2026 Kentucky Wildcats Basketball: Yes, it can get much worse

[WVRed]

Yes Pope is MUCH worse than Cal.

He is a likeable guy and unlike Cal he had a pulse of the fanbase but he is honestly in over his head.

Im worried about Pope going all in on Tyran Stokes. Assuming the roster even comes together, Stokes is the type of talent that needs to be pushed and I dont see Pope being the one who can bring the best out in him. Bill Self and John Calipari are the two coaches who would fit the bill.

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[WVRed]

Rob Wright just pulled out of the portal and is going back to BYU. Reports are his visit was horrible.

Edit: Other intel says that Wright was basically using UK to drive up the price on BYU. Both schools were offering the same financially so it wasn't worth it for Wright to leave.

Saw a comment today that kids will take a celibacy pledge rather than play for Mark Pope.

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[Boston Red]

Yes Pope is MUCH worse than Cal.

Pope won 3x as many NCAA Tournament games in his first two years at UK than Calipari did in his last five years in Lexington. Pope's tenure obviously hasn't been ideal, but is it really worse than late stage Calipari? REALLY?

[Assembly Hall]

Rob Wright just pulled out of the portal and is going back to BYU. Reports are his visit was horrible.

Edit: Other intel says that Wright was basically using UK to drive up the price on BYU. Both schools were offering the same financially so it wasn't worth it for Wright to leave.

Saw a comment today that kids will take a celibacy pledge rather than play for Mark Pope.

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https://www.cbssports.com/college-ba...ext-mark-pope/

[WVRed]

Pope won 3x as many NCAA Tournament games in his first two years at UK than Calipari did in his last five years in Lexington. Pope's tenure obviously hasn't been ideal, but is it really worse than late stage Calipari? REALLY?

Its not. The difference though was in those last five years Kentucky had the players to make a deep run. Cals last team was essentially coaching malpractice with keeping two NBA lottery picks on the bench.

I dont see Calipari getting to another Final Four. To be honest I think he hangs it up sooner rather than later and pulls a Bruce Pearl and announcing it in September so Brad can take over.

Mark Pope to me is the basketball equivalent of Joker Phillips. Former player who had a solid first year and hyped the program up to where in the second year everything fell apart. The difference in football and basketball in Lexington is that fans stayed away from football to where Mitch had to make a change. Thats obviously not going to happen in Rupp but the heat the fans and boosters put on will make something happen.

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[Boston Red]

Yeah, I'm not saying Pope was the right choice to replace Calipari. But moving on from Calipari (or rather I guess creating the environment that encouraged Calipari to move on) was absolutely the right choice. Was clearly best for both UK and Calipari.

[plantmanky]

Yeah, I'm not saying Pope was the right choice to replace Calipari. But moving on from Calipari (or rather I guess creating the environment that encouraged Calipari to move on) was absolutely the right choice. Was clearly best for both UK and Calipari.

Pope wasnt a choice, he was the only one that would say yes.

[Boston Red]

Right, convincing coaches to be head coach of Kentucky basketball. Real tough sell. Just because Dusty May, Tommy Lloyd, Nate Oats and Billy Donovan didn't want to come to UK doesn't mean there were not a lot of very good coaches who would have crawled to Lexington to take that job.

[WVRed]

Right, convincing coaches to be head coach of Kentucky basketball. Real tough sell. Just because Dusty May, Tommy Lloyd, Nate Oats and Billy Donovan didn't want to come to UK doesn't mean there were not a lot of very good coaches who would have crawled to Lexington to take that job.

Thats UNC.

Scott Drew was the top choice. The more I saw of him through the process im glad he turned it down.

Danny Hurley was second but he had come off winning two national championships. He was never coming.

Donovan obviously is the great white whale but like UNC this season wanted to get through the NBA season and the portal was opening up.

Nate Oats was mentioned but was never really a candidate because he was going through a divorce at the time and couldn't move his kids out of state.

The problem was that within the time Drew and Hurley announced they were staying Kentucky had no head coach in place with the portal opening. Its the same reason UNC hired Mike Malone. All the top choices turned them down and with the portal opening they had to have someone in place.

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[WVRed]

Zoom Diallo and Alex Wilkins are the first two commits and they play essentially the same style of ball. Diallo is basically an all in move to get Tyran Stokes.

The real enigma outside of Stokes is Donnie Freeman. He has yet to commit and his agent is still shopping him for better offers and St Johns could steal him out from Kentucky.

Portal closes tomorrow so a lot of moves still to be made.

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[WVRed]

And St Johns steals Freeman right after the backup plan Sebastian Rancik got tired of waiting and commited to Florida State yesterday.

I dont know whether Pope cant close or its the agents.

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