Coaches

[Cawood86]

My pick would be Oats right now. I want Pope to be the guy. Next year is critical for him. If next year is like this one, a move has to be made.

[UKHoops01]

Agree I think you go to Golden first but I mean at this point why would he leave Florida for UK.

Then I would go for the following

1. Michigan Coach
2. Arizona Coach
3. Iowa St. Coach

I agree with this 100%. I've become a huge fan of Golden this year. Unfortunately, I think he's Billy Donovan part II. Don't think he would leave Florida,. Lloyd was the guy I wanted when Pope was hired.

4. Pearl
5. Texas Tech Coach

Huge fan of Bruce Pearl, but the time to go after him was when they went after Pope. Pearl was nearing retirement then and has since actually pulled the trigger on retirement. I didn't see him as a long term replacement for Cal 2 years ago, more of a very good stop gap until the right guy emerged for the long term.

[UKHoops01]

My pick would be Oats right now. I want Pope to be the guy. Next year is critical for him. If next year is like this one, a move has to be made.

I heard recently that the current AD for Alabama is seriously being considered for the job to replace Barnhardt. That might actually make sense if he and Oats have a good working relationship.

[rick64]

Golden
May
Lloyd

In that order.

[South jones]

Golden
May
Lloyd

In that order.

oCh from a mid major

I may be dead wrong, but these 3 are not happening. I think most successful coaches at the major level are not going to a pressure cooker like UK. REMEMBER LAST YEARS COACHING SEARCH?

Ideally, the best case scenario would be to hire a young and upcoming firebrand from a mid major and watch him blossom over the next or so.
he is out there some where, just gotta find him.

[Tomcats1990]

Would or should KY go after a guy like Jai Lucas at Miami?

[KentuckyWild2020]

Frank Vogel..

[EKYCat]

oCh from a mid major

REMEMBER LAST YEARS COACHING SEARCH?

The one where Mitch thought he had Scott Drew and then when that didn't happen he immediately turned to option 35? Yeah, I remember that one haha

[bthaunert]

Frank Vogel..

This one used to come up all the time and I never understood it. We are average right now because we brought in a guy who wasn't nearly qualified for the job because "he was one of us". And you want to replace him with a guy that has zero business being the coach here because he's "one of us". Never mind the fact he has zero college experience and that never works, since 2014, he missed the playoffs 4 out of 8 years, lost in the 1st round in 3 of those 8 years and won the title in the bubble. There is a reason he's not a head coach right now.

[KentuckyWild2020]

This one used to come up all the time and I never understood it. We are average right now because we brought in a guy who wasn't nearly qualified for the job because "he was one of us". And you want to replace him with a guy that has zero business being the coach here because he's "one of us". Never mind the fact he has zero college experience and that never works, since 2014, he missed the playoffs 4 out of 8 years, lost in the 1st round in 3 of those 8 years and won the title in the bubble. There is a reason he's not a head coach right now.

I want a coach who can recruit first and foremost period, a kid with a copy of NBA JAM can coach the team if he has the talent.

Maybe he's not the coach but we need someone with clout who can convince a highly talented athlete why they should play college basketball at Kentucky period.

If that is not Pope's strong point, then at least hire someone with REAL UP TO DATE INFLUENCE who can paint the picture why coming to UK can accelerate a path to the NBA.

Now again, we don't want a Calipari 2.0 NBA minor league team but Duke sure does seem to have this figured out pretty good...

[EKYCat]

I want a coach who can recruit first and foremost period, a kid with a copy of NBA JAM can coach the team if he has the talent.

Maybe he's not the coach but we need someone with clout who can convince a highly talented athlete why they should play college basketball at Kentucky period.

If that is not Pope's strong point, then at least hire someone with REAL UP TO DATE INFLUENCE who can paint the picture why coming to UK can accelerate a path to the NBA.

Now again, we don't want a Calipari 2.0 NBA minor league team but Duke sure does seem to have this figured out pretty good...

Duke isn't the only program who has it working. Look at Houston, Michigan, Arizona, UCONN.... They're all thriving and we're just sinking in the quicksand.

[KentuckyWild2020]

Duke isn't the only program who has it working. Look at Houston, Michigan, Arizona, UCONN.... They're all thriving and we're just sinking in the quicksand.

This is very true...

[KentuckyWild2020]

What happens if Pope manages to win 3 or 4 in the tournament this year, does that change the whole perspective???

No Lowe

No NBA 1st rounder JQ

I don't know if Lowe or JQ is as good as advertised but in all reality, any team that loses two of it's top players is mostly doomed, at least that's what I have witnessed the past 45 that I can remember watching any team play basketball.

Not a LEFLOP FAN but LEBRON has always needed more than two others to even get close to winning anything, still comes up short.

You take Pippen off the Bulls, does Jordan continue on.

No Shaq and or Kobe.

JQ was supposed to be the star player for this years team with Oweh. Forcing Aberdeen to learn point and a long list of other challenges, this been a tough year.

Florida just got a good old piece of humble pie but still, great team. Losing 3 times to them sucks but we actually played them as tough as anyone.

Moving forward, it's all about the matchups game to game. Have to agree with Calipari on this, BEAT YOUR GUY, we should be okay...

[EKYCat]

What happens if Pope manages to win 3 or 4 in the tournament this year, does that change the whole perspective???

No Lowe

No NBA 1st rounder JQ

I don't know if Lowe or JQ is as good as advertised but in all reality, any team that loses two of it's top players is mostly doomed, at least that's what I have witnessed the past 45 that I can remember watching any team play basketball.

Not a LEFLOP FAN but LEBRON has always needed more than two others to even get close to winning anything, still comes up short.

You take Pippen off the Bulls, does Jordan continue on.

No Shaq and or Kobe.

JQ was supposed to be the star player for this years team with Oweh. Forcing Aberdeen to learn point and a long list of other challenges, this been a tough year.

Florida just got a good old piece of humble pie but still, great team. Losing 3 times to them sucks but we actually played them as tough as anyone.

Moving forward, it's all about the matchups game to game. Have to agree with Calipari on this, BEAT YOUR GUY, we should be okay...

If Pope could somehow beat Iowa State in the second game, he'll get some reprieve (though, in my opinion, he's performing to his career average). That's a big if, though and I fully expect them to run us off the court, provided we're still around Sunday.

[Matt Dillon]

If this team could somehow manage to win four games in the Big Dance (I don't think for a second they will) Mitch would probably give coach Pope a lifetime contract as one of his last official acts as AD. Shucks if this team were to win four games coach Pope might deserve a lifetime contract.