Is Pope's Ceiling the Sweet Sixteen?

[blueheretic]

I've run several scenarios thought AI.

All of them end with Pope having a ceiling of the Sweet Sixteen.

All caveat with "unless Pope makes significant philosophical changes in recruiting and playing style".

Specifically who he recruits (doesn't recruit Elite players) and how he plays them (too many players and doesn't get the rotation down to 7 to 8 dudes).

No matter what, no predictions of tournament success past the Sweet Sixteen.

I even tried to tweak arguments in his favor and it's pretty consistent.

They're just models and AI isn't yet fool proof but I've been using it for the football team over the last couple of years and it's been pretty darn accurate there.

I wouldn't bet on an AI prediction yet. lol

[Pobilly]

Do not trust AI for anything and I sell AI Products. lol

Anyway: I think your run is one of the possibilities. If Pope gets the right combo (just like IU football 2025) then his ceiling is all the way. But if running off what he has done so far then yes. But do not like locking people down like that.

If UK makes NCAA tourney this year, I do not assume anything, and he is around for year 3 and makes the tourney, then run that same AI. See where it shows up.

But love the question.

[ganner918]

Clearly no. If healthy, our ceiling last year was higher than sweet 16. We were definitely capable of an elite 8 with a puncher's chance of a final four.

[samsdad]

If Jim Boeheim won a championship, Mark Pope can.

[blueheretic]

Clearly no. If healthy, our ceiling last year was higher than sweet 16. We were definitely capable of an elite 8 with a puncher's chance of a final four.

That old If game. Love it. Then there is the reality that Pope led Kentucky to the Sweet Sixteen. Might I add, that it was Pope's only Sweet Sixteen as a coach.


Kentucky's ceiling is one thing. Pope's is another.

Pope's ceiling at Kentucky is still another.

There is nothing clear about it. But these are the actual results thus far:

Kentucky = Championship Program
Pope = Make the tournament but never win a NCAAT game Coach

Kentucky + Pope = Sweet Sixteen (1st Year)

This year? I'll still be surprised if Pope takes this team to the tournament much less the Sweet Sixteen. There is a long way to go to actually get into the tournament. Even if Pope does coach this team to the tournament, it will be a low seed that won't lend itself to a deep run. I'm not certain where the "clearly no" comes from. It is far from clear.

Kentucky could elevate Pope if he steps out of himself and lets it.

Thus far, I see nothing about Pope that leads me to believe that he will be able to use Kentucky to elevate his coaching game the way that Pitino or Calipari did.

It seems more a case of Pope leveling out the Kentucky power than the other way around.

The power of Kentucky is that it gives you resources to get Elite. Pope hasn't shown as a coach that he comprehends this.

He's still not recruiting the elite. He's not going after the best. He seems like he's intimidated and doesn't want to recruit the Elite. Like some strange way too sober combination of Tubby Smith and Billy Gillispie.

He's just paying a lot of money for a lot of good players but not great.

The only player that he's brought in thus far who could be called elite would be JQ and that is not really panning out due to the injury that he already had when Pope recruited him in the transfer portal. Not a lot of success with other elite/great players.

[blueheretic]

If Jim Boeheim won a championship, Mark Pope can.

Jim Boeheim got that championship with a generational talent who went on to become a 10 time NBA All Star.

They don't come around all that much and Pope doesn't seem capable of recruiting them.

[blueheretic]

I can't believe that T.J. Ford was the 8th pick in the NBA Draft. lol I do remember wanting him to come to Kentucky, though.

And Darko Milicic went #2.

BEFORE WADE, Anthony and Bosh.

What were the Pistons thinking???

[blueheretic]

Do not trust AI for anything and I sell AI Products. lol

Anyway: I think your run is one of the possibilities. If Pope gets the right combo (just like IU football 2025) then his ceiling is all the way. But if running off what he has done so far then yes. But do not like locking people down like that.

If UK makes NCAA tourney this year, I do not assume anything, and he is around for year 3 and makes the tourney, then run that same AI. See where it shows up.

But love the question.

I'm not locking him down. I'm asking a question.

Only Pope can lock himself down and only time will tell what happens.

I'm looking at his past history and his current actions and trying to figure out what Pope is or might become.

I'm fairly decent at seeing patterns. What I see does not excite me.

I don't see you guys rating
The kind of mate I'm contemplating
I'd let you watch, I would invite you
But the queens we use would not excite you

AI is a tool. Nothing more.

[bthaunert]

With what he has shown in his coaching career to date, yes, he's a Sweet 16 coach. Nothing that he has done says otherwise. He's finished 5th, 5th, 5th, 5th and 6th in conference the last 4 years and is probably on target to do that again this year. Until he proves otherwise (which I hope he does), he's a Sweet 16 coach.

[Jload]

Old computer addage" Crap in crap out" There is simply no way to predict what can happen in a basketball game much less a career.

[thebluestripes]

sadly a sweet 16 sounds like a prettygood year for this team.

[BJD]

If Jim Boeheim won a championship, Mark Pope can.

No fan of Boeheim but his teams had an Identity. And didn’t he get to 4 FF’s?

Pope’s teams have no identity. Not on offense or defense. And they don’t play hard. Nor prepare.

As far as the OP’s question. I believe that not only is the sweet sixteen his ceiling, last season will be his only one.


I can only hope to be wrong. But I will not spend another dime on tickets to watch a Pope team play.


We were in MSG last season. We were in Rupp for Arkansas. We were in Bridgestone for the SEC.

This season we were in Bridgestone for Gonzaga.

Just completely lost in those games. Not prepared in any of them.


And anyone thinking it’s changed didn’t watch the Vandy game last week.


We have not missed the SEC since it started back in 1979. We will not go this year. Or again as long as Pope is coach.

I just cancelled our room downtown this evening.

I have also been to every FF that UK has played in since 1978.

I had a room reserved in Indy for this year too. I cancelled it today also.

Pope has disrespected UK tradition and embarrassed UK basketball.

There is no shame in getting beat. But to just mail it in over and over for two seasons is just unacceptable.

Pitino’s first team went 14-14. Undermanned every game. And UK fans loved them.

I misspoke on going to every SEC tourney. We were not eligible Pitino’s first 2 years so we didn’t go then.

But if UK was in it, we were there. Not now.

[blueheretic]

Old computer addage" Crap in crap out" There is simply no way to predict what can happen in a basketball game much less a career.

I don't know.

I predicted Calipari and Tubby Smith.

I knew after the Wisconsin loss that Cal would be all downhill and no more FFs at Kentucky. When he "flirted" with UCLA, I prayed that they'd let him go.

I knew that Tubby Smith would never again reach an FF after the '99 Michigan State game. People on WildcatFaithful absolutely hated when I repeated this.

I don't think it's terribly difficult to see where a program is headed.

I called it in '99 and I called it in '15.

If you watch, you can see program patterns and coaching patterns.

I see some of the same things in Pope. Refusal to adapt. Self belief that blinds. Unwillingness to step outside of comfort zone in coaching. Inability to recruit complete teams. There are signs.

That's not saying that the Stars might not align on a 6 game run. Anything is possible but is it probable.

What I've seen of Pope thus far, I don't see anything beyond the SS. I'll give him one lucky break to the Elite 8.

As long as Pope is here, Kentucky will not rule the SEC. I don't think Kentucky is an Elite Program with Pope. Meaning no FFs and no NCs. LIkely not even Elite 8 tournament runs.

Pope is reminding me more and more of a polite, poor man's John Chaney out of Temple.

I also knew that Todd Golden was going to win a Championship. I just hoped it would be at Kentucky. Golden is who I wanted when Cal left for Arky.

Pope was not a merit hire. Pope was a Mitch Barnhart panic hire.

[Pobilly]

I'm not locking him down. I'm asking a question.

Only Pope can lock himself down and only time will tell what happens.

I'm looking at his past history and his current actions and trying to figure out what Pope is or might become.

I'm fairly decent at seeing patterns. What I see does not excite me.



AI is a tool. Nothing more.

No AI is a bad tool. I have had to deal with for longer than I would like to discuss. I watch it every day misread data and get it wrong. I am in communications. I have customers that see the commercials, want the new toy, and when I sell the new toy i explain to them this toy is broken. It is about 75% correct at best in our field of work. Hopefully it gets to the 5 9s but I doubt it.

Now for Pope (at UK) you only have 1 and a partial year. I do not see how you can use data from Pope at Utah Valley State and BYU for his ceiling at UK. Does not compute.

You have a small window of results and they were, about what i expected year 1. Year 2 is a crap shoot so far.

When we (our company) look at product and look at what we offer our customers we do not look a just the name driving the brand. I have to go deeper, find out what that big name purchased to offer the new product (as typically they do no actual building of the product but first incorporate the product to their offerings as a 3rd party app and then purchase like look at what we have done. Then I look at support of their product . It is worth it weight. Then we purchase a demo or office version, try to get into beta testing with the product and have feedback to the product. Finally offer to our customers.

[blueheretic]

No AI is a bad tool. I have had to deal with for longer than I would like to discuss. I watch it every day misread data and get it wrong. I am in communications. I have customers that see the commercials, want the new toy, and when I sell the new toy i explain to them this toy is broken. It is about 75% correct at best in our field of work. Hopefully it gets to the 5 9s but I doubt it.

Now for Pope (at UK) you only have 1 and a partial year. I do not see how you can use data from Pope at Utah Valley State and BYU for his ceiling at UK. Does not compute.

You have a small window of results and they were, about what i expected year 1. Year 2 is a crap shoot so far.

When we (our company) look at product and look at what we offer our customers we do not look a just the name driving the brand. I have to go deeper, find out what that big name purchased to offer the new product (as typically they do no actual building of the product but first incorporate the product to their offerings as a 3rd party app and then purchase like look at what we have done. Then I look at support of their product . It is worth it weight. Then we purchase a demo or office version, try to get into beta testing with the product and have feedback to the product. Finally offer to our customers.

I don't disagree about AI. I used it to check math in some classes that i was taking. It was wrong about 30% of the time. lol

I cursed it out and told it that it was an idiot.

Second try, it usually got it right. Sometimes, it took three tries.

You def have to check it and, that makes me wonder what use it is at times.

AI is def in it's initial stages.

It once told me that Derek Rose was a point guard at Kentucky. LMAO