Matt Norlander (18:35)
That comes with the territory. Pope and his staff knew it. They knew at a certain point when you're going to recruit and you're going to recruit players that are really expensive and other schools are going to lose out to you, word is just going to get around in the sport. There's no avoiding it. They didn't even necessarily run from it. But now this can really boomerang back on you in a negative way. And they got to figure out how to, how to handle all of this stuff. Everything that comes with losing and everything that comes with losing with this price tag attached to it. This is a new dynamic in college sports. It's really only been around for about two or three years, truly. And so for coaching staffs, particularly at the high major level, dealing with it, when it goes wrong, it will have to be an acquired skill. There's no doubt about it. Does Pope have the ability as a coach to wrangle this and turn it around? I do think that he does. And the reason why I say that is there's going to be a lot of Kentucky cynics, skeptics, doubters. There's probably, you know, Kentucky fans that are emotional in the moment and are like, I'm already done with Pope, like let's get a move on. That's not going to happen, however. Yeah, yeah, like, and that's fans, that's reactionary stuff. It may have all. It could eventually prove to be true, sure. But he's not on the hot seat. He's not going to lose his job this year. And frankly they would have to be catastrophically awful in order for him to to lose his job anytime before year four on that. So, you know, plenty of time for him to turn around. He has got such a devotion and earnest dedication to this job that I do give him a chance to figure it out. If and when quaintance, and I say if, I mean it really should be a when Quaintance can get on the floor. And that might not be for another month. We'll have to wait and see on that. He will truly be a game changing kind of player if Low can get healthier. Ortega always stats kind of feel quasi empty this season. They got to figure out some stuff there. But Hope's connection with this team I do think is a real thing. I say that having seen it firsthand already, you know, kind of in private scenes from the season he can do it. Will he become it remains a huge, huge question. Knowing Pope, the width and I know him and knowing that staff like they're not going to rest, like they know what, what the charge is here, like 5 and 4 don't deserve to be ranked, won't be ranked next week. They get a buy game next week and then they host Indiana and then they've got St. John's in the CBS Sports Classic and there's a chance that game could actually be between the two most disappointing teams in the country. We'll see if St. John's can do what it should do tomorrow when it hosts Mississippi at Madison Square Garden. So yes, there's still, there are still things that need to be determined in terms of lineups, rotations. Pope wants to go 10 deep. I don't know if you can do that. Also did not shoot enough. Excuse me, did not recruit enough good shooters. Kentucky ranks outside the top 203 point accuracy as is. And I'm not yet subscribing to the idea that Kentucky had a lot of good things about its offense a season ago, but it might have lacked the defensive aggression and overall profile to be a true national championship contender. And so as a result, they totally overcorrected and now are paying the price for that. I'm not sure if that's actually the case, but there are certain players on this roster that are getting a certain amount of minutes that probably should not be getting as many as they are to this point. And figuring out who's it going to be is going to be a big issue because keep in mind, when you spend that amount of money on a roster, there's a lot of expectations on a player by player basis in that locker room that come with it. And balancing all that is not easy. And so here we have Kentucky 5 and 4 with two more high profile games left on the noncon slate. And then the SEC is not as good this season as it was last season. Kentucky is now contributing to that even more so. But it will be tough and it doesn't, it doesn't get off with an easy way. A month from now they'll open league play on the road against an Alabama team that quite possibly could be ranked in the top 10 by the time we get to that game. So I'm sure Kentucky fans are highly, highly emotional and just searching for answers. I know I'm going along here a little bit on you, but I do want to at least give you my perspective on a lot of this stuff. I, I think that there is still a chance that Pope can figure out a way to level this and get Kentucky to be an NAA tournament team. That is a drastic change in perspective from what Kentucky was in the preseason, whereas pre season ranking was. But that's all out the window now. You have to figure out who are the players you can rely upon, what are you doing that is not working, Eliminate that and determine how you can win against viable competition. Because to this point, they've come up short and with the exception of the home North Carolina. So the other three losses, they were just. No doubt about it, Kentucky was not, wasn't prepped enough, didn't have enough aggression. They weren't, they weren't together on the floor. And Friday was a combination of that and the fact that, oh, by the way, Gonzaga very well could be on the short, short list of national championship contenders. And they were really ticked off after Michigan pulled their pants down in Vegas more than a week ago.
