Mark Pope knew what he was getting into when he agreed to take the Kentucky Wildcats’ coaching job. He will have some big shoes to fill, and he wasn’t afraid of the challenge.
Not many people thought the Wildacts would be a contending team in his first year in charge of the program, since Coach Pope didn’t have much time to put together his roster.
Even so, he took them to the Sweet 16 with a team that he put together in a few weeks. With that in mind, renowned NCAA analyst Jon Rothstein tipped his hat to him.
Jon Rothstein praises Mark Pope
“One of the things you have to feel good about if you are a Kentucky fan when it comes to Mark Pope is this, many players in the transfer portal are being evaluated by their overall talent and what they can do from a production standpoint,” Rothstein said, per CBS. “Mark Pope thinks about putting together a team, he does not look to just try and accumulate talent, and that was reiterated with the way he built Kentucky’s roster in his first season. I can tell you this much, he’s done it again.”
Now, Pope and his coaching staff will have more time to get everything together and make sure the pieces they got jell well with the players they already had on their roster.
And while they might not be at the top of the way-too-early preseason rankings, we’re still talking about one of the biggest powerhouses in all of college basketball, so you can never sleep on the Wildcats.