Mark Pope Downplays 'Out of Character Moment' But Declines to Tell the Story: 'It Really is Nothing'

Mark Pope made headlines with his comments on Thursday about an “out of character” moment from his team before the Kentucky vs. Louisville game on Tuesday. However, at the time, he declined to say what that experience was.

“I actually think we did a — you know, I’m not ready to tell the story yet, but at some point, we’ll talk in detail about our pregame experience at Louisville,” Pope said on Thursday. “It was out of character for us, and that’s young and new. I actually don’t want to keep our emotions in check, I just want to keep them focused, and I want to keep them intentional.”

Well, it didn’t take long for Pope to be asked about that comment again after Kentucky’s 99-53 win over Eastern Illinois on Friday night. He downplayed his own comments in his answer.

“You guys know I’m a big Taylor Swift fan, and I just like to leave out these little things that keep everybody wondering and guessing,” Pope said. “There’s really not much to it. At some point, I’ll tell you the story, but I’d like you guys to prognosticate on that for a couple of days.”

Mark Pope downplays his “out of character” comment from yesterday’s press conference.

Says it really wasn’t anything, but still wouldn’t go into details on what actually happened. pic.twitter.com/zGhcAxD0R2

— Zack Geoghegan (@ZGeogheganKSR) November 15, 2025

Pope continued to downplay the comments. He left it vague in his response.

“It really is nothing. It’s just something about the emotional level of our team,” Pope said. “I wanted to tease this out and let that play for a few more days. When we talk about this, it’s really not going to be very interesting. It was just the way that we felt as a team and how we responded.”

Mark Pope Adds More on Postgame Radio

Mark Pope was once again asked about his comments during his postgame radio show with Tom Leach.

“Did anybody catch what I said? Anybody want to know what I was talking about? How mad would you guys be if I told you there was not much to it? I just like floating it out there so we had something to talk about,” Pope said. “Is that a good thing for a bad thing?”

Pope said that there’s “a little something there.” Then, he said that it’s not as exciting as “the prognosticating.”

“We’re very meticulous about managing our emotions. It’s really important to us as a program that we’re incredibly emotional. We care so much; this matters so much. We actually don’t want to be run by our emotions. We want to control and focus our emotions.”

That’s resulted in a unique pregame routine. Pope described it to fans during his interview with Leach.

“In our last meeting in the locker room before the game, we’ll actually physically go through the action of flipping the switch,” Pope said. “We keep our emotional level pretty low, then we flip the switch to get to an eight or a nine. It’s war, it’s fighting. There’s no more laughing and joking around. It’s on.”

Maybe we’ll get more answers on this in the coming weeks. For now, we’re left with bits and pieces.