Mark Pope mic'd up at practice: "Good energy, good intensity. That's the standard."

What’s it like to be coached by Mark Pope at Kentucky? Don’t take my word for it, just listen to his.

The video team put together a mic’d up feature with nearly six minutes of footage from Pope’s hands-on instruction at practice inside the Joe Craft Center.

“Andrew, make that rip physical!” he tells forward Andrew Carr to open the clip.

“You’re gonna shoot this hook every single time,” Pope followed to Brandon Garrison. “If he fully commits to take it away, you’re going rip. If you get the rip, you’re taking it with your left hand. If he recovers on the rip, that means he’s really backed up. So if you go quick, you’re going to have this third shot every single time.”

The Kentucky head coach rolls through the entire roster with individual tips while also encouraging his players to coach up one another — particularly the vets to the young guys.

“When things go wrong, that’s when we get started,” he said. “We’re not worried about making mistakes, we’re worried about playing through mistakes and fixing mistakes.”

And then the final message to his team to close out practice, stressing accountability, joy and energy every day the Wildcats walk into that gym. Do those things and everything else will work itself out.

“You guys came with good energy, good intensity. That’s the standard every single day that I hope you all will hold each other accountable to, okay?” Pope told the team. “Joy in the gym every single day, juice in the gym every single day. That’s what it is every single day, that’s important for us. …

“Gratitude is a skill that if you practice will give you a joyful life regardless of your circumstances. It’s a skill we need to practice, you can practice it every single day. We’re grateful people and joyful people, there is no way around it. If you’re grateful and you’re joyful, it doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, famous or anonymous, good at basketball or bad at basketball — but I prefer you all be good at basketball.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

🎙️ Mic'd up at summer practice with @CoachMarkPope pic.twitter.com/GHTr49J6Ei

— Kentucky Men’s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) August 8, 2024