Mark Pope on coaching in the SEC last season: "Greatest experience of my basketball coaching career."

The 2024-25 Southeastern Conference was arguably the deepest, most talented league in the history of men’s college basketball. 14 of the SEC’s 16 teams ended up making the 2025 NCAA Tournament, the most ever by a single conference. Seven of them reached the Sweet 16, four went to the Elite 8, two made the Final Four, and the Florida Gators were crowned national champions.

Eight SEC teams finished among the AP Poll’s Top 25, including Kentucky at No. 12.

The fact that the Wildcats finished 10-8 in the SEC in what was Mark Pope‘s first season as head coach was nothing short of an all-around success. According to KenPom, the SEC’s combined Net Rating of 22.09 in 2025-26 was the highest in the site’s history, which tracks data back to the 1996-97 season. It marked just the third time ever a single conference broke the 20-point Net Rating mark (1997 ACC and 2004 ACC) in KenPom’s system.

It was certainly a challenging stretch for Pope and his Wildcats, only made more difficult by non-stop injuries, but it was an experience he fully embraced — and one he’s excited to learn from moving forward.

“It was the greatest experience of my basketball coaching career, by far,” Pope told Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports in an interview from earlier this week about his first year coaching in the SEC. “You know, last year, I was really blessed to coach in the Big 12, BYU’s first year in the Big 12, and that was an incredible experience. And it was a great league. I don’t think college basketball has ever seen a league like we saw last year in the SEC. Not just 14 teams in, but seven teams in the Sweet 16.

“I used to brag about my ’96 (Kentucky) team. The league was so good. We had four teams in the Sweet 16 and two teams in the Final Four. We had double that (in 2024-25), almost. Unfortunately for us, we got run out of the NCAA tournament by another SEC team. It’s what you live for as a competitor, is to be in a league like that. Hopefully we’ll run it back bigger and better next year as a league. The venues are incredible, the fan bases are incredible, the coaches are really humbling to go against these guys. I’ll treasure that experience last year forever.”

The SEC isn’t expected to be as deep in 2025-26, but there will still be plenty of talent from top to bottom and plenty of nationally ranked teams. After sticking in the middle of the pack last season, Kentucky will be among the favorites to win the league thanks to an upgraded roster and a better understanding from Pope of what it takes to succeed at this level of ball.

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