4-Point Play: Bringing in winners who are obsessed with No. 9
Mark Pope didn’t shy away from expectations when he first took the job at Kentucky, saying from day one he wants the weight of No. 9 on his shoulders. It’s a standard he believes is a non-negotiable when you sit in that chair as the leader of the Wildcats.
Since then, he’s double, triple and quadrupled down on that approach, namely in the players he’s bringing in to help bring the next national championship banner back to Lexington.
Pope sat down with Andy Katz of NCAA.com to talk about those expectations and the roster he’s building to turn those dreams into a reality, among other notes — including a potential home-and-home schedule with Rick Pitino and St. John’s in the near future.
That’s where we’ll be taking today’s 4-Point Play.
Obsessed with winning No. 9
Let’s start with the assignment at hand — a quintupling down of his day-one expectations in Lexington. When asked about what he hopes to accomplish in his debut season as head coach, Pope didn’t hesitate to relay the same message he threw out there at his opening press conference.
And he’s obsessed with that goal, just like the rest of us.
“There’s only one acceptable answer to that here at Kentucky, and I know that. We have one assignment and that’s to get No. 9,” Pope told Katz. “Everywhere I turn, I see the number nine, man. That’s all I see. We’re pretty obsessed with that and we’re gonna chase it with everything we have. And that’s the standard here, that’s the standard.”
A winning nucleus of guards
In order to win a title you’ve got to add title-caliber talent, and he feels he’s done that thus far. He’s built a ten-man roster layered with defense, scoring, shooting, rebounding and experience. Katz specifically asked about the three veteran guards he brought in from the portal in Lamont Butler, Koby Brea and Kerr Kriisa, Pope drooling over what each player brings to the table in different areas.
No one adds to the winning formula better than the guy who has already won at the highest level, hitting a game-winner in the Final Four to send San Diego State to the national championship in 2023.
“It’s a nucleus of winners, like big-time winners. I think Lamont Butler is — I don’t know if there’s a guy that’s got more winning DNA. It’s what he cares about, it’s what he lives for, it’s all he thinks about. As a guy that’s gonna be a real veteran, leading voice on this team, he’s made some of the biggest plays in all of college basketball over the last four or five years. I love that part of his DNA,” Pope said.
But it’s not just his grit and tenacity, either. The Kentucky head coach believes Butler has some extra stuff to his game he hasn’t been able to show that he will in this offense.
“I also think the way we play, he’s gonna have a chance to unleash some things that were in the tank that — just because we do them differently, I actually think people will… Lamont Butler is already a household name, but I think people will be like, ‘Wow, oh, my gosh. This dude has some afterburners,'” he said.
As for Brea, he was the best shooter in the portal by a country mile. Pope says the Dayton standout’s analytics were on a different planet not only in this transfer class or this past college basketball season, but the last decade.
Point being, he needed to coach him in Lexington.
“Everybody in the world would be like ‘Koby Brea belongs at Kentucky playing for our system.’ There are some guys you think God invented this person to come play the way we play,” Pope said. “He is the most efficient offensive player in the last decade of college basketball. The next closest guy is like .02 points per possession lower — he’s a 1.33 and the next closest guy is a 1.31. And a 1.31 is a number you just don’t even comprehend.”
And then there is Kriisa, college basketball’s ultimate villain who will immediately become a fan favorite at Kentucky.
“Kerr Kriisa — this cat, man,” he said. “If there was anybody in the history of time that needs to play in front of BBN for their final year of college basketball, it’s gotta be Kerr Kriisa.”
Pope thought it was Scott Drew until it wasn’t
Let’s rewind a little bit — about a month, actually. How we got here, some of the early stages of the coaching cycle following John Calipari’s departure and when the search began.
Pope was just like the rest of us, following the top names on the board with championship experience and blue-blood status among coaches. He’ll admit he wanted the job, but didn’t think he had a shot at actually landing it.
“I thought there was no way, right? The only person qualified to take this job should have five national championships with the best recruiting class in the country for ten straight years. That’s what I feel like as a Kentucky fan,” he said. “So you kind of heard rumblings and there were some third-party conversations, but there are always these very, very, very initial way-distant connections.”
His gut? Baylor’s Scott Drew was going to be Coach Cal’s replacement — just like most of us thought.
“I was only getting the same information the rest of the world was, that it was Scott (Drew) and he was going to take this job and do it,” Pope said.
And then things shifted in a hurry once Drew turned down the job, the BYU coach then sliding in as the immediate favorite. One text message changed everything for the Pope family.
“I kind of put it to bed, we moved on. And then I got a text Wednesday morning when Lee Anne was out of town — she was with family dealing with some medical things. I was just home with my youngest daughter and of course we’d had some casual conversations with the family about it, like, ‘Man, could you imagine?’ And then we put it to bed, we thought it was done,” Pope said. “With that text, I’m driving her to school that morning and I’m like, ‘Hey Shay, I don’t know, this thing might not be dead.’
“And then, of course, everything went really fast from there.”
It sure did — and everything worked out just fine.
‘Got to find some way’ to bring Rick Pitino back to Rupp Arena
What was that about Rick Pitino? Pope hinted at a potential home-and-home during his introductory presser and then confirmed with Katz that remains a top priority for Kentucky under his watch.
There are some hurdles with scheduling regarding other things already lined up contractually the program is currently navigating, but make no mistake about it, a matchup with St. John’s is in the works in some form or fashion.
“I think we really, really want to see that, but there are complications here that we have to work through and things we have to find some answers for — ticket packages, home game count, all those things that we have to find answers to. We’re actually working really, really aggressively to find answers and good solutions to some of the requirements that we have so that we can do that,” Pope said. “I think everybody in BBN, everybody affiliated with our program — listen, these MTEs are really, really special. These home-and-homes are actually really, really special.
“I threw this out at the press conference about, but the love BBN has for Rick Pitino is almost unfathomable. We’ve got to find some way to work this out where we can get Coach and his great St. John’s teams into Rupp Arena and play so he can work his magic — hopefully not quite well enough (to win).”
As for some of the other things like the Maui Invitational or the new NIL-driven event in Las Vegas in the works now — the fan-favorites across college basketball — Pope is open to all of it, but again, it’s going to come down to logistics. Those conversations are officially underway, though.
“We’ll try new things. Our scheduling stew has just got some real complications and we have some obligations we have to figure out. I’ve gotta figure out some solutions so we can have games like that,” he said. “We’ve spent — kind of just this week, we have really gotten to a place where we can dive into the heart of scheduling. It’s on me, I’ve got to work out some solutions so that we can keep doing great games like that because I want them and BBN wants them, we all want them. We’ve just all got to make the books work too.”
We appreciate the effort, Coach.
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