I'll admit, I was intrigued when UK hired Pope only because I thought it would bring some much, much needed light hearted banter and allow for both fan bases to see each program being led by coaches that were kinda hard to dislike. Pope is just a big, goofy, cheese ball that it was hard to take seriously.
However - after seeing the complete bullsh*t, revisionist history crap that's taken place over the last 6 months - Pope's an ass.
We've gone from scoffs and anger at the mere idea that UK would ever even consider hiring someone as lowly as Mark Pope. Near riots and complete meltdown with rage fueled radio callers, message board posters, local media members and bloggers. Mocking articles from the national media talking about how nobody could have predicted UK would have had to resort to hiring someone like Mark Pope and hiring grades of C's and B minuses, and confusion as to why UK seemingly went from Hurley and Donovan to such a lower tier coach in Mark Pope so quickly.....to (and this was something I heard directly from a national media member) "If I was "some 5 star recruit" and I was deciding between John Calipari and Mark Pope, I'm picking Mark Pope" and picks of them to be Final Four dark horses, and glowing articles on how great of a coach Mark Pope is and what a great hire it was.
I have absolutely had all I care to see, hear or read from the UK fan base and national media fawning over Mark Pope as if he's a guaranteed success and speaking in terms of certainty about how great they'll be at this or that because of Pope. He's assembled a decent roster and gotten two local recruits with direct Lexington ties but nobody has forgotten how angry the UK fans were or how crappy of a hire the media thought he was or how respected he was as a coach 6 months ago. It's just maddening that everyone is acting like they hired Coach K and it was a homerun hire that everyone loved from day 1.