Mark Pope posted a trio of Collin Chandler practice highlights that you need to see

Mark Pope doesn’t tweet very often, but the one he fired off on Sunday caught our attention.

The Kentucky men’s basketball head coach took to social media to give the Big Blue Nation a little taste of what’s going on behind the scenes. “Saturday Practice with CC: The game asks us to play off 2 until it asks us to play off 1,” Pope said in his tweet, which was accompanied by a trio of highlight clips featuring 6-foot-5 guard Collin Chandler from Saturday’s practice.

As Pope mentioned, Chandler does an excellent job in these clips of keeping plays alive by playing off two feet instead of one. The first two clips show him making the right decision after coming to a full stop inside the arc, both passes leading to an assist. The third is the one that will make your eyes pop out; Chandler drives into the lane and rises over Andrija Jelavić for a poster slam.

Mark Pope leaking Collin Chandler practice highlights on social media?

Yes, please!

🎥: @CoachMarkPope pic.twitter.com/5o5XnyBq44

— KSR (@KSRonX) September 7, 2025

Now something must’ve gone wonky with Pope’s Twitter/X account, because a few minutes after he sent out the video, it was deleted. The actual tweet remains on his profile page, but the video itself is no longer there. Luckily for us, the internet is forever — and in this instance, we are grateful for that fact.

Pope choosing Chandler’s ability to play off of two feet as his practice highlight subject is timely for the rising sophomore. Chandler talked about that exact thing back in June during media player interviews. One of the main things he’s been working on this offseason is playing more confidently off two feet, something he admits he struggled with as a true freshman last season.

“When you pick up the ball playing off two feet, and sometimes nobody’s open, and it feels so uncomfortable with the ball, you just want to get rid of it, right?” Chandler explained. “It’s almost like an awkward play, but a winning play is: nobody’s open, okay, I’ll pass it over almost half court to get it to our guy, to set it up again.

“That’s actually a win for our team. We went to try to find a play and nothing worked, so we’re going to live to fight another day and go again, it’s actually a win.”

A few months later, the exact situation Chandler described above happened in the first clip of the video Pope posted. Chandler planted himself just outside of the paint and swung the ball across the court to Jaland Lowe for a wide-open corner three. Just like Pope said, the game asked Chandler to play off two feet, and that’s exactly what he did.