WATCH: Mark Pope mic'd up at practice; "We've got a chance to be super special"

What is Mark Pope like on the practice court? We got a small glimpse in some short clips earlier this week, but today, we’ve got three and a half minutes of mic’d-up footage to pore over. Kentucky just dropped a new video showing Pope coaching his guys in the first practice on Monday. It’s pretty spectacular.

Thirty seconds in, we see Pope showing the players some keys to his system on defense and transition offense, the latter of which will create opportunities for all the threes they’ll shoot.

“Catch and shoot threes,” Pope says. “We want them in transition. Every time. Every possession all game we get to catch and shoot a three, we’ll take it. I love you attacking, I love you punching, and I love you skipping. I love all those things.”

There’s a lot more of that, including Pope getting hands-on in the paint vs. Andrew Carr, Brandon Garrison, and Amari Williams. There’s some spectacular ball movement from Kerr Kriisa, who got a shoutout from Pope after the practice wrapped.

“You guys remember I said that? This dude coming in here and working hard today? What? Good for you, man. That’s awesome. You know what that is? That’s being coachable. You weren’t stubborn about it, you weren’t defensive and you didn’t make any excuses. I don’t know what got into you, you just came and said you would play hard today. That’s awesome. It’s going to take all of us a long way. It’s really, really great and I love that.”

The vibes were good across the board.

“I love how you guys are talking to each other,” Pope said to the whole group. “If you guys will be obsessed with learning this game together, like learning us, we’ve got a chance to be super special.”

Enough of my words. Hit play below.

Mic'd Up: @CoachMarkPope at Practice No. 1 pic.twitter.com/wOJHpyBFud

— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) June 19, 2024