On the day he was hired as new Kentucky coach and numerous times since, captain of the 1996 national champions Mark Pope has said he “understands the assignment.”
“We have one assignment and that’s to get No. 9. Everywhere I turn I see the No. 9. That’s all I see,” Pope said. “So, we’re pretty obsessed with that and we’re going to chase it with everything we have. That’s the standard here.”
After the players arrived on campus last week, the Wildcats got to work on the assignment in earnest on Monday with its first official practice in its quest to win the 2025 national championship.
“Be creative and figure it out,” said Pope, who happened to be wearing denim tennis shoes. “So, today, we’re going to go super fast. I’m going to throw a ton of terms at you guys. You guys know all the concepts, you just don’t know my words for them. So, we’re going to go fast. I want you to take in all the information you can and I want you to go 100% full speed ahead, okay? And when we make mistakes, we’ll correct them. That’s what we do out here. We come out here on this practice court and we make mistakes. Ton of joy? Ton of juice? Let’s go, come on boys!”
Since being officially tabbed to replace John Calipari on April 12 and drawing over 20,000 people to his introductory press conference at Rupp Arena, Pope has enjoyed a remarkable first offseason in Lexington.
Pope hired a staff that features associate head coach Alvin Brooks III from Baylor, former USC assistant Jason Hart of the G League Ignite, former BYU assistant Cody Fueger, former Nevada and Georgia head coach Mark Fox, and former Lamar assistant Mikhail McLean. Pope also brought on BYU assistant Nick Robinson on as his director of basketball operations
After losing all 13 scholarship players from last season’s roster to graduation, the NBA Draft or the transfer portal, Pope’s inaugural 9-man transfer class is currently ranked No. 4 nationally by 247Sports and features No. 23 Brandon Garrison (Oklahoma State), No. 34 Otega Oweh (Oklahoma), No. 36 Jaxson Robinson, No. 48 Lamont Butler (San Diego State), No. 71 Andrew Carr (Wake Forest), No. 88 Amari Williams (Drexel), No. 91 Koby Brea (Dayton), No. 126 Kerr Kriisa (West Virginia), and No. 319 Ansley Almonor (Fairleigh Dickinson).
In addition, Pope has also signed former BYU signee Collin Chandler, who is coming off a 2-year Mormon mission, Kentucky Mr. Basketball, the state’s all-time leading scorer and 4-star guard Travis Perry from state champion Lyon County, as well as Harlan County 4-star and former South Carolina signee Trent Noah to bring the Wildcats’ number of scholarship players to 12.
Be the first to comment