Mark Pope sees Kentucky's defensive potential, but 'we’re a million miles away'

It took Mark Pope‘s first Kentucky team longer than hoped to reach the point where defense was no longer an issue. It wasn’t until midway through SEC play that the Wildcats began to hit a groove on that end of the floor.

“Last year, if you remember, we finally found our footing defensively after the game at Ole Miss and we made incredible strides in the last six weeks, eight weeks of the season,” Pope told reporters Monday. “We’re hoping to not wait quite that deep into the season before we improve.”

Once sitting outside of the top 100 nationally in overall defense last season, Kentucky ranked among the top 35 the rest of the way after that blowout road loss to the Rebels. In the offseason, Pope retooled his roster with defense and athleticism at the front of his mind. The likes of Jayden Quaintance, Mo Dioubate, Denzel Aberdeen, and Kam Williams were all added through the transfer portal as impact players on defense.

Since arriving on campus, many of those players have talked about Kentucky being among the nation’s best defenses going into 2025-26. But a little over halfway through summer practices, Pope is pushing back on that narrative.

“We’re a million miles away from being the team that we think we can be,” Pope said about his team’s defense. “It’s all fun and games to say what we think we can be [one of the best defensive teams in the country], but I do think that the potential is there. We just have a long way to go to get there.”

Pope wasn’t a huge fan of what he saw defensively during Kentucky’s scrimmage last week against La Familia, UK’s alumni team in The Basketball Tournament, which was eliminated in the Sweet 16 on Tuesday night. The current Wildcats still came out with the win, according to KSR’s Jack Pilgrim, but the defense left something to be desired in Pope’s eyes.

Why, you might ask?

“Poor coaching so far, actually,” Pope said half-jokingly. “Poor coaching so far.”

During his time as a player, Pope said most of his teams — whether that be in college or the NBA — entered the offseason with the defense ahead of its offense. He admitted that hasn’t always been the case since becoming a head coach, though, “because I’m twisted and warped and I love the offensive side of the floor.”

But he’s looking to alter that approach with this year’s group of Wildcats.

“The bet that we’re making is, if we spend an extraordinary amount of time on a (defensive) foundation, in a really new but like 100 percent way, the framing of the house and the finish of the house is actually gonna go way faster,” Pope said. “We’re spending a massive amount of time and energy and focus on the foundation, making the best, deepest, most sure foundation that we possibly can. And we’re trusting that the next steps are going to go faster and we’re going to have a better product.”

That foundation is still currently being built in practice behind the Joe Craft Center’s closed doors, but progress is being made.

One area Pope is hyper-focusing on is defensive field goal percentage. Kentucky’s overall defense improved as the 2024-25 campaign went along, but opposing teams still posted an effective field goal percentage of 50.3 for the season, a number that ranked 149th in the country per KenPom. Especially on two-pointers, the Wildcats allowed opponents to make those shots at a 53.9 percent clip, which ranked 295th nationally.

“Our legal contests has been a little bit slower to develop, but that’s massively important,” Pope said, mentioning Williams by name as someone already thriving in this area. “One of the things we have to do is our defensive field goal percentage has got to be better next year. We’re dedicated to having a legal contest on every single field goal attempt. Every single one. And there’s a lot that goes into that, but that’s a major point of emphasis for us.”

Luckily, there is still a long way to go before the season-opener this November. Kentucky is in the middle of week five of an eight-week summer practice schedule. NCAA rules will force them to take some time off after that, but following a short break, they’ll be back in the gym fine-tuning the defensive system. It’s a process, but one that Pope is trusting in.

“We have a long way to go on (defense),” Pope said. “But I think we can get there.”

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