4-Point Play: The dust settles on a hectic three weeks

Do you hear that? It’s the dust settling on one of the craziest three-week stretches in Kentucky basketball history. We’ve gone from moving forward with John Calipari as head coach to transitioning into the Mark Pope era in Lexington with a complete roster rebuild, last year’s group and the previous signing class falling apart and the new captain of the ship building his own squad from scratch.

Pope joined Tom Leach on The Leach Report this morning to break down the latest ahead of Derby weekend, highlighting the nine players Kentucky has added and what’s to come as he looks to round out the roster.

Let’s run through some of the highlights today on 4-Point Play.

Support staff lays the groundwork for today’s product

It starts with the first week or so for Pope in Lexington, days he’ll admit were pretty lonely around the Joe Craft Center. He found ways to be productive, though, thanks to the help of Kentucky’s support staff, the people who helped him put together his own coaching staff and lay the foundation in the transfer portal.

It’s easy to rave about the nine-man class he’s put together thus far, but none of it would have been possible without the folks behind the scenes lending a helping hand. They kept Pope afloat while he learned the new waters at his new gig.

“You take a new job and the office is really lonely. You’re in there kind of hammering away late at night and early in the morning at the offices,” Pope said. “Mitch (Barnhart) leant me his (Executive Assistant) Shellee (Hein) and Marc Hill, his deputy AD. He was unbelievable, came in and moved his office down by mine. The support staff has been incredible with Will Barton and Brett Ryback, they’ve been just awesome. We just had to piece it all together as best we could and it’s been a really exciting time.”

That foundation helped set up the opportunity to close on the roster once his assistants arrived.

“Then as the assistants rolled in, we’ve spent the last week and last few days together as a multifaceted group. It’s awesome,” he added. “You’re in the trenches and going as fast as you can, really in triage mode all day, every day trying to think of the very most important things.”

Roster building is a living organism

With so many moving parts and having to start from scratch, how do you attack the transfer portal? Pope obsesses over those details and the process of building a roster. He calls it “teamology,” combining talent with style of play, personality and goals when putting these pieces together.

That’s how he came up with the nine players he’s signed up to this point.

“I just love it. I love to study of teams — teamology. It’s one of the most fascinating things, human beings functioning together in a group at the highest level of interaction under the stress and duress,” Pope said. “Those things and the chasing dreams part of putting together a team that is competing at the highest level. I love the dynamics, I love incorporating skillsets together, figuring out personalities and how they work together. Goals and agendas, how they kind of augment each other when you put people in a group.

“Clearly we have a style of play we value, it’s super effective and we love to coach it and teach guys to play this way. It’s really, really engaging for fans. And we’re trying to get better at it.”

Pope compares it to a living, breathing organism that grows and develops over time. Every little detail helps it build toward a final product, what we see when the ball is tipped to open the season.

“It’s like any living organism, a team is,” he added. “Every piece we add, it changes the picture of the group as small or big it feels, what it needs and how guys will interact with each other. It’s really dynamic and it’s beautiful.”

Three elite passing bigs (plus one more to come)

Among those nine pieces? Drexel’s Amari Williams, Wake Forest’s Andrew Carr and Oklahoma State’s Brandon Garrison, three guys making up the core frontcourt group.

His interest in those three in particular had to do not only with their scoring and defense, but their ability to pass the basketball at a high level.

“We have three bigs right now that are elite-level passers. I’m talking about great passers, some of the best passers in the country on the frontline,” Pope said. “On the offensive end, that allows you to put guys together. And Andrew Carr is one of the elite-level 3-point shooters in the country, he’s already proven that. Those three guys are gonna work really, really well together.”

And he’s not done yet, Pope says. His goal is to add one more frontcourt piece with a heavy emphasis on shot-making and positional versatility.

“We’ll probably try to add one more really, really shot-driven piece on that frontline, maybe somebody that will feel like a four or three. We’ll see,” he said. “We’re trying to fill that space right now. All three of those guys have something in common and are really, really important to our team.

“They have some individual skill sets that are gonna be really vital in terms of dealing with matchups and different teams we go against.”

Pope’s Kentucky Basketball Mount Rushmore

Oscar Combs and Tony Delk made up two of four inductees into the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame this cycle, joining the likes of Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and Kentucky Wesleyan SID Roy Pickerill. It’s an unbelievable honor for two Kentucky basketball legends, the former on the media side and the latter as a player.

Leach asked Pope about the Hall of Fame class, leading to the new Kentucky coach naming his UK Basketball Mount Rushmore, Combs included among four legendary names.

“For me personally, Rick Pitino will always be on there, just because he was my coach,” Pope said. “Also on there would be Bill Keightley because I don’t know if anybody’s heart has been more blue in the history of the world than his. He was such a great friend for me and my teammates for so many generations of players. Then of course, the legendary Cawood Ledford.

“You think of these guys on the Mount Rushmore, and for me in my experience, I think Oscar Combs is right up there. The longevity, the way he’s served and was a storyteller — I say this all the time, but there’s so much power in storytellers. The way he has served Big Blue Nation being a storyteller for each of these teams and their journeys with the players and coaches, being able to share the experience with BBN, I will love him forever. It’s so appropriate that he’s in the Hall of Fame.”

As for Delk, there’s not much for Pope to add when discussing his legacy and what he’s meant for this basketball program. He’s as obvious an inclusion as you could ever imagine, and he credits a lot of his own success to Delk for willing that ’96 group across the finish line as the Final Four MVP.

“Tony Delk, I don’t know what else to say. There is so much of my life that never gets to happen if Tony doesn’t become the player he is and lead our team, doesn’t hit all those threes in the national championship game against Syracuse, doing all the other things,” Pope said. “Above and beyond that, he’s been a great friend. We had the chance to be competitors against each other every single day in practice, as we do with our whole team. We got to grow each other and celebrate with each other as we went on to have that epic season. I’ve got so much love in my heart for him. It’s an honor and it’s completely deserved, I couldn’t be happier.”

Can’t put it any better than that.