Every head coach hire…who was your choice?

[Morgousky]

I think when the smoke clears, Cal will be regarded as a legend here. If he had left in 2019 when he should have, he would have been without a doubt.

His first nine seasons here feature some of the most consistently exhilarating highs we've seen at Kentucky, and certainly since Pitino's heydey.

It ended ugly, and that always blurs opinion in the short term.

He will certainly be seen as a guy that fostered in a great era, but it should have been so much more. Calipari just began to not care about that second ring and Pitino cared about it. That’s the big takeaway from the end of those guys person battle.

It also depends on how he does at Arkansas. If he wins a title there, and I do think he’s trying for the first time in years, he’s probably done here. For his own legacy at UK I’d advise against it, but he’s not a true UK guy and never was so I doubt he cares. Calipari cares about us less than most think. I know people who have known Calipari for 4/5 decades. Where I do believe Pitino loved this place as much as a guy like that can, I don’t believe Calipari is capable of it. So I can see where people are coming from but I doubt Calipari ever fully cares about his status here. Calipari envisions himself as a “free agent” guy. Basically if his pic was on ESPN, he sees a blue ncaa circle as his logo not the UK logo. We’ll see.

[teamchemistry15]

I wanted Donovan instead of BCG.

I actually saved a Facebook memory I had saying something along the lines of Memphis is out of the tournament, let's go get Cal.

I also can honestly say after Hurley declined that I wanted Pope. I told some friends we needed to call him and they thought I was nuts. I watched his BYU team play at Kansas one night in a hotel room and thought that we needed to be his next job. Also because he's quite the opposite of what we had, so I felt like he would be a nice change.

[Jrpross]

I was 14 when we hired Tubby. I had been watching since I was little but I didn’t know any other coaches so I was as happy as anyone at the time.

I wanted Donavan for the next 2 hires.

in 2024 I wanted Hurley then Oates. Pope was not on my radar. Thus far, he has proved me delightfully wrong.

[EKYCat]

I was 8 when we hired Pitino so that doesn't count...

Tubby
Donovan
Cal
Oats

[KYWILDCAT41035]

I was 10 when Rick came along but he was the best basketball of my life to this point during my teen years.

Tubby=Billy D (even though he was still young he was the closet thing to Rick P)
BCG= Billy D or Cal
Cal (If Cal would've been hired when BCG was we wouldn't have been talking about this 2 years later)
Pope= Hurley ( I love the Pope hire and think it will work out but at the time I wanted Hurley)

[bthaunert]

Pitino hire - I wanted Lute Olsen. I don't believe Pinto was even on the radar early in the process.
Tubby hire - I wanted Tubby
BCG hire - I wanted Billy D
Cal hire - I wanted Cal
Pope hire - I wanted Pearl

[KentuckyFlyer]

I was only a kid when Joe B followed Rupp, but it was pretty well known at the time and discussed since that if Rupp was going to be forced out, he wanted Gene Catlett to follow him. He was also a UK assistant at the time. I think he went on to coach Cincinnati or WVU. Maybe both. Beasman had basically been promised the job a few years prior when he was announced as new HC somewhere else, then almost immediately reversed course and returned to Lexington.[/QUOTE]

That's interesting, I had always thought Beasman was the choice of both Rupp and UK. I think I got that from my ole man, he was always about half shyt faced by the end of a game and probably had no clue what was really going on. He bled some serious blue though.