What say ye, BBN? How far should we expect this edition of Mark Pope's Wildcats to go in the NCAA tournament?
Poll: With no Mitchell, how far will Kentucky advance this season in the tournament?
- Thread starter Son_Of_Saul
- Start date
26-6 or 24-8
As of right now no 15th player:
if every player is their best self sweet 16/elite 8
If 15th player is really good:
elite 8/final four
worse case scenario bounced in round of 64/32
As of right now no 15th player:
if every player is their best self sweet 16/elite 8
If 15th player is really good:
elite 8/final four
worse case scenario bounced in round of 64/32
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Another 24-12 type season with no SEC championships. Round of 32 exit. Maybe make the sweet 16 just to be outclassed when it matters again.
Sweet 16. Another blowout loss. 3 years n a row.
Excuses from the heavens by Pope and Popettes
Excuses from the heavens by Pope and Popettes
Sweet 16. If tons of 5th year guys end up playing around the country and we get none, drop it to S16/R32
I voted Sweet 16...which won't mean much for most Kentucky fans. This is year 3, so I think we have to look like a legitimate contender most of the year. You can't go 3 years and not put a final 4 caliber team together (especially since we are probably top 3-5 in NIL spending the last two years).We don't have to actually make it to Final 4, but it needs to feel like we belong there most of the season. No excuses this year.
It doesn't matter anymore
Who cares? Not far enough for 99 percent of us to be happy about. Mixed in with another 10 plus loss season. The hiring of Pope is maddening as the days continue.
This is exactly what I suspect will happen.
Losing Mitchell after we already had him committed sucks and definitely lowers our ceiling/floor. No getting around that.
Still like the roster and think they're a Sweet 16ish range team with Elite 8 or better potential if enough of our guys live up to their expectations/step up.
And before other users chime in, I'm not saying that the above should be the standard we strive for. I'm just saying I personally still like the roster (for the most part) and don't believe it to be the disaster that some people are making it out to be after the Mitchell news.
Still like the roster and think they're a Sweet 16ish range team with Elite 8 or better potential if enough of our guys live up to their expectations/step up.
And before other users chime in, I'm not saying that the above should be the standard we strive for. I'm just saying I personally still like the roster (for the most part) and don't believe it to be the disaster that some people are making it out to be after the Mitchell news.
But isn't it going pretty much exactly how most of us knew it would go the first night it was announced that Mitch was making the horrific hire?
Pope has won about 64% of his games, gotten schooled in high school recruiting over and over again, never finished in the top 4 of the SEC, and lost out on almost all of his primary portal targets (even when he had top 3 in the country money to offer).
We were all hopeful after the Duke win early in 2024, but he's crapped the bed a ton since then. It's pretty much exactly what we knew it would be. A mid coach trying his hardest but failing over and over again.
The scary part is that Pope had about $25 million to work with this off season and the best he could come up with is a top 15-20 team.
Think about that.
I still see a glaring weakness at 4 and back up guard spots. We shall see. Another 10 plus loss season and this experiment needs to end, imo.
I couldn’t fathom the hire at the time. Still can’t. It’s ridiculous. Hopefully only one more year of sucking and if the next hire is a home run, we can be back just like that. Cough Oats cough.
Would you want to play for him? I can think of a ton of coaches I’d rather play for and that aren’t on the hot seat. Doubt Hampton makes it to campus unless the new coach(hopefully) wants him. If this season turns as bad as most expect, Pope better not fight it or he will be done to most UK faithful.
We might have to wait until 2028 due to the details of Oats' buyout.
Hopefully when Pope sees he no longer has the fan or admin support, he will step aside peacefully like Cal did.
He's in way over his head. The Kusturica/Mitchell/Stokes/Collins misses were humiliating.
We will win one tournament game and go home again. Pope will be fired the following Monday.
I know our new AD and Oats have history. My only hope at this point. It would be what we expected from Popes offense on steroids and he can actually recruit.
What’s the details of his contract? I assume the buyout(obviously because that’s what you said lol.). My bad.
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Then your prediction (barring major injury issues) will likely be wrong. I'll leave it at that.
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If you're a Kentucky basketball fan and you know this is a sweet 16 team, how can you also say "I like the roster?" Am I losing my mind? What is happening? We're all just signing up for sweet 16 seasons before they begin?
There's very few fans who agree with the "Sweet Sixteen = bring back Pope for more" anthem. No one really takes them seriously outside of the other members of their myopic community. The majority of the fan base is pretty much done with Pope if he has another 22-24 win season this year.
I like the 2001 and 2002 Kentucky rosters because of Tayshaun Prince and Keith Bogans. Both made the Sweet 16. Obviously, all Kentucky fans want to win and I bet everyone would gladly sign up for a Final Four. Our personal enjoyment of the team won’t affect it one way or the other. Wish people would just quit throwing rocks at one another. It’s a bad situation with Mitchell and none of the fans contributed to it. Let’s let people enjoy the season and be optimistic if they want to, let people critique and be skeptical if they want to. The debating should be fine but the way some of us treat each other over this stuff is too much.
Hopefully, the team is better than we think. That’s really all I got — what’s the alternative? I’m definitely not going to complain another player onto the roster. The roster is done apparently since the deadline to enroll is past. Pope has to earn it to save his job. That’s also not on the fans, be kind y’all and make sure you’re not kicking your dog because your cat is too loud.
I sadly predict we'll get two more years of Pope to align with a potential Oats hire. Oats comes off the Alabama books (as far as a buyout goes) in 2028. By then, Pope's buyout would be around $9 million which could probably be negotiated. Maybe we get lucky and he just leaves after this year like Cal did; but weirdly enough, I actually think Pope is less discerning than Cal when knowing when to leave a program. Cal saved us a huge buyout when he left. I don't think Pope will do the same. I've seen him own up to very few of his mistakes. In fact, he continues to make the same mistakes over and over again by misreading recruitments. I mean, he just didn't get them kinda sorta wrong. The Collins, Stokes, Wright, Kusturica, and Mitchell misses were enormous and massively impactful. They were also publicly humiliating in a way that has truly hurt the program and turned us into a laughing stock across the country.
It seems like he has no real sense of understanding what's happening around him in the larger sense of where he stands within the program or how fans and recruits perceive him.
He's just kind of an odd guy in many ways. I'm looking forward to the end of his tenure here.
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Pope is way to arrogant for someone who hasn’t actually won anything important.
- I don’t blame Mitchell on Pope. You’re welcome to but I’m glad we tried to grab him.
- I keep my sports impersonal when it comes to the coach of my team. I don’t like calling him odd or things of that sort. I don’t think it’s required to critique him.
- Once J Batt was hired, I do believe the pendulum swung on Oats. I do not believe Oats would have been here under another circumstance but his relationship with Batt is no secret and the eventual reunion was pretty openly speculated from moment one when Batt was hired.
- I absolutely want it to work with Pope but remain skeptical as most people are. I will, however, always cheer for the best case scenario for Kentucky. In my mind, that means I will hope Pope crushed this year, next year and every other year from now on. Should such a thing fail to happen, I’d be ecstatic if Oats is next in line.
I will be respectful to the coach though, even if that were to be needed. I don’t think Pope deserves us being nasty to him. He’s trying, whether or not he succeeds.
Because the days of Kentucky being a tier one basketball program are over. You can't look at how Kentucky has done in the last decade and rationally believe Kentucky is a great basketball program. Historic yes but no longer great.
So do we concede our place amongst the greats and just accept the trash-level experiment that has been Mark Pope, or do we collectively push for something better?
I wonder if UConn had just accepted their fate before Hurley using your logic. From 2015-2021, they were pretty much dog vomit as a program.
I'm just saying you have to adjust your expectations. A sweet 16 is one of the best years Kentucky will have had in the last decade. Thats a fact.
Right so you fire everyone and change it, instead of signing up for it to be normal.
It's already normal. Has been for a long time. So many of you just want to jump from one sweet sixteen in this decade to national champion. If it was that easy lots of schools would do it. Let's try to establish a sweet 16 standard and then build upon that.
2nd round with an outside S16.
If we can land Oats I say we fire Pope the second he loses in March. I mean with our money and name Oats will put together crazy rosters. He will make final 4’s just based on scoring alone at some point.
Again, "lots of schools would do it" so you're lumping Kentucky in with "lots of schools" and accepting sweet 16's. The standard has been lowered and it won't change until we force change.
You sound miserable. I'm happy to adjust expectations to reality and reality is that Kentucky isn't a great basketball school any longer. I'm going to be happy with a sweet 16 finish because that's rational. If you have delusional expectations that aren't based in reality you are just signing up to be disappointed instead of adjusting expectations to something within reason and learning to be happy with what you have.
College basketball in the grand scheme of things is not that important and something you have very little control over. You can choose to let it be a positive in your life and be happy and satisfied or you can choose to have unrealistic expectations that you know won't be lived up to. I'm simply choosing to be happy with what Kentucky is. I hope you can learn to be happy too.
Sweet 16 is the ceiling and pope gets another year. Get ready for it
glad this new AD we have has been very vocal. Haven’t heard a peep out of Mitch light
glad this new AD we have has been very vocal. Haven’t heard a peep out of Mitch light
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