Vicky Graff Photo
When Mark Pope needs support, Rick Pitino is there.
Remember when Pope was hired as Kentucky’s coach after John Calipari left and it was not an overwhelmingly popular hire with UK fans at first. However, Pitino, Pope’s coach on UK’s 1996 national championship team, put a message of strong support on social media backing Pope and Big Blue Nation immediately got on board.
Pope needs Pitino’s blessing again after Kentucky lost to Louisville and Michigan State in eight days and trailed in both games by 20 or more points. Pope seemed overmatched at times against Michigan State coach Tom Izzo in New York Tuesday night and looked befuddled in his postgame press conference
“Michigan State made 3’s (11 of 22), which was very unexpected. But there’s no question in my mind that Kentucky, come March, will be a great basketball team,” Pitino said in an interview with Adam Zagoria Wednesday.
Not only are Kentucky fans frustrated because of the reported $22 million being paid to UK players this year, but national media members and those who are not UK fans are loving the high price tag for UK’s “discombobulated” team. Payroll is not the only reason UK fans are upset but the money certainly has added to the criticism and doubts only five games into the season.
Pitino now coaches St. John’s and also relied heavily on the transfer portal. He told Zagoria he did not believe the $22 million salary figure for Kentucky basketball.
“First of all, everything is exaggerated. I hear these numbers, and it’s not proven. Unless it’s proven, it’s not factual. So nobody said the payroll’s $22 million, nobody knows that, nobody’s confirmed that, so people can’t make up numbers,” Pitino said.
“I’m close with Mark, and I don’t believe in these numbers. I think everybody exaggerates these numbers. I know they do with us and they do with every place.”
8 Responses
Maybe Slick Rick will feel sorry for Pope and let him win against St. Johns.
New Name instead of “Pussy Cats” is
The Discombobulaters !!
Pitino is going to say that because he hates being wrong and he said Pope was going to do great things at Kentucky. Also he knows we spent 22 million on our roster I think he spent about 20 million on his own roster. I know that billionaire backer that Pitino has dropped 10 million himself on Pitinos roster. Now that you can basically give athletes money. I know Pitino the ultimate competitior pony'd up some millions too and other backers spent millions too. Some of these schools give guys money that nobody discusses. We could have spent 25 million on this team. Who really knows? We suck because we don't have a true point guard on the team. That's what we are missing. To many turnovers. Our team comes down the court and throws the ball to the audience. Aberdeen is not a PG. He's a 2-3. He plays them positions. If we had a solid point guard we would be a much better team. We would have beaten Louisville but I don't think we would have beaten Michigan state. They took it to us. Izzo is one of the best coaches in colle basketball and he never goes after the ,5* players. He gets guys ranked 50-150. Develops them and they always get better every year. Izzo is tough as nails and his players are tough as nails. Pope is soft. Soft on the players. Soft on everything. Our problem is also in the locker room. Were you have 13 entitled millionaires arguing. I heard Oweh slept with Mo-Ds girlfriend. If this is true why??? You can have pretty much any girl you want. Your wearing a Kentucky jersey and you have multi millions in the bank. A college player nowadays if they are a top 50 recruit. Can make enough money in college basketball in 4 years where they can retire if they have a good agent. Players like JQ. He got 5.8 million to go to Arizona State. If you remember correctly that's why we backed off of him originally. Then Kentucky paid him 3 million for this year and we don't even know if he will ever play. If he does he will probably be not going 100% which will hurt the team if this happens. So he's made over 9 million plus other things he gets paid for like autographs and all kinds of other stuff. If he stayed 4 years and he will make more money the better he performs he can make 20-25 million in 4 years. If you can't retire off of that I feel sorry for you. What I'm getting at is these players play for themself. The more they score the more they will get paid and the more they will make next year. Players go were the money is. We have a bunch of players who aren't loyal and who are playing to pad there stats and Pope has absolutely no control over this team. Watch the Michigan state game again. Watch when there is a timeout or a huddle. We have guys not listening. Not paying attention. Talking to each other. Izzo on the other hand has full attention. Everyone has there eyes and ears to him. Nobody is talking to each other. That's called respect. Only a handful of our players respect Pope. I would only play these players and make the others only play when these guys want out the game or are extremely tired or foul trouble. Oweh would be my sixth man. He doesn't deserve to start. Mo-D would get taken out every time he shoots a three. I've seen him shoot 3-4 3s every game I haven't seen him make one. I bet he's shooting less than 20% from 3. I haven't looked but I bet it's close to that. They need to run plays pass the ball quit making stupid turnover and play some damn defense. Last years team was better than this years team. Not on paper but we had much more experience and players actually playing hard because it was there last year. We should have a elite defense. We have a terrible defense. So we should play Noah. Everyone says his defense is bad. Yes but he can shoot the ball damn good. If the other guys ain't playing defense them play Noah and give him the green light. I would play Noah Chandler and Aberdeen. Along with Jelavic and Moreno. That would be my starting 5. Oweh and Williams would be first off the bench. Sorry but game performance matters not what you have done in the past. We need now!!
If you look at the Cats objectively the transfer talent really isn't as advertised. Lowe is the only former starter out of the transfers. Aberdeen and Dioubate were 6th men on their teams and Williams was a 7th man. Pope claimed that players in his system made a huge jump in year two. That definitely is not the case at the moment. I think Chandler is better, but not by a significant amount.
Just watched the pre-Loyola presser and it appears Pope still no further along since conclusion of MSU game. A lot of folks are talking about chemistry issues but Pope was pretty dismissive that not on his radar screen. He doesn't seem to want to touch the accountability button but continually uses distraction as a key. Why would that be a problem? How can we look so good and apparently not distracted against Purdue and then fall totally flat against UL and MSU? We do need to see BG in some interviews and not letting Pope continue to give him a pass. I still am not sure Pope tough enough for PrimeTime. BYU hasn't missed a beat.
BBN (Big Boohoo Nation)
Larry just read on “Aseaofblue” that Mark Pope talked to his players about gambling on games? It would sure look like to folks that some of the players weren’t satisfied with already making millions from the NIL and may have made a few million more on the Louisville and Michigan State Blowouts? Look at all the sports players that even after making millions have been caught cheating to make more dollars! A lot of Kids are Dumb and those have Parents that are riding their kids backs to get rich and are Money Hungry and care less about the kids health or futures.
Well I can't recall a season starting like this ina loooong time something is gonna have to give, if not it's gonna be a long road in conference play.. I have confidence in pope but in my opinion that locker room some heavy duty maintenance.
Comments are closed.