Mark Pope (with help from his staff) is taking full advantage of the new coach's challenges

It’s been part of the NBA rulebook for a while now, but college basketball followed suit back in the summer when the rules committee implemented the coach’s challenge for the 2025-26 season.

The coach’s challenge is exactly what it sounds like. At any point during a game, a head coach can challenge calls such as out-of-bounds, goaltending, and players being inside the restricted arc. As long as the team wanting to challenge a call has at least one timeout left, they can initiate a challenge by using the timeout. If the referees rule the challenge successful, the team keeps the timeout. If unsuccessful, that timeout is gone.

According to CBB Analytics, Kentucky has been successful on five of six coach’s challenges this season for an 83 percent hit rate.

• Nov. 11 @ Louisville: 0-1
• Nov. 14 vs. Eastern Illinois: 1-1
• Dec. 20 vs. St. John’s: 1-1
• Jan. 17 @ Tennessee: 2-2
• Jan. 31 @ Arkansas: 1-1

“It’s a fun part of the game. I actually like it,” Pope said Friday when asked about the new rule. “It’s something you know in your pocket, and I think it’s really effective. I think it was a genius move by the Rules Committee. Because what it does is it takes some of the pressure, the relentless pressure, off of these referees, and it puts it on coaches. There’s this space that was like, hey, if it was a problem, you should have challenged it. The challenges are really limited in scope. I would love for them to expand in scope. But I think it’s been a good move. I think we’ve been really effective.”

Challenges need to be used wisely. The score and time matter when figuring out if a challenge is necessary. You can only have a maximum of two per game. A handful of Kentucky’s successful challenges have come against quality opponents in key moments.

The first of two challenges against Tennessee resulted in Brandon Garrison‘s goaltending call being overturned, giving Kentucky two points in the midst of its second-half comeback. The second challenge in that game came a few minutes later, when Pope challenged an out-of-bounds call that originally went against his team. After a successful challenge, Denzel Aberdeen scored to make it just a four-point Tennessee lead with under nine minutes left in regulation.

Against Arkansas, Pope challenged an out-of-bounds call that originally went in Arkansas’ favor before being overturned and giving UK possession. Kentucky was up four points at the time over midway through the first half. Andrija Jelavić hit a three-pointer on the Wildcats’ next possession. The challenge against St. John’s gave UK the ball back up 10 points deep into the second half.

There is limited time for Pope and his coaching staff to figure out if a call is worthy of being challenged or not. Aside from having only a few seconds to figure out if the time and place are right to use a challenge, the staff also has to decide if they have a real chance to even win the challenge. That’s where video coordinator Matt Santoro and his trusty iPad come into play.

Santoro is always seated closely behind Pope on the bench. Those two have maybe 10 seconds — at most — to communicate their decision to challenge or not before the officials put the ball back into play. In that short amount of time, Santoro replays the game tape and has one, maybe two looks at the play before he has to tell Pope to challenge or not.

“I think Matt Santoro has done an unbelievable job. And he’s feeling a lot of pressure,” Pope said. “I think now every single person in a Rupp can feel the moment where there’s a potential challenge. And I think 20,000, I guess we all have two, so 40,000 eyes are trained right on Matt Santoro, and I actually love the moment for him. It’s pretty fun.”

Coach’s challenges have been a welcome addition to college basketball this season, and Pope is taking full advantage of them.

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