-year average comfortably above Pope’s even with that terrible first-year record.
And that 14-14 was miraculous. He inherited a 5-7 win roster, and most realistic fans thought 10 wins was asking for a lot. I'm pretty sure he actually received some national COY votes after that season.
Oh, no one else realized that Rick was working without NIL and was on probation. Thanks for that!!!
I loved parts of both of those first two years, but roster was not the issue. His second year did not have much in roster improvement. It was more experience in the system. Something NIL does not really provide.
That exists but acting like Pope should have been fired after year two is shear stupidity and that is what many here have advocated for. That is why the rest of us get so tired of the stupid redundancy. Give it a rest and let’s see what happens.
Yep, can’t compare today to the past. May and Cig both won it in their second years. When did that ever happen pre transfer portal?
