The talent level for next year's team will be ridiculously low and embarrassing.Fans will be disappointed and realizing that Pope is not the answer for KY basketball.
Portal Studs
- Thread starter SkyPrince
- Start date
Only reason I could see him coming bs k this draft is loaded and loaded with guards
And you know this how? Or is this your wishful thinking?
Wishful thinking is expecting this portal class to be any different from the last two. We’re to probably be “in the running” for a bunch of top 25 players and a day later they’ll commit to some other school. But we’ll find out that we just got a top 150 players who’ll obviously be the next Oscar Tshiebwe, so everyone will be thinking we’re gonna be under the radar top 10 team next year.
Are we really going to do this again? List every decent player who might...MIGHT enter the portal and then cry "FARRRR Pope" every time the player goes somewhere else?
Hard to believe Garrison was UK's highest ranked portal transfer last season and ranked #25.
That’s exactly what will happen. Folks are setting themselves up for disappointment.
Last edited:
If I knew Pope was a good talent evaluator, getting less regarded kids wouldn’t worry me. But it seems like he loses on on the top guys he was working hard to get then desperately scrounges around for another player just to fill out the team, fit be damned.
Number 1 lesson in the transfer portal: do not pay for someone’s high school ranking. This is going to happen with Jasper this spring. Watch he will be a top 50-75 transfer in the rankings.
To add to my last statement: if Keegan Brown was a big part in selecting the guys from the first portal class, maybe he would be a positive for Pope. But there also needs to be a defensive specialist because that team sucked defensively.
Congrats on today’s win! Y’all better beat Cal and win your first SECT in years. No disrespect intended, I just didn’t feel like Googling.
Never said our players were good at isolation but we have definitely had isolation plays all year long.
If Chandler plays 25+ minutes next year, it is hard to see us being very good. Decent, but not special.
I won’t be paying attention to crap about anyone until they are firmly committed. Pretty soon we may not even be a hat on the table (we are falling that fast under joke)
More fun to talk about possible recruits than watch this rag tag group
2012 against the Cats that won the Natty. Big day for me, I was in shock that we win that game.
Agree unless we two other elite perimeter guys and a multi-dimensional 4 which is highly unlikely.
Not by design and the players trying to showcase their iso abilities is what caused us to get blown out several times.
I don’t hate Vandy and have enjoyed watching some of their teams but that team I couldn’t stand. Probably had a lot to do with Jenkins leg kicking and flopping on every three he ever shot. Didn’t like him at all. Right up there with Grayson Allen on my hate-o-meter.
Before the portal haul Pope needs to secure his core crew of dudes.
CC
Noah
Moreno
Jela
Garrison
Johnson
Having 5-6 guys with 2 and 3 years in the system playing together would work out better than most people give that line up credit for at first glance.
Then you go hit the portal to complement that.
Would love to see a big who can enforce, throw weight, swing elbows, screen/clear space, etc for Moreno. As well as be a good interior passer. Don’t need a high dollar star for that. Need a specialist/technician.
Need a PG, probably 2 for the sake of depth so injury doesn’t derail the entire plan for the season. Again, neither need to be expensive stars. Need them to be able to run with the established guys in Pope’s system.
You can never have too many shooters. Hopefully Noah pops off. He may be a late bloomer. We’ve been so spoiled with lottery talent who pop off year one maybe 2 at the latest that we forgot CBB and our own history is mostly dudes who hang around and some don’t hit their stride till 3rd and 4th year.
If Noah is as good of a shooter as people say he is, let’s give that a go next season as Ds collapse on Moreno and eyeball Chandler.
CC
Noah
Moreno
Jela
Garrison
Johnson
Having 5-6 guys with 2 and 3 years in the system playing together would work out better than most people give that line up credit for at first glance.
Then you go hit the portal to complement that.
Would love to see a big who can enforce, throw weight, swing elbows, screen/clear space, etc for Moreno. As well as be a good interior passer. Don’t need a high dollar star for that. Need a specialist/technician.
Need a PG, probably 2 for the sake of depth so injury doesn’t derail the entire plan for the season. Again, neither need to be expensive stars. Need them to be able to run with the established guys in Pope’s system.
You can never have too many shooters. Hopefully Noah pops off. He may be a late bloomer. We’ve been so spoiled with lottery talent who pop off year one maybe 2 at the latest that we forgot CBB and our own history is mostly dudes who hang around and some don’t hit their stride till 3rd and 4th year.
If Noah is as good of a shooter as people say he is, let’s give that a go next season as Ds collapse on Moreno and eyeball Chandler.
Byington has done a great job of finding and developing young talent. He has developed their freshman class in such a way that, they are now major contributors. The freshman class coming in is a pretty strong group of recruits as well.. Keeping Tanner , and others, for a regroup would be huge. This group has the opportunity to be much better next years.
I think he should just build a new team. I'm not really high on our players this year.
I'd maybe keep Hawthorne, Moreno, Chandler and KW.
Find better players in the portal especially at guard positions. Backup or starting C and a power forward.
We're asking for more of the same as this year if we don't IMO.
Kids don't really care about that. It's all about the money now. If a school with zero tradition or fanbase (i.e. Ole Miss, Oklahoma, etc.) wanted to pay me significantly more money to go there than UK, then I don’t blame them for signing.
Probably a little of both. Any kid who doesn't see the value of playing for UK as a long term benefit is missing the boat IMO. I realize money talks. But if it comes down to us and say Ole Miss or the like, I gotta think we have an edge.
I'm just waiting.... lol
I think Pope sticks with Moreno/BG for the #5 spot, but we need another center/wing who can play against rugged opponents. And we definitely need a good point guard and make Lowe a backup.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not overly excited about Moreno as our C next year, I think we could get better C in the portal. I hope Moreno stays and works his way into a starter but he lacks a lot vs other SEC centers in my book.
Vandy is going to have a lot of trouble retaining players that are highly valued. It’s not the type of program great players turn down great programs for unless they’re paying more. Agents will use it they’ve already been doing it to a lot of programs. “UNC is interested, how much to keep him”. NIL era helps Vandy tremendously, but Vandy has a lot of foreign boosters who aren’t interested in sports and they have some boosters who are big UT guys. I think that one guy who’s been asked says he donates to Tennessee. It was on their board can’t remember the name So it’s a weird position to be in. I think they’ll improve due to NIL like most, but they won’t be able to retain most great players if they come through. Just MO.
Sort of an odd take.
Prior to NIL, we didn’t pay players.
Now, with NIL, we can pay players. That helps tremendously. There aren’t many places on earth with more money than Vandy has. We have a lot of billionaire alumni, which helps tremendously.
We had to play with one arm tied behind our backs while the rest of the SEC got to pay for players, that era is over (for now). Everything is subject to change but as it stands now, we won’t lose players due to money. If they don’t want to be here (Jason Edwards) or we don’t want them here (Jaylen Carey), that’s a different story but UK or UNC or Kansas won’t be able to pay more than we would.
Hopefully, Byington wants to be here and we start building something.
Today was a lot of fun but Arkansas played insane (15-24 from 3, lol) and Tanner played a bad game. We won’t win many when that happens.