Pope praises Kam Williams' coachability

Mark Pope spent almost half an hour discussing the second iteration of Kentucky basketball under his watch on Monday. The Cats’ head coach took a number of questions from local reporters and much will come out of that conversation.

One of the things Pope was most excited to talk about was the coachability of Tulane-to-UK forward transfer Kam Williams.

As a younger developmental “three and D” prospect who showed flashes of strong potential last year with the Green Wave, Williams has impressed Kentucky’s coach with his ability to take instruction and execute it right away. So when Pope was asked about coachability, Williams was at the front of his mind and on the tip of his tongue.

“I’ll start by giving a massive shout out to our guys for jumping on some of the things we’ve said are non-negotiable that are going to happen every single time,” Pope said. “We have some guys, led by Kam (Williams). He’s been the best guy the last three practices, including the TBT scrimmage. He was 100-percent on wedges and 100-percent on legal contests.

“I’m really proud of Kam,” Pope told reporters on Monday. “That’s a big deal. Especially to be a new guy in the program and come here, and it’s unbelievable when you get to coach a guy where you tell him, “We need you to do this every single time,” and he does it every single time. That gives us a chance to be differentiated from every other team in college basketball and he’s embraced that.”

Wedges and legal contests were two themes Pope referred back to time and again during the press conference so that speaks to an internal emphasis. And in those areas of emphasis, where execution does speak to coachability, Williams has helped to set a standard that Pope isn’t going to compromise on.

And because those things are the emphasis, Pope is laser focused on them right now, to the point where he is approaching the practice preparation for the season differently.

“Our wedge numbers through five weeks of practice, we’re dancing around 85, 88 percent, which is up about 17% on average from where we were last year and that’s impressive,” Pope continued. “We need to get to 100 and we’re striving to on legal contest. Our legal contest has been a little slower to develop but that’s massively important. One of the things we have to do is our defensive field goal percentage has to be better next year. So we’re dedicated to having a legal contest on every single field goal attempt. Every single one. A lot of things go into that but that’s major point of emphasis for us. That means you’re willing to mortgage other things. You’re willing to blow up practice and not get to all the things on the practice plan because as a team, not me, not the head coach, we’re going to blow up practice until we get to 100%.”