It takes a village to find success in team sports, and college basketball isn’t the exception to that rule. If anything, it requires a bigger staff than what you’d see somewhere else.
Coaches have to be tacticians, recruiters, sports psychologists, and whatnot. They also have to be mentors, father figures, and prepare those young men not only for a game but also for life.
That’s why Kentucky Wildcats coach Mark Pope knows that he can’t do it all on his own. Recently, he admitted that he wasn’t good at one key aspect: Fixing broken shots.
Mark Pope admits he can’t fix broken shots
“So just so you know, in my recruiting, I cannot teach players to shoot,” Pope told Certified Kentucky. “By the time they get to me, I cannot fix mechanics. I will not even try. If a player does not have solid mechanics, I will not touch them. I just cannot. I just have had no success. I am not a good enough coach to do it. These guys, by the time they get to us, they have had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of shots. And if they have practiced hundreds and hundreds of thousands of times with bad mechanics, then I cannot touch them. I really will not. Even a great athlete, I will not touch him if his mechanics are not OK.”
Mark Pope the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats
Of course, that’s a big limitation. Some players thrive off their athleticism and instincts, and it takes them a little longer to develop a reliable jump shot. Some even have to wait until the pros.
see also
25 highest-paid college basketball head coaches: Who earns the most?
The Wildcats have one of the best coaching staffs in the nation, so perhaps Coach Pope should try to take a different approach and trust him and his trainers with this type of responsibility. It will open a lot of doors for more top-tier recruits.
