Ashley

Pope says Cats haven't met goals, but making progress. ... "I'm not talking about meeting the standard of where we're trying to get. Clearly, we did not do that, but we are making progress in in the four years before we got here, we won one game in Nashville. In the last two years, we've won three games in Nashville, and clearly the seed hasn't been a good as good. But in the last two years, we lost to the number five and the number six team in the country to be to be put out of the SEC tournament. "In the four years previous, we lost to number nine, number 35 number 67 and number 81 to be knocked out of the SEC tournament. In the last two years, we've won three games in the NCAA Tournament. In the previous four years, we won one game total in the NCAA Tournament. That doesn't tell the whole story, but for the people that love Kentucky, they just want to know that we're making progress. Those are real hard, solid numbers that may be surprising. Go look them up. The winning percentage is higher. The NCAA Tournament success is higher. The strength of schedule is ridiculously more difficult, and all of that done in the context of having one of the most unfortunate health trends in the history of Kentucky basketball. And so in those sense, senses like we haven't met our goals, clearly, but we are making progress in that part of society. And I really bring that up because I think at times, our guys feel like, man, everybody says this is the worst it's ever been. It's not. "We're actually making positive project. We're making positive progress by the numbers and and I'm grateful for the work and the commitment of our guys, and we're going to keep going. And the thing is, we have to keep getting better and better and better as we as we grow this program to the point where we're actually hanging a banner. And this is all part of the process, and we have nothing in our offices, in our locker room besides hope and excitement for the future."