Why can Sean Miller build a title contender in his 2nd season at Texas but Pope can't build a title contender in his 3rd year at Kentucky.
Pope vs Sean Miller
- Thread starter 0r1c
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This one I give Pope an excuse for. Spears is from Texas, and he's been getting recruited by them for years. If Spears was from Kentucky, we'd have landed him and it would be UK that would be the title contender right now instead of an otherwise good but not great Texas team.
The NIL budgets are similar. This one was all location. That being said, Pope absolutely still needs to pop his top 5 pick cherry at some point, and soon.
The NIL budgets are similar. This one was all location. That being said, Pope absolutely still needs to pop his top 5 pick cherry at some point, and soon.
How did Pope’s third season turn out at UK? I don’t seem to recall any of the game outcomes for some reason. And I also seem to forget Miller contending for a title as Texas’ coach.
If pre-season hype was how we judged coaches by, Cal would still be here and he’d have a statue and a street named after him.
How do you know he has? Texas was loaded last year and did diddly squat. And how do you know we aren't?
Sean Miller has never won anything. He got a local kid to commit to a school with unlimited resources. That doesn’t make him a good recruiter and certainly doesn’t make him a good coach.
The only thing Sean Miller is famous for is being a sweaty pig on the sideline.
Let's assume that Spears and 2 more Texas starters get hurt.....give me the results of Texas 2026/27......how many top 20 teams do they beat? How far do they go in the NCAAT given those circumstances?
I’m not a big Miller fan. But in comparison to Pope Miller looks like a basketball genius.
It’s gonna suck next year when you can’t use that excuse huh?
Legit question. If Pope is so awful, how does he beat so many ranked teams/teams he’s supposed to lose to? We all know the Cats under-performed last year, but some of you act like Pope doesn’t know the difference between a dunk and a donut.
Hes also lost 14 games by double digits om 2 seasons and got down double digits to legit teams a lot more. His best coaching success is the ability to get down double digits and win a decent amount of them. Hes average not awful.
Texas or Sean Miller aren't Winning anything
He did better than Pope and I don't even like Sean Miller he's not as good as advertised and people want him whenever he got a 11 seed
Sean Miller was recorded offering 100,000 on the phone at Arizona for the big man recruit that wound up being his his starting center. He never won _ _it and I don't expect him to now.
Lets all hope for an injury season!
I don't put this one on Pope, i just never understood how any UK fan thought we were snagging him.
Its hard to fault any coach who loses out to money. That's why its so telling the times Pope lost while being the highest bidder.
Also, despite what most fans think UK will often get outbid. That's why its important we have a coach that can still win battles even when we aren't the highest bidder.
Its hard to fault any coach who loses out to money. That's why its so telling the times Pope lost while being the highest bidder.
Also, despite what most fans think UK will often get outbid. That's why its important we have a coach that can still win battles even when we aren't the highest bidder.
LOL!
"One and dones are worthess! Make it stop!"
"Texas is now an instant title contender now that the one and done is leaving High School early to join them!"
Shameful.
"One and dones are worthess! Make it stop!"
"Texas is now an instant title contender now that the one and done is leaving High School early to join them!"
Shameful.
The head coach of Kentucky should be able to, in his 3rd year, put a team together that the local and national media believe is a title contender based on his roster construction and Pope did not accomplish that.
While newer coaches at lesser programs, in the same conference, are doing that.
Those words have never once come out of my mouth, so who are you quoting? You just generally quote everyone as the same person?
"under performed" is an understatement. Historically one of the worst Kentucky seasons of all time and broke many bad records.
I never once quoted you. You generally reply as if you were quoted when you weren't?????
You literally replied to my comment with quotation marks and said, "shameful." If you don't specify that you're quoting someone else, it's assumed you're quoting me. That's how written language works, lol.
Nice try. That’s not how it works when there are several replies within the thread from different people. Regardless, you are mad that your thread is being called stupid from various posters. Have fun fighting them off. Out.
one has some juice; the other, not so much.
but honestly, neither is good enough to head a top 10 program (not saying that's what Texas is).
but honestly, neither is good enough to head a top 10 program (not saying that's what Texas is).
Here are career comparisons for Miller and Pope:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Sean Miller - Wikipedia
Mark Pope - Wikipedia
It’s July. We have 4 months until we play a real game. There is a new athletic director in place who isn’t going to tolerate our basketball program being bad just because we have “one of our own”. Pope is going to succeed this year or he’s going to be out of a job next spring. There is no in between. Threads like this are so pointless.
How Does any national media person know how teams will mesh in the NIL era? Just because we don’t have a top-3 recruiting class doesn’t mean we can’t be good. And once again, if pre-season accolades and rankings and expectations were so important, Cal would still be here.
Texas athletics has and will always have some of the deepest donor pockets for virtually any sport
Every single coach at UK has had at least 1 double digit loss season. Most have had 2 or more.
Pope isn’t a terrible coach. His best recruiting is ahead of him here. There are a number of things not the least of which is the new NIL era we are in that has impacted all of CBB.
Granted we expect more from the program and I personally think he is gonna deliver.
Lets hope that no team has to. Losing 3 starters is almost unheard of- and Pope has endured this twice now. If it happens a 3rd time, its time to wash away the bad luck.
You're essentially saying "It's totally fine for Kentucky, under Pope, to be a 15-25 ranked team pre-season, every year." And to have those expectations going in... You can clearly see the difference between what I said and what you keep saying. Stop saying "We don't know how the season will go." That is completely irrelevant and not at all what my post was about.
I'm specifically saying, Kentucky, under a coach in his 3rd year, should have top 5 EXPECTATIONS going INTO the season, just like Duke does every year.
The head coach of Kentucky should not be going into the season ranked behind 4 or 5 other SEC teams!
The standard has been lowered and will continue to be lowered under Pope, year after year as the apathy takes over. Kentucky basketball is over,
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Miller has been a head coach for 22 years. What exactly has he won? He had numerous loaded teams at Arizona, and couldn’t even get to a Final Four. Go root for Texas.
No, I’m saying that I don’t put much faith into pre-season rankings, especially in the Wild West that is the NIL era. I’m also saying that people who are saying Pope can’t succeed after only two seasons, one of which I would say he over-performed, the other he under-performed, and both of which had injury issues, are simply short-sighted (at best).
I have no idea how the season plays out. If it sucks, Pope’s likely gone. He knows that better than any of us. I’ll wait and judge how I think the year turns until we at least play a few games. And no, I honestly don‘t care about pre-season rankings.
What you said has nothing to do with what I said. I was talking about number of double digit losses in a season, not losing 10 or more games in a season. Hes lost 14 games by 10 or more n 2 seasons. I think it took cal until season 7 to lose his 14th game by double digits here.
As I said hes average. Never said terrible or awful.
I’ll give you a PDS score of 8. The question is are you an old guy that’s living in the past or young guy that wants everything easy.
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From what I have seen, if it sucks, there will be plenty of people on here to say, no it didn’t suck. We won a tourney game, injuries derailed us, if we had gotten the one guy, who better would we have, Pope is learning, next year looks better, blah, blah.
New for you: that’s a trap that too many on here have fallen into. The man is who he is and we all know it.