Mark Pope on current college landscape: ‘You don’t know what the rules are’

Kentucky‘s roster for the upcoming college basketball season is just about set heading into the grueling months of the offseason. However, Mark Pope may be having to pitch his recruiting plan a bit differently next offseason depending on the final decision in the looming House v. NCAA case.

Ahead of the 2025-26 season, Pope was asked what challenges he faced putting together a roster during an offseason with the settlement looming. However, Pope explained why he’s choosing to keep a positive perspective when facing the unknown.

“Well, you just don’t know what the rules are exactly, but that’s kind of fun,” Pope said. “It’s like, you don’t know what the rules are, right? But I think there’s been so much chaos that you kind of get more accustomed to kind of living in the chaos. It’s just war games, right? You just plan out every possible contingency plan and think it through the best you can, and then make a decision to run with it.”

As the House v. NCAA settlement’s final approval process remains ongoing, Pope has to treat roster building as business as usual. That means Pope is focusing on what he can control.

That entails what’s going on behind the scenes in his program, to which Pope has the utmost confidence in his coaching staff’s abilities heading into the second year of his Kentucky tenure. Pope has spoken at length about the improvements he expects heading into year two.

“I talk about out players being in the second year, our staff is going to be 100 times better than we were last year,” Pope continued. “That’s just because we had a chance to function together and learn each other. The guys have had a chance to learn me, and so we’re excited to see how much better we can be year two — how much more efficiently we can do things. How much more smartly and intelligent we can do things.”

Pope said that year two is fun because year one is under his belt. Kentucky’s theme this offseason has been improving on the success they had in 2025, and that the Wildcats’ finish in the Sweet 16 was just the beginning of what he can accomplish in his role in Lexington.

In the end, Pope presented three aspects of his program’s mindset that he wants to be aware of and elevate this coming season. As the entire college athletics world awaits the final settlement in House v. NCAA, Pope asked his roster — as well as his coaching staff — to ponder how can they raise the standard, how can they hold themselves accountable, and how they be relentless while doing those two things.