In my opinion, and I do have some facts to support the opinion, Pope's biggest coaching flaw is something that could be corrected but probably won't be corrected. It probably won't be corrected because it's a problem with his philosophy of coaching and recognizing you're doing something wrong is something few humans ever do. Pope played in college for a coach that played 10-11 players and wore teams down with full court pressing and fast breaks all game.
That strategy worked great then but now it has a couple problems(aside from the fact we don 't have the depth of talent Pitino assembled):
1. Teams handle the press better now because more bigs can handle the ball and the knowledge of how to beat a press has become common knowledge.
2. All the tv timeouts and play reviews make for so many stoppages of play that you really can't tire teams out anymore because they have so much rest time during the game.
But that's the way Pope wanted to coach and the way he has at every stop. It's not a bad strategy for a mid major. After all, they really rarely have true star players so the gap between your 2nd best player and your 10th player might not be so great. At Utah Valley and BYU Pope typically played his best player 28 minutes and the 2nd and 3rd best maybe 24 minutes and the 10th guy would average 14-16 minutes. That philosophy was still in effect going into this year as Pope said he could play 12 guys and intended to play that many players.
For several reasons this mind set just won't work at a place like Kentucky. For starters, it might explain some of our problems in recruiting star players. A star player isn't going to want to go to a place where he might only play 6-8 minutes per game more than the 10th guy on the team. But Pope seems to be married faithfully to this philosophy. It's why a guy like Brandon Garrison can't play badly enough to be relegated to the bench. It's why Pope is making stupid statements like blaming first half runs on fatigue. It's not that he's a stupid person; it's that he's defending something stupid. If the problem is putting players not good enough on the floor and momentum killing mass substitutions, then that's an indictment of his entire coaching philosophy with regard to how he uses his bench. So it must be something else. It seems like he's settled on fatigue as the problem but that is not the problem.
It's one thing to desire to play all your guys but that's a separate thing from having that many good players. In my opinion, this Kentucky team should only be playing 6 players. Garrison, Johnson, and Noah should only be playing at garbage time.
Before I finish I want to tell a true story that illustrates the point. A few years ago the Cincinnatti Reds had a manager that had come over from the American League and there he had a great bullpen and his strategy was to use that bullpen in the 8th and 9th innings regardless of how the starter was doing. He had great success with this strategy but one year with the Reds he had a horrible bullpen and they had about 40 blown saves and many blown wins because he used the exact same bullpen strategy with a terrible bullpen as when he had a great one. That's what Pope is doing now in continuing to play some of his bench. He's using the strategy a coach with a great bench would use without having a great bench.
That strategy worked great then but now it has a couple problems(aside from the fact we don 't have the depth of talent Pitino assembled):
1. Teams handle the press better now because more bigs can handle the ball and the knowledge of how to beat a press has become common knowledge.
2. All the tv timeouts and play reviews make for so many stoppages of play that you really can't tire teams out anymore because they have so much rest time during the game.
But that's the way Pope wanted to coach and the way he has at every stop. It's not a bad strategy for a mid major. After all, they really rarely have true star players so the gap between your 2nd best player and your 10th player might not be so great. At Utah Valley and BYU Pope typically played his best player 28 minutes and the 2nd and 3rd best maybe 24 minutes and the 10th guy would average 14-16 minutes. That philosophy was still in effect going into this year as Pope said he could play 12 guys and intended to play that many players.
For several reasons this mind set just won't work at a place like Kentucky. For starters, it might explain some of our problems in recruiting star players. A star player isn't going to want to go to a place where he might only play 6-8 minutes per game more than the 10th guy on the team. But Pope seems to be married faithfully to this philosophy. It's why a guy like Brandon Garrison can't play badly enough to be relegated to the bench. It's why Pope is making stupid statements like blaming first half runs on fatigue. It's not that he's a stupid person; it's that he's defending something stupid. If the problem is putting players not good enough on the floor and momentum killing mass substitutions, then that's an indictment of his entire coaching philosophy with regard to how he uses his bench. So it must be something else. It seems like he's settled on fatigue as the problem but that is not the problem.
It's one thing to desire to play all your guys but that's a separate thing from having that many good players. In my opinion, this Kentucky team should only be playing 6 players. Garrison, Johnson, and Noah should only be playing at garbage time.
Before I finish I want to tell a true story that illustrates the point. A few years ago the Cincinnatti Reds had a manager that had come over from the American League and there he had a great bullpen and his strategy was to use that bullpen in the 8th and 9th innings regardless of how the starter was doing. He had great success with this strategy but one year with the Reds he had a horrible bullpen and they had about 40 blown saves and many blown wins because he used the exact same bullpen strategy with a terrible bullpen as when he had a great one. That's what Pope is doing now in continuing to play some of his bench. He's using the strategy a coach with a great bench would use without having a great bench.
