Mark Pope looking forward to Seattle homecoming, extended road trip

Kentucky’s trip to Seattle to play Gonzaga will be a homecoming for Mark Pope. Pope grew up in Bellevue, Washington, just across Lake Washington from Seattle. That’s where he got into basketball, leading Newport High School to the state playoffs and earning All-American honors. He played his first two seasons of college basketball at the University of Washington in Seattle. It was only when Huskies coach Lynn Nance resigned that Pope left the state, driving across the country to play for Rick Pitino at Kentucky.

Now, Pope will bring his first Kentucky team back to Seattle for a late-night clash vs. No. 7 Gonzaga, the latest in a series of full-circle moments since he accepted the job in April. In turn, he’s expecting plenty of friends and family in the stands at Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday night.

“I don’t get to go back to Seattle much so I’m excited to go back,” Pope told reporters on Thursday. “I’ll see a bunch of high school teammates who I think are coming to the game and get a chance to sit with Coach Belcher, who I love so much. Excited to see him. My parents don’t live in Seattle anymore but a bunch of my siblings do. I’ll get to see them, they’ll be at the game. Seattle is a great city and I have a ton of love for it so I’m excited to get back.”

Coach Belcher is Richard Belcher, Pope’s coach at Newport High School. Before retiring in 2007, Belcher won over 400 games as a high school coach. Pope often talks about the impact Rick Pitino had on him as a player and coach; Belcher was the one who laid the foundation.

“I wish I could be as good as him,” Pope said. “Coach Belcher is really special. He was our basketball coach but it seemed like he controlled our entire life. He made the high school basketball program kind of built it so it was such a big construct that it kind of occupied every single moment of your day. Things on the court and off the court and all around the court. He was a basketball coach for sure. He’s a Hall of Fame basketball coach but he was at his heart, he was a teacher. That’s not even right. He was a mentor. He was a father figure. He was a guru, like a Yoda, right? He is really special that way.”

If you ask his players, one of Pope’s greatest strengths as a coach is how he listens, not just about stuff on the court, but off. That’s a lesson he learned firsthand from Belcher.

“He was an unbelievable listener in terms of getting to know individual players,” Pope said. “He didn’t coach players, he coached a player. He coached this player and he coached that player and he coached every single guy individually in a really special way. I love him. He’s a really special person. He’s been great to me, great to my family, great to my parents.”

“He is a person who truly cares about his players as much off the court as he does on,” Belcher said of Pope in an interview with Deseret News in 2021. “I think that’s very important. Some coaches talk a good game. But he’s very sincere about it.”

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Pope looking forward to team bonding on the road

Kentucky arrived in Seattle yesterday, earlier than usual for a road game, presumably to adjust to the time difference, etc. It’s by far the furthest the Cats will travel for a regular-season game this year, the other previous road trips being to Atlanta for the Champions Classic and Clemson for Tuesday’s game vs. the Tigers.

That kind of travel can throw things off, but Pope is confident the veterans on this team will help the younger guys adjust. In fact, he’s looking forward to some team bonding at the hotel.

“Fortunately, we’ve got veteran guys so these guys will be ready. I’m actually excited, we’re going to be out in Seattle a little longer than normal, which I don’t love but it also is going to give us some time to be together. One of the things is, since we played our [multi-team event] at home, we don’t kind of get that experience of being out on the road for four or five or six days so we’ll have a couple of days here where we can be locked into the hotel together and I actually think this should be really positive for us. I’m looking forward to it.”

So, how many tickets did Pope set aside for friends and family tomorrow night? Much like the price he paid for ice cream for fans who stuck around for his radio show two weeks ago at Rupp, he’s not saying.

“I don’t have an estimate on numbers that I’m going to give you and I’m not going to tell you how much it’s going to cost me,” Pope said, smiling. “It’s just fun. Just super fun. It’s a blessing.”