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Mark Pope with players, from left, Otega Oweh, Denzel Aberdeen and Jaland Lowe at SEC Media Days. (UK Athletics Photo)<\/p>\n
Kentucky\u2019s men\u2019s basketball payroll reportedly exceeds $20 million, according to a report released by the Lexington Herald-Leader on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The figure, estimated to be at $22 million, exceeds the number spent last season and the $4 million former coach John Calipari used to build his last squad as coach of the Wildcats.<\/p>\n
Coach Mark Pope joked recently that the program\u2019s payroll was \u201cclose to $200 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would like to win at everything, guys \u2014 like, we really would,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is the flagship program in the country, and so I\u2019m fully on board with all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pope also embraces the team\u2019s lofty expectations associated with the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to play the hardest schedule,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want to play the best teams. We want to win the most games. We want to have the best players. We want to have the highest NIL. We want to have the coolest uniforms. We want to have the most media attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the team\u2019s transfers \u2014 Denzel Aberdeen \u2014 opted to leave Florida after the Gators won a national title last season. Aberdeen said the NIL and the collectives aren\u2019t the only reasons he transferred from Gainesville.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we all look at it as NIL, I just think that we all came to play basketball at the University of Kentucky,\u201d Aberdeen said during the team\u2019s media day last week. \u201cIt\u2019s just an amazing program.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the guys that have been in and out of here, everybody that\u2019s been here, been to the league, almost everybody. That\u2019s our main goal, just trying to win No. 9 for the community and trying to get to the NBA. I think that\u2019s our main goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NIL part is amazing. It helps us out with families and stuff like that, but I don\u2019t think anybody comes here for NIL. (We) just come here for the basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the SEC Tipoff this week in Birmingham, Calipari, now at Arkansas, spoke about the current state of college basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to help 25 to 30 more families (and) the only way you do that is you\u2019re transformational as a coach \u2014 You\u2019re not transactional,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I become transactional, I\u2019m going to pay you this to do this and that, then I won\u2019t do this anymore. I don\u2019t need to.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think all of those said I\u2019ve done what I do, and I\u2019m not willing to do all this to stay in the profession. If you watched us in practice, you would say he\u2019s still connected. I\u2019ll know before anybody else that it\u2019s transactional now. That\u2019s why if someone put their name in the portal, I said, \u2018you\u2019re not coming back because it\u2019s not going to be transactional. If this is what you want, let\u2019s go, let\u2019s work together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calipari added that a solution is needed that is fair across and beneficial in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to fix some of this stuff before we\u2019re out for our own children,\u201d he said. \u201cRight now, the things we\u2019re dealing with, we want to put it to other people, but the thing is filtered down to the coach and coaches. We talk about the transfer portal. I don\u2019t mind kids transferring. You just can\u2019t transfer four times because it\u2019s not good for you. Four schools in four years, you\u2019ll never have a college degree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calipari added that a player should be able to transfer once without penalty but sit out a year after leaving a program for a second time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not saying don\u2019t transfer,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re doing a disservice to these kids the way it\u2019s being handled right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Pope with players, from left, Otega Oweh, Denzel Aberdeen and Jaland Lowe at SEC Media Days. (UK…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":["post-231444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}