Mark Pope compares his first two seasons to the previous four under John Calipari: 'We're making progress.'

Kentucky‘s season was an objective disappointment with Mark Pope building the most expensive roster in college basketball and turning it into a loss in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals as a No. 9 seed and a Round of 32 loss in the NCAA Tournament as a No. 7 seed. The Wildcats lost 14 games with only six Quad 1 victories just a year after finishing with 11. As talent spending increased, production decreased, and Big Blue Nation has been frustrated about it all season.

Can Pope offer a rebuttal, though?

“This is not an excuse fest,” he made clear during his weekly call-in radio show, acknowledging those facts of wins and losses and banner space still left empty in the rafters of Rupp Arena. “Like, we know where we need to go.”

There are other facts, though, he wants fans to keep in mind before they submit their final grades for Pope and Kentucky basketball as a whole coming off the blowout loss to Iowa State. They may have fallen short of the gold standard and have work to do to get back there, but things aren’t slipping in Lexington. Big-picture, the new era is surpassing the old, and he’s proud of that — especially considering what this program has gone through in that span.

“This is just explaining the facts of where we are, the facts of the positive things that were accomplished, the positive trend lines that are just facts,” he continued. “Go look at go do the math yourself.”

Better yet, he did it for you, starting with the team’s injury struggles. In year one, it was about Jaxson Robinson’s wrist, Lamont Butler’s ankle and shoulder, Kerr Kriisa’s foot and Andrew Carr’s back. In year two, it was Jaland Lowe’s shoulder, Jayden Quaintance’s knee and Kam Williams’ foot.

All in all, he’s had a complete roster in just 14 percent of his games coaching at Kentucky — and just nine percent against Power Four competition.

“Everybody knows the injury history, but the numbers are glaring. In the last few years, we faced a lot of adversity,” Pope said. “In 72 games, we’ve played 10 with a full roster in the last two years, and in 56 games against Power Four teams, we played five games with a full roster. There are so many dynamics that go into that, and that is a real thing that’s been a real issue for us.”

Despite those serious availability issues with some of the program’s top talent and key pieces — Lowe, Williams and Quaintance were all likely starters this season — the winning percentage remains higher now than it was to end John Calipari’s time at Kentucky.

He didn’t call out the current Arkansas coach by name, but Pope certainly put his what-have-you-done-for-me-lately resume in Lexington up against his. That doesn’t even consider the fact that UK’s strength of schedule has been worlds tougher now compared to then.

“We just have had some misfortune. With that said — this is what’s going to shock you. If you take the four years before we got here and compare them to the two years since we’ve been here, we actually have a higher winning percentage in the last two than we did in the four preceding — barely, but a higher winning percentage,” he said. “This is also part of the reason that with all these injuries in the last two years, we played the hardest strength of schedule in a two-year period in the history of Kentucky basketball. So not only did we win at a slightly higher rate than the previous four years, but we played a schedule that was rated a 13.55 average in the last two years compared to the four years previous, at an 8.76.

“That’s almost — I mean, that’s in the realm of almost 70 percent more difficult schedule. So in those ways — like, listen, I’m not talking about meeting the standard of where we’re trying to get. Clearly, we did not do that, but we’re making progress.”

Want to talk about postseason success? Pope will go there, too. Failing to make the weekend at the SEC Tournament stinks and he hates that the Wildcats couldn’t return to the Sweet 16 and beyond in the Big Dance, but when you look at who Kentucky is beating and losing to, he’ll taking where things stand today as they continue to build for the future.

Again, it’s still not enough, but the program isn’t unraveling the way it may feel, he says.

“In four years before we got here, we won one game in Nashville. In the last two years, we’ve won three games in Nashville. Clearly, the seed hasn’t been as good, but in the last two years, we lost to the No. 5 and No. 6 team in the country to be put out of the SEC Tournament. In the four years previous, we lost to No. 9, No. 35, No. 67 and No. 81 to be knocked out of the SEC Tournament,” Pope continued. “In the last two years, we’ve won three games in the NCAA Tournament. In the previous four years, we won one game total in the NCAA Tournament.

“That doesn’t tell the whole story, but for the people that love Kentucky, they just want to know that we’re making progress. Those are real hard, solid numbers that may be surprising — go look them up. The winning percentage is higher, the NCAA Tournament success is higher, the strength of schedule is ridiculously more difficult, and all of that done in the context of having one of the most unfortunate health trends in the history of Kentucky basketball.”

Oh, and one more thing: top wins compared to bad losses. Pope likes one stat that paints a better picture than perceived, too.

Kentucky joins four additional schools still in the Sweet 16 with five excellent wins and just one ho-hum loss on the resume — and his Wildcats beat one of them this year, led by a familiar face.

“In ’25-26, this season, UK was one of only five teams in the country with five or more top 20 wins, KenPom top 20 wins, and one or less losses to teams outside the top 40. Those teams were Arizona, Arkansas, Duke, Michigan and Kentucky,” he said. “Sometimes our emotions get so carried away, like, ‘Oh, Kentucky has more losses than normal.’ Yes, the number of losses we had were not acceptable. There was one against a team outside the top 40 in the country. There’s only five teams in the country that can claim that stat that have five or more wins against the top 20.

“The team we lost to was Missouri, which was an NCAA Tournament team. So, again, like being in this company, it’s not where we want to be. We want to be a one of one. We want to be still playing right now. But there is so much to be hopeful for, and we’re going the right direction.”

The point he’s trying to make is for his players who feel they’re failing to meet expectations and are being lumped in with the results of Coach Cal’s last four seasons at Kentucky. Yes, the Wildcats haven’t been to the Elite Eight since 2019, but they’re not going to the NIT.

“In those senses — we haven’t met our goals, clearly, but we are making progress, and that part’s exciting,” Pope said. “I really bring that up because I think at times, our guys feel like, ‘Man, everybody says this is the worst it’s ever been.’

“It’s not. We’re actually making positive progress.”