Look, in all seriousness, there is no question that Calipari has a way, way better resume than Mark Pope. But as a Kentucky fan, I am glad Calipari is gone (Anybody can search my post history for his name to see the recent stats that changed my mind about him, and to see that I used to defend him as well).

I have no idea if Pope will do better than Calipari at UK or even if he will do half as well. It’s highly risky to trade the devil you know for the devil you don’t know. But as you note, Calipari had all of those amazing college players. And yet he has one, single, solitary national championship to show for all of that great talent.

https://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=32874163

Let me try to find the right analogy for this. Kentucky is a small, sort of insular place. We have some of the poorest places in the nation inside of our state. We don’t have a lot of pride, but are very proud of our basketball team. We welcomed slick Rick Pitino into our family in 1989 and he became one of us. In 2009, Billy Donovan and Jay Wright turned us down so we had to go with Calipari, whose prior programs had been sanctioned due to the actions of Marcus Camby (UMass) and Derek Rose (Memphis).

Maybe because Pitino showed us it could work, we welcomed another slick-talking Italian from the Northeast, despite the ethical concerns. However, unlike Pitino, Calipari never became one of “us.” He was always like the standoff-ish step dad who you knew only tolerated you because it was just what he had to do to sleep with your mom.

The day Kentucky had five players drafted, Calipari claimed it was the greatest day in UK basketball history. No, it was the greatest day in Calipari hi$tory.

Kentucky fans don’t care about who signs a contract with the Pelicans or Lakers. They care about how many SEC championships they get to celebrate and how many final four games they get to watch their team play in. Nobody liked the one-and-done model nor did they like the stigma it gave UK. Calipari actually seemed to hate a lot of the Kentucky fans and media by the end and seemed to not really care about winning. Personally, I stopped following UK basketball almost completely over the last four years because of how it felt. It wasn’t our program anymore.

And now we got it back. The mean step dad that didn’t let you have fun in your own house moved out. Your mom dumped him or he dumped her — to be honest, you don’t really care who dumped who. He’s gone and you got the house back.

I am very very concerned that Pope will fail. But that’s part of the excitement of it. If we fail, at least we’re doing it our way again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdhhV9IZ8xA