@CoachMarkPope Florida out-rebounded us by 21 in the SEC tournament last year. What do you like about the competitiveness of this group defensively and on the glass when shots aren’t falling?
@BRamseyKSR Couldn’t agree more. I’m not sure what the strategy is. You have a top 5 budget in all of college basketball and land exactly zero high school recruits inside the top 100 and parlay that with only contacting FOUR of the top 22 transfer portal players. That’s a losing strategy
@BRamseyKSR Stokes would help.
When it’s all said and done I will watch all the games, hope they win, spend money going, etc, I’m just not sure we have a culture that sustains success year over year
@BRamseyKSR I agree. It seems Pope over swung towards defense this year.
How confident are you that next season we can hold serve on defense and get back to a top 10 offense? Seems a lot to ask Given we are losing our two best offensive and defensive players.
@BRamseyKSR History says that’s where you need to be to win banners. Watching Iowa States defensive intensity certainly made it feel like we weren’t even playing the same game. But that’s baked into their culture
@BRamseyKSR I agree the offense needs to get back where it was Popes first year. But that team still lost 12 games and was basically 500 in conf. This year was better defensively but still not great. Not likely to get near the top of both metrics in one portal haul in my opinion.
@TJesse57@BRamseyKSR Maybe. I find it hard to believe defense would disqualify anyone from the NBA, and the free throw thing probably just suggest most of his shots are jump shots. Not starting doesn’t mean a whole lot to me, calipari brought 2 lottery picks off the bench this year😂
In three weeks on the job - Mark Pope has put together a Top 10-15 roster, that can score, shoot and defend at an elite level. And it's filled with upperclassmen who come from winning programs.
Anyone who questioned this man's recruiting owe him a MAJOR apology.
@JByGodRod @bsmitty423 2009-2015 was easily my favorite time as a UK fan and it isn’t even close. Not taking anything away from calipari or what he did here but that was 10 years ago. Last year our two best players came off the bench and Dillingham played 25 minutes a game in lieu of player that
The Kentucky crowd at Mark Pope’s introductory press conference.
The Arkansas crowd at John Calipari’s press conference.
Kentucky basketball is different.
@MJHaas34 Former Cal era players showing arrogance and contempt for UK is pretty embarrassing. Sure didn’t mind extracting everything this program had to offer them while they were here though lol. Including NIL money for more recent players