Cal turned down a $100M offer to be Head Coach and President of Operations for the Cavs when they told him they were bringing back LeBron and getting the
#1
Pick in 2014
10 Years Later he jumps at a $1M Annual Salary Paycut to go to … Arkansas
What does that say?
This refs name is Orlando (forgot his last name)
But I was right here the whole game and saw he didn’t make a call all night in Kentucky’s favor
Just went back and watched the tape
He blew his whistle 22 times last night
All 22 were in A&M’s favor
Whether that be a foul on
In 2012, Scott Drew was the first man to ever come to Lexington and beat a John Calipari Kentucky Team in Rupp Arena
Ending a 55-0 streak that stretched back to 2009
I hate playing the comparison game
I’m ready to move forward and start fresh
But I need to say this…
Every Area that people felt John Calipari was lacking or missing in his last 4 years as Coach — Pope addressed and attacked head on from the jump
“This is OUR Team”
I’m going to have a take that I know everyone won’t agree with.
Kentucky 🏀 was never the “bandwagon program”
It was always UK vs The World.
Cal brought in support from all over — & I wouldn’t trade it for anything
But it feels like we’re back to being KENTUCKY, FOR KENTUCKY.
The Last time Kentucky had a head coaching change and took someone from the Pitino Tree… the Final Four was in San Antonio and resulted with an NCAA Title in Year 1
Mark Pope comes from the Pitino Tree… and the 2025 Final Four is in San Antonio
Up Late and Can’t Stop Thinking About All This — It’s finally hitting me we had to part ways with THE John Calipari.
Cal was the Czar of this Sport when we were at our peak.
One and Done Revolutionized this game.
It’s not Cal’s fault kids out of high school aren’t as good as
NO WAY 🤯
I really hope that $$$ can land them the
#1
recruiting class!
A REALLY good one too, one that includes…
#1
Ranked PG
#1
Ranked CG
#1
Ranked SF
#1
Ranked C
A MCDAAG Hometown Recruit
A Euro Unicorn
#1
Scorer in OTE League
Can’t lose in the 1st RD with THAT!!
Jerry Jones is reportedly offering DOUBLE whatever the Kentucky commits were making to come to Arkansas, per
@trillydonovan
Jerry Jones is an Arkansas booster, and reportedly helped them hire John Calipari last week.
Kentucky’s 2 Most Successful Coaches since Adolph Rupp were born and bred in the Northeast … but now all of a sudden being from the Northeast is supposed to be some blockade that good ole Kentucky (from the SEC) has never seen before
Just a hysterical defense point
Kentucky went 8 hours to Oxford and painted an entire half of their stadium UK Blue
Also drank that side out of beer by halftime
But you only hear about this sort of stuff when LSU does it because that’s the “cooler” narrative
Okay, here we go
Ended up with a VERY prominent MBB staffer at Ruby’s after we escaped Arkansas at home
Asked him straight up why Cal isn’t starting Reed & Rob
His answer?
Cal would MUCH rather risk the opportunity to stick it to EVERYONE that said he had the starting lineup
I’m so confused by this narrative recently
Cal’s entire stance on NIL at Kentucky was to guarantee NOTHING
Where most coaches would get deals in place & have an exact dollar figure deal ready to offer to portal targets … Cal would just go & say “If you come here, you can
John Calipari reportedly spending millions in NIL money to piece together the Arkansas roster for next season.
Will it pay off in the end? Money can solve a lot of problems.
Read:
Yo
@UKSportsVideo
this video is WAY too good to not be playing at every game
Replace the insanely bland & boring “All Roads Lead to Lexington Video” that plays before the team takes official warmups with it
Would be a HUGE help with Gameday Atmosphere getting the crowd ready!
"If we were at Duke or Kentucky or Kansas, they would lead SportsCenter with it and it would be the biggest story in sports..."
Hurley was crying last week about lack of headlines but UConn fans in these replies are convinced they’re the pinnacle of CBB
Biggest one I took away ….
Cal always said, “This isn’t about you or me, this is about them (the players)”
Pope’s first message was “This is OUR team” and noted Kentucky is nothing without the fans
I thought that was refreshing
Calipari was not mentioned by name today. Buuuuuut....
"It's time for us to find our way back"
Emphasis on SEC Tournament
Mention of Maui Invitational
Mention of 4-year players
"They are not doing the jerseys a favor by letting the jerseys clothe them"
Mixing up defenses
This will be the first and only UConn fan I’ve replied to since they started flooding my mentions…
You realize the Saudi Royal Family owns farms on the outskirts of Lexington, right?
I’d guess they’re a little more enlightened on the exquisite lifestyle than you are 🤷🏻♂️
I feel like most people know this one but Billy G got hammered at Merrick Inn one night after a game and went skinny dipping with two college girls in the decoration pool
The College World Series is all set with a field of 4 ACC and 4 SEC schools.
Somewhat chalky as 7 of the top 12 national seeds have advanced
Bracket 1 begins Friday in Omaha
Can describe it perfectly…
Tennessee knows that our players pray in that end zone before kickoff and intentionally waited an extra 5 mins to run out of the tunnel and make sure all our guys were down there when they did
Anyone who was at the game clearly saw this
Are our guys
This part right here sparked something inside of me I haven’t felt in a long time
A Kentucky Basketball Spiritual Revival of sorts…
Sure, Hurley, Drew, Billy D, and many others would have been the more accoladed hires…
But Pope knows how much all of this means to us. He GETS
If both teams hold up their end of the bargain there’s a VERY good chance that Kentucky vs Tennessee in Rupp Arena on February 3rd is a
#1
vs
#2
matchup 👀
Kentucky vs Florida in Lexington hasn’t been a noon kickoff since 2003… 20 YEARS AGO!
Has been 6PM/7PM/8PM kickoff every year since 2009
Was an SEC on CBS 3:30 kick in 2005/2007
Unreal move by the conference
I know there’s almost a 0% chance of this happening…
But if Coach Pope were to bring out Reed and announce he’s coming back at this thing it’d be arguably the most electric introduction of any Coach in College Basketball History
Fans are lined up outside Rupp Arena 3 hours before the Doors Open and 4 Hours before the Introduction of
@CoachMarkPope
to the Big Blue Nation 🤯
It just means more.
(
@Cats_Coverage
)
6 years ago when I worked with
@UKFootball
I made this Interstellar themed hype video for the 2017 UF game…
Might be old, but this is 100% our mindset for tomorrow 💯
BREAKING: UNC Wilmington forward Trazarien White is entering the transfer portal, he tells me.
The Mansfield, Texas native and All-CAA First Team Selection averaged 19.8 points and 6.8 rebounds as a junior. Scored 27 points on the road versus Kentucky.
This was never the case 10 years ago but I feel like we’re reaching the point where BKnight has become one of the most underrated players in Kentucky Basketball History …
Dude was a DAWG 🔥
Andre Woodson was leading the 2007 Heisman race after beating (future) National Champs LSU & was the Projected
#1
NFL Draft Pick on every major site
Finished with:
🔹 3,709 Passing Yds
🔹 40 Passing TDs
🔹 63.1% Completions
The season collapse wasn’t his fault
Heisman Numbers
Do people seriously believe that UConn could match a $10M+ per year offer?
The school whose football program is about to be relegated back down to FCS because why wouldn’t any conference want them?
Do you all know what football does for an ath dept as a whole? TV Contracts? Lol
Took a night to sleep on it.
Was pissed at first just because of how out of nowhere it seemed.
But after giving it a little time to breathe, I love it.
For the first time ever, we’re hiring someone who is ONE OF US.
Someone who knows that it means to win here.
And then
I’ve watched this movie a thousand times
Going to watch it again tonight … no doubt in my mind it will be almost impossible to stomach
No matter how catastrophic these past 4 years have been … I wouldn’t trade those first 11 for anything in the world
Thank You, Cal 💙
At some point we have to kill the whole “We know guys are gonna play out of their minds against Kentucky” thing
It’s old, tired, and lazy — 1 of those a season is understandable … 3+ is unacceptable
Play Defense.
In all three of Kentucky's losses, opponents have put up career performances:
vs Kansas
Dajuan Harris Jr: 23 pts (career-high), 5 3P (T-career-high), 7 ast
Hunter Dickinson: 27 pts, 21 rebs (career-high), 10 FT (career-high)
vs UNCW
Trazarien White: 27 pts (T-3rd career)
vs
UK Athletics laid out a white t-shirt on every seat… each section’s shirt had a different letter on them too (C-A-T-S)
Which brings me to my next point… BRING BACK THE PRE-TIPOFF SPELL-OUT
@UKAthletics
‼️
It makes absolutely no sense that we got rid of this great tradition🤦🏻♂️
This breakup will get ugly whenever it does happen
I just want all the guys that have come thru here since 2009 to know that we still love them to death
I get it, Cal’s your coach, and always will be. But it’s time for a change.
Lexington will ALWAYS be home to all of you 💙
Not gonna chime in on a bunch of those rumors going around about stuff behind the scenes with Kentucky basketball, except the one about a fight in the locker room at the tournament.
Dillingham + Burks had heated words in the tunnel at halftime. Don't think it went beyond that.
The thing that hurts the most is this has been THE YEAR
Ever since DJ got to HS and was the consensus
#1
player in his class for 4 straight years … we’ve been looking forward to this season
The roster construction turned out better than we could have ever imagined
And it’s