Amari Williams found out the hard way that you don't want to upset Mark Pope

Mark Pope is about as nice a person you’ll ever meet face-to-face, but he didn’t get to be the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats by taking it easy on his players. Amari Williams and his teammates found that out the hard way during Pope’s debut season in Lexington.

As a quick recap, Williams was a key piece to Kentucky’s success in 2024-25. Throughout an injury-riddled season, the seven-footer from England was a mainstay as one of only four players on the roster who appeared in all 36 games. A terrific passer for a big man, Williams was a perfect fit in Pope’s offense. The results proved it. Williams averaged 10.9 points, 8.5 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.2 blocks per outing for the Wildcats on 56.1 percent shooting. He went from a four-year player at Drexel to an NBA Draft pick in one season under Pope.

But the road to get there wasn’t always easy. Williams, who is about to suit up for training camp with the Boston Celtics, told a story about a moment he realized Pope is not someone to mess around with. He recalls a situation where he and the entire team had to run 17 sets of 17s over a minor incident. For reference, one set of 17s means sprinting from sideline-to-sideline 17 times — so imagine doing that once and then having to do it 16 more times.

“The head coach (Pope), he doesn’t like people who are late,” Williams recently said on a Twitch livestream with travdoingstuff. “So one of the guys was — he wasn’t even late. You know when it’s like, if you’re not there five minutes before, they say you’re late, but technically he was on time; he just wasn’t five minutes before. But the meeting hadn’t even started, he had just walked in. So (Pope’s) joking around with us after practice saying, ‘Ah he was late, he was late.’ So we get to practice the next day, we’re thinking (Pope’s) not gonna run us because he wasn’t late, he wasn’t joking around.

“After practice, he goes ‘sideline’. We’re thinking we’re gonna do one 17. Bro… 17 in a row of 17s. Like back-to-back-to-back, a minute in between. Everyone was sprinting the first one because we thought it was one. After that, no one else made it again. He cut it to like 11 or 12 because he had to go get a flight to go recruiting. So that’s when I knew, certain things ain’t gonna slide.”

@travdoingstuffclipslol

i know ALL hoopers have been here😭🏃🏾‍♂️#tds #kentucky #17s #basketball #relatable

♬ Piano famous song Chopin Deep deep clear beauty – RYOpianoforte

A couple of Williams’ former teammates confirmed the story, too. In the comments of that TikTok post, both Brandon Garrison and Trent Noah said it was true: “mannnnn still traumatized over ittt,” Garrison wrote, while Noah added a “yeah he not lying”. That type of coaching clearly didn’t turn either of them away, though. Garrison and Noah both came back and are currently preparing for their second seasons at Kentucky.

But now I think we all want to know: who arrived “late” to the team meeting??

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