Vandy is undefeated &ranked in top10. Time to consider the future of Kentucky Basketball.
Hire the Vandy Coach
- Thread starter RedwoodHigh
- Start date
If they are undefeated how are they not number one? I thought everybody had been beat this year including the almighty Michigan
Vandy has had a very weak schedule and that's why they're not ranked higher. That said, their weak schedule didn't hurt them at all vs Bama. Last year's National Champions (Florida) also had a weak non conference schedule..and they went on to win the whole thing. It might make for some boring blowouts but maybe UK should consider playing weak *** non conference schedules.
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Blowing out weaker teams has to be better for team bonding and chemistry than getting blown out by Gonzaga Louisville and M state
YOU CANT HAVE HIM!!!!
Byington is the real deal, boys. Hopefully we give him the resources he needs. We have all the money he needs.
Byington is the real deal, boys. Hopefully we give him the resources he needs. We have all the money he needs.
Vandy hasn’t had the murderers row of opponents but they’ve actually played a number of decent teams: UCF (ranked), Vcu, St. Marys, SMU (ranked), Wake. Sure they haven’t played/beat a top caliber opponent until tonight to get the exposure, but the schedule is actually well-crafted to be challenged. It’s not really their fault they’ve blown the doors off teams by being just much better. I’ll say this, I’ve known Mark Byington and a couple assistants for years dating back to their time at Ga Southern and traveled with them to games at JMU. He’s taken some of the most downtrodden programs and turned them into relevance. Before going to JMU they were a total afterthought and he turned them into the top of CAA/sun belt and won a NCAAT game. I was in Bahamas earlier this year at the battle 4 Atlantis. Teams like VCU and St Marys are ncaa caliber, but they totally destroyed them.
Do I think Byington is a great fit, well he’s learns from Bobby Cremins and has NBA connections, but I also don’t know that he necessarily would want to deal with the pressure that is UK. But he will absolutely have Vandy contending on an annual basis while he is there. Check out his offensive rankings as a coach .
These kind of knee-jerk reactions are of no help. Every year there is some coach who has a very good season, and people say "hire him", often the next season he struggles. I like the Missouri coach, I'd consider him if/when we have an opening. He was one of those guys his first year at Missouri, but his 2nd year wasn't Missouri last in SEC.
Yeah let’s hire another guy with no ncaa tourney wins because they beat Alabama that’s genius
I understand your point. It appeared we hired Billy Gillispie strictly because TAM beat Louisville in the NCAA tourney.
I don’t personally want him, but Vandy will never spend $20 million on a basketball team.
Yeah I would think we would at least TRY to aim higher and get a proven head coach like Bruce Pearl but our ad is retarded so I dunno. Pope not gonna be fired anyway
Looks like they are proving in football and basketball that you don’t have to if you pick the right players and coaches.
Some of you are still under the misguided opinion that we get to pick who we want to poach, either as players and coaches. It isn’t that way anymore. Just look who we have representing our program now.
Not sure why you “thought” that, but you need to check again.
So you think Mitch called every moderately successful coach in college basketball, at least 2-3 dozen worth and every one of them told him, “Sorry, but no thanks”?
Like who thinks like that? Some of you are seriously acting like Mitch Barnhart painstakingly called every coach in the country and every one of them refused.
If you look on Reddit, that’s basically what other fans are saying. That somehow every coach in the country except Mark Pope wanted the job.
You’re safe… Mitch would ask for a blood test, and see testosterone in the results, and cut him from consideration
Let me ask you this: Did we get who we wanted? Nope? Did we get our second choice? Nope? Third? Hmm. No, they settled on Pope. UK is not who they were even a few years ago. That’s gone.
Don’t kid yourself that we can go get whoever we want. Hell, they’re throwing cash around all over and still can’t get a commit.
You’re being absurd and you know it. Mitch Barnhart didn’t call dozens of coaches. He probably didn’t even call more than 2. We literally went from Scott Drew telling us “no” to Mark Pope within a few hours.
LSU and Penn State had no trouble finding good to elite coaches for their football programs, so why can’t Kentucky for its basketball team? And we don’t even have the governor involved like LSU did.
It wouldn't matter, if UK did hire him and the first time he lost 2 games in a row, half the people on here would be saying he needs to be fired.
You could be right. Nobody here knows who he called. But to me if it happened that way, that’s dereliction of duty in my mind.
And I don’t think he called dozens. At all. I do think he settled after getting turned down.
Big guy you come here often and we are welcoming. DO NOT start that ****. We all know what has been spent and the product we are witnessing but do not start with this garbage just head back to your board. I am quite confident if we went after your guy, we would be successful.
My point, which was apparently missed, was that it won’t require $20,000,000 to win a Natty and just because you spend $20,000,000 that doesn’t guarantee you one.
Sorry to offend you.
you know we're a sensitive bunch at the moment. Having the freakin' conference chess team wax our asses across sports isn't a great place to be.
For the short term, give me Bruce Pearl. He’s got a good five years of high-level basketball left in him. I think he would be super motivated to win a national championship. If you can’t get Bruce, I say you go for a long-term answer and get a young up-and-coming coach. My choice would be Jai Lucas.
Vandy is the real deal & their coach will either get paid more to stay or he’ll end up at a BlueBlood with a big time contract- just like their football coach.
We need your coach. It’s nothing personal — we are asking for you to do the right thing. We are giving you Pope and you’re giving us Byington. Byington’s methods are old news anyway — we are giving you a coach with cutting edge analytics that aren’t publicly or widely available. Imagine playing each of your players in four minute sessions, replacing them all with hockey line changes and collecting data for a full twenty minutes each game. That could be you!!!! Better take the deal while it is being offered. You have 48 hours to agree and we will throw in a washing machine and a cornhole set.
Apparently the stats say they are good somehow.
Sorry, bro…
I know this sucks. Being a big basketball fan and having gone through a brutal stretch of 6-7 years, I know…
Hopefully y’all get it right and go on a run in March. I’m not as out on Pope as most of y’all are but maybe I’m being too naive.
I have a full analytical breakdown of the efficacy of this washing machine. Vandy needs to sign before I change my mind.
Have you watched us play?
You can’t take anything away from the last search or any search that Brainfart runs. He’s such a walking screw up that coaches that coaches would turn it down just because they don’t want to work around him. If the same thing happens when a competent AD does a search then you’ll have a point.
Hmmm, while at JMU , previous to Vandy job, he did win the Sunbelt tournament and eliminated Wisconsin in the ncaa tournment to lose to Duke in MSQ.
i know him since I Iive in Virginia. He also beat UVa, MSU in Michigan while at JMU. He has family ties with Izzo and is very level headed coach . Different style than Pope.
his teams are guard oriented, play fast tempo and prepares the games very well based on opponent strengths and weaknesses.
He would not be a bad coach but he will require a premium to leave Vandy for Kentucky.
He earned the right to coach at Vanderbilt. Also does Vanderbilt have more NIL than we do?
If we can’t bring in Byington, can we at least bring in Jerry Stackhouse as a security guard?
