Mark Pope on Recruiting: 'You'd Be Shocked At How Many Times We End Up Mutually Walking Away'

Kentucky entered the 2024-25 season with six players entering their final season of eligibility. This season, Mark Pope‘s roster was constructed looking towards the future.

Pope addressed the media on Monday to discuss how the process has changed after one year on the job. He’s enjoying it more than ever.

“I think the process is even more fun than it’s ever been,” Pope said. “I’ll continue to say that the most important part of this process for us is not finding the best, highest-ranked player. You would be shocked at how many times we end up mutually walking away because we know what Kentucky is, and finding the right player here doesn’t amount to the sum of just going to find whoever someone is ranking the highest player. You can’t know that before you get deep into the recruiting process.”

The 2025-26 roster is a lot different than last year. Kentucky only has two seniors on scholarship, with most of the team holding multiple years of eligibility left. Pope also talked about how that changes his approach to roster construction.

“We’re really trying to figure that out. It’s really complicated,” Pope said. “Again, for the fourth straight year, we’re in here saying everything has changed. Again, for this coming cycle, we’re working under a totally first-time-ever set of rules, standards, and working off a cap is something that’s just so new. We’re modeling every single day. It’s complicated.”

How to Address the Changing Tides

Recruiting has changed tremendously in the past few months. After the finalization of the House Settlement in the summer, Kentucky, like every school, has had to operate.

There are all kinds of dynamics about how to do that. I do know that for us right now, we’re so excited about this team that we have right now that our number one focus is there. All the stuff about next year and how that works, we’re going to deal with that when next year comes. Right now, we feel like we’ve got a beautiful Ferrari and we can’t wait to take it for a spin.”

Pope continually emphasized how fun the recruiting process has been for him. Despite Kentucky not having a commit in the 2026 class, he’s enjoying his time finding the right players.

“The most important thing is that you get to know each other and understand, like, what is really driving a player, and a player needs to understand what’s really driving a program,” Pope said. “It’s not about — for me at least, the way we want to do it here at Kentucky it’s not just about kind of ignoring that part and just grabbing the right talent.

“All of that said, that’s why recruiting is so fun for us,” he said. “Even the kids that we recruit really hard that it ends up this is not the right fit for them, like, we’ve had a chance to build a great relationship. This world is so small, so we’re going to cross paths 100 times.”