The Mark Pope Show presented by UK HealthCare, March 23rd 2026

The Voice of the Wildcats, Tom Leach talks with head coach Mark Pope

Episode Transcript

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What makes us different than everybody else?

Speaker 5 (00:39):
Is U.

Speaker 6 (00:41):
From the UK s Sports Network. This is the Mark
Folk Show, presented by UK Healthcare. Send your questions to
Coach Pope on that Clark's puffing hup text line at
eight five nine two zero three one two three four.
You can also post your questions on x at UK

(01:02):
Sports Network or on the UK Sports Network Facebook page.

Speaker 7 (01:08):
A sign it's will win batters win National champions That's
our job.

Speaker 6 (01:15):
The Mark Pope Show, presented by UK Healthcare begins now
alongside the Coach Here's no voice ton the Cats, Tom Leach.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Good evening everyone, and welcome into the Mark Pope Show
presented by UK Healthcare. Unfortunately, the end of the road
came in Saint Louis yesterday for the Wildcats. I lost
to second seed Iowa State in the round of thirty
two in the NCAA tournament. Seasons are always fun and
it's always disappointing when they end wherever that spot in

(01:48):
the tournament comes. So we'll look back on the season
look ahead to the next one with Coach Pope and
we will take your questions on the Clark's Pump and
Shop text line. You can send those in at eight five, nine,
two three four. You can also post on x at
UK Sports Network. And just with the way the Women's

(02:09):
NCAA tournament schedule played out and the TV scheduling was set,
the Kentucky women are playing at the same hour. They
are at halftime right now up in West Virginia and
the five seed Kentucky and the four seed West Virginia
are tied at thirty six. When we come back, we
will welcome in Coach Pope and then a little bit
later we'll start to get to your questions. We'll be

(02:30):
right back on the UK Sports Network.

Speaker 6 (02:34):
You're listening to the Mark Pope Show, presented by UK
Healthcare on the UK Sports Network.

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The Mark Pope Show is brought.

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Speaker 2 (05:40):
Welcome back into the show and we are joined now
by coach Mark Pope and just said at the outset
of this thing, it is always a disappointment whatever a
season comes to end, because it's so much lad to
be a part of it, especially when you get into
that tournament, and so it's always disappointed when it ends,

(06:01):
and it's always going to be sudden except the last
one standing.

Speaker 7 (06:05):
Yeah, it's in my whole career, I've only had one
season where I celebrated the last game of the season.
That was here thirty years ago, and believe it or not,
that's an unbelievably high success rate. Very few people even

(06:26):
get one, and so I'm great for that. We're tracing
a second one. We got a lot of work to do,
but but uh, there's so many things to be proud
of with the season and so much work to do
to get better, and it's all let's go before we
get into that.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
I'm sure you were quite pleased for your old coach
that stayed alive.

Speaker 7 (06:43):
Yes, I know coach is excited about that. You know,
a fun, fun story about his guy that made that
shot at the end of the game. And it's it's
you know, we lived it, listen. I mean we lived
it in in the first round game, and so we understand.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Well, let's let's talk a little bit about Saint Louis
and we'll start there. Uh, there are those magic moments
in March that happened. Uh, the young man from Vanderbilt,
Tyler Tanner, was just a spin of the ball away
from having one. Otega always went in the basket. Yeah,
what an incredible shot. And no time outs at that point,
so you couldn't draw anything up for them like.

Speaker 7 (07:18):
You did down at L s U. Yeah, we didn't.
We didn't get to stop. Uh Santa Clair tried to
stop and couldn't couldn't get the call and and uh
Denzel and Otaga refused to stop, and you get that
moment and and uh, you know, it's one of those
moments that that we'll remember that was just it is
really special. You know, it's I won a national championship

(07:41):
uh here and we never had a moment quite like that.
And and uh you know, those are iconic moments in
uh in the NCAA tournament and the one those are
the highlights that you see over and over and over again,
and and they happened throughout the tournament, and you know,
everybody remembers uh, you know, Valpo, and you go down

(08:03):
the list of these great shots and and certainly otego
away and is going to live as well as graves
that kind of back to back are going to live
in that space. And it's it's amazing, you know, again,
not not the end goal that we wanted, but really
incredible moments along the way.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
For Otega shot because of the time of day that
had happened playing the first game there on that Friday
afternoon round of the tournament. Some people it's there's gonna
be so many great memories that people will have over
who they were watching with or where they were could
have been in school, I mean, as we were all
coming up. God bless those teachers that rolled in the TV.

Speaker 7 (08:41):
Thank you, by the way to those teachers, because that
is awesome. And I'm saying this with with with every
bit of sincerity. Uh, every school classroom in the state
of Kentucky that was like, you know what, let's roll
the TVs in and watch.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Uh, let's go man.

Speaker 7 (08:58):
That just is it's the good stuff, and you know
it get You know for sure that that moment I
would have loved to be in in schools that we're
doing that because I'm sure it.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Was mayhem as it was. Uh in the arena. Uh,
you stayed reasonably calm by the way.

Speaker 7 (09:14):
Well, we still had a lot to do. I mean,
you know, we didn't win it, we tied it, we
still had overtime to go through and and but it
was a it was a great moment.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
And then Iowa State on Sunday, if not the best
team you played one of the two. Florida was the
higher rank that you faced the all season, but Iowa
State was sixth in the country and a team that's
certainly legitimate Final Four contender. And I know you had
a high level of respect for them going in.

Speaker 7 (09:40):
Yeah, and they had had some misfortunate of their own. Uh,
you know, lost Josh Jefferson, and it felt a little
bit like Texas Tech who lost their star big and
then came out and played unbelievable basketball for a few
games and then it starts to catch up with you
a little bit. But Iowa State is a terrific team,

(10:00):
and you know we we fell victim this year several
times over in fact, you know, I'm sure at some
point we'll talk about our point guard situation, but we
fell victim several times this season to pressure, and you know,
we managed it really well. The first ten minutes of
the game we were the aggressor of our ball was extraordinary.

(10:22):
And then the more stagnant we got, the more difficult
the game the game became. And credit to Iowa State,
of course, a very frustrating afternoon for us, but you know,
they're terrific team and they played well.

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When we finish up here on the Mark Pope Show
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(14:28):
at bbintonight dot com. It's the Mark Pope Show, presented
by UK Healthcare. A couple more questions that I'll get to,
and then we'll start to ask some fan questions. Retention
of players, as always in this era that we're in,
now top of mind for fans once their team's season
does come to an end. So what can you tell

(14:48):
us about the timeline for how that will play out?

Speaker 7 (14:52):
Yeah, for me, what I'm doing is kind of giving
the guys a day, really two days to breathe, to decompress,
and we'll start those conversations in earnest and see where
we end up. You know, like like you said, in
this time at college basketball, everyone's got to make a
decision about what's going to work best for them and

(15:14):
how they want to do it and where they want
to do it. And it is an important piece of
this retention and important piece. But you know, with cap
management now it all falls under that window. Everything is
dependent on you know, how it fits into a cap also,
and I'm.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Guessing you have people assigned to just be scanning the
country for rising stars or whatever and just identifying who's boy.
If this kid would go in, coach, you ought to
take a look at him, that kind of thing.

Speaker 7 (15:45):
Yep, yes, all that is full time. It's actually it's
actually a fascinating process.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Well, anything you can share, but I.

Speaker 7 (15:54):
Don't think I can share much. I can talk about
our guys, I can't talk about any other guys. I mean,
so Kentucky, but more excited to engage those conversations. There's
you know, certainly, like I said, retention is a big
piece of this and we'd like to you know, we'd
like to make some progress there as quickly and early
as we can.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
This is going to be your last chance for this
season to talk to the BBN, and you get a
chance to tell them why you think it can be
where you want it to be next season, and for them,
for the players that are on your team, for you
and your coaches.

Speaker 7 (16:30):
Well I do, I mean, I listen, you know, it's
our our data team was always digging in deep and
I don't really do this very much, but I just
want to share a couple thoughts. If we take a window.
You know, listen, we all know the standard that we
are chasing here at Kentucky, but you get there by

(16:50):
making progress, and there's some really good markers for the
people that want to cheer. It is not going to
serve the people that want to hate, but the people
that want to cheer and the people that really care
about the program and are living and dying to see
these guys be successful and win. There's so much hopeful
stuff out there when you look at trends in terms

(17:14):
of growth and improvement, and you know, I want to
speak to those people a little bit in the sense
of kind of where we've been and where we are.
You know, everybody knows the injury history, but you know,
the numbers are glaring. In the last two years, we
faced a lot of adversity. In seventy two games, we've

(17:35):
played ten with a full roster in the last two years,
and in fifty six games against Power four teams. We've
played five games against Power four teams with a full roster.
And there's so many dynamics that go into that, and
that is a real thing that's been a real issue

(17:56):
for us. I don't know how to control that.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
We have. You know, our.

Speaker 7 (18:00):
Performance team works like crazy when we evaluate it it's
not soft tissue stuff that's holding our guys at the games.
It's not stability, it's not strength stuff. It's been random things.
Jackson Robinson injury is random. Lamont Butler, you know, one
of the healthiest players to ever play basketball is random.
Jalen Lowe you know, you know, competed in every game.

(18:21):
Is there's so much random to it. We just have
had some misfortune. With that said, this is what's going
to shock you. If you take the four years before
we got here and compare them to the two years
since we've been here. We actually have a higher winning
percentage in the last two than we did in the
four proceeding, barely, but a higher winning percentage. This is

(18:44):
also part of that. That's with all these injuries. In
the last two years, we played the hardest strength of
schedule in two year period in the history of Kentucky basketball.
So not only did we win at a slight higher
rate than the previous four years, but we played a

(19:05):
schedule that was rated thirteen point five to five average
in the last two years campaigned compared to the four
years previous out of eight seven six. That's almost I mean,
that's in the realm of almost seventy percent, more difficult schedule,
and so in those ways, like listen, there's I'm not

(19:25):
talking about meeting the standard of where we're trying to get.
Clearly we did not do that, but we are making progress.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
In the.

Speaker 7 (19:35):
Four years before we got here, we won one game
in Nashville. In the last two years we've won three
games in Nashville. And clearly the seed hasn't been as
good as good. But in the last two years we
lost to the number five and the number six team
in the country to be to be put out of
the SEC tournament. In the four years previous, we lost

(19:58):
to number nine, number thirty five, number sixty seven, and
number eighty one to be knocked out of the SEC tournament.
In the last two years, we've won three games in
the NCAA tournament. In the previous four years we won
one game total in the NCAA tournament. That doesn't tell
the whole story, but for the people that love Kentucky

(20:21):
that just want to know that we're making progress, those
are real, hard, solid numbers that may be surprising. Go
look them up. The winning percentages higher the NCAA tournament
success is higher, the strength of schedule is ridiculously more difficult,
and all of that done in the context of having

(20:43):
one of the most unfortunate health trends in the history
of Kentucky basketball. And so in those senses, like I'm
we haven't met our goals clearly, but we are making
progress and that part's exciiting. And I really bring that
up because I think at times our guys feel like, man,

(21:05):
everybody says this is the worst it's ever been, it's not.
We're actually making positive project. We're making positive progress by
the numbers, and I'm grateful for the work and the
commitment of our guys, and we're gonna keep going. And
the thing is, we have to keep getting better and
better and better as we grow this program to the

(21:27):
point where we're actually hanging a banner. And this is
all part of the process. And we have nothing in
our offices in our locker room besides hope and excitement
for the future.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
And that's I'm sure the message you want to sell
to high school players you're recruiting, and just for portal
guys you'll be trying to bring to Kentucky. Yeah, a
couple of additions to that. I remember looking at it
in prep for yesterday, Jefferson missed the game for Iowa State. Obviously,
that was the second time in thirty six games that
they didn't start the same starting five. It's interesting Florida

(22:02):
and prepping for the SEC game that you guys played
again in the tournament they hal could missed the day before.
I think that was the second time all season that
Florida did not have the same starting five on the floor.
So that doesn't matter.

Speaker 7 (22:14):
Well, and if you look at it, if you look
at it also, you know, uh Torvik put out this
great graph that's the top thirty teams in the country,
which we are one of and so what it did
it had missed games and it had ranking, and so
you have all thirty teams ranked with their icons on
the graph, and then you have Kentucky like way up here,

(22:36):
doubled up at top. It's not an excuse because we've
actually won more games percentage. Why is in the four
years before we got here, we've won more games in
the SEC tournament in the NCAA tournament, right, But it's
just it's also a part of the story. And so
you know, if you're looking for hope, there's a lot
of places to find hope in what's going on and

(23:01):
to mcgol but we're making progress on.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Proud of it. We'll get to a break, come back,
get to questions. We've got actually a follow up to
that good question for one of our listeners about style
of play relating to those injuries. We'll get into that
and we come right back. It's the Mark Pope Show,
presented by UK Healthcare on the UK Sports Network.

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Speaker 2 (25:44):
Let's go to a question from one of our listeners.
UH don't have a name on this one, but he's
he or she said. Obviously not the outcome anyone wanted.
But how do you or do you feel like you
went away from your style of play on the offensive
side of the ball because of those injuries?

Speaker 7 (26:00):
Yes? Uh, so you know this would be this would
be fun to talk about, and there's that, you know.
I usually I try not to get into too much
detail about the stuff during the season because I'm protective
of our guys and protective of how we're trying to grow.
But let's just take this point guard situation. You know,
there's there's of course, everybody cares about roster construction and

(26:22):
people jump to Sometimes it just helps if we explain.
I think I think it helps if we explain. So agreed,
let's take a point guard. So we brought in a kid.
It's super super talented Jalen Lowe. Jalen Low's strengths or
he can get anywhere on the court whenever he wants
to get there. Uh, you cannot guard him with one person.
We saw it, for example in the Saint John's game,

(26:45):
when you try and send a second defender at him
in the half court, he turns it into a circus.
You compare what we had to deal with against Iowa, say,
and and compared to what j Lo did against Saint John's,
and you can imagineagine what a different picture that would
be with the point guard that we brought in. Okay,

(27:05):
and then just furthermore, some things that people might not
know because we haven't talked about him. So j Loo's
a left handed point guard. So we made a conscious
decision last spring when we secured his services, that we
were going to change the orientation of everything that we
did on the court to serve a left handed point guard.
You might say, why does that matter with a bunch

(27:29):
of things. One, it actually suits a right handed big
extremely well in a lot of ways. And point guards
and bigs work together a lot in a general pick
and roll. If you have a point guard that comes
off the ball screen to his left, you get to
have a big man that's rolling to his right. It's
way more effective than what you traditionally have, which is

(27:50):
trying to serve a right handed point guard rolling to
his going to his right, and a left handed big
trying to roll and finish with his left. So you
get strength and strength a right handed, yeah, a right
handed point guard, and then you have a right handed
big trying to finish with his left. You get both
guys working a strong hand really really important. And we

(28:12):
changed the orientation of everything we did on the offense.
We got all the way to the blue white scrimmage.
We lose j Low, but we decided, hey, we're gonna
keep it this way because we're gonna get him back.
And we did get him back, and then it was
just this, you know, by the time we got to
you know, through Saint John's to January is finding like,
you know, this is gonna be really he finally decided

(28:34):
to have surgery. We're like, man, we're so deep in
right now, it's gonna be really hard to change everything
we have. Okay, that was one of the complications. There's
like a dozen different things like that. You know, losing
j Low affected so many guys on our team, losing
that position. I'll take Jasper Johnson as a specific example.

(28:55):
Jasper Johnson had moments of his heason that were super
frustrating for him. For sure, it really wasn't fair to
ask him to play the backup point guard role, but
it was something we needed, if nothing else, just to
give a little bit of legs in life to Da,
to give him some support. But it wasn't just Jasper

(29:15):
playing the point We lost Jasper as being the dangerous
scoring two guard that he was brought here to be,
where he can actually start working in the corner, begin
possessions coming off screens. It's where he's really dangerous. We
didn't get a lot of that from Jasper this year
because we lost him not having a point guard. When
was the last time you saw us actually get off

(29:37):
a ball screen to throw a lop. You saw a
lot of Iowa State doing that. Lipsey is one of
the best point guards in the country, and he sees
the whole floor. When's the last time you saw us
come off a ball screen and be able to zip
a hook, pass a crosscord to a corner a wing
where it's earning guys like a Trent Noah, for example,
one of the best shooters in the country, earning him

(29:59):
open shot that he might not create for himself. Think
about what it does for Denzel Aborteen letting him play
the position that he came here to play, which is
just like just a scary, scary, scary score that was
super creative and super aggressive. So you think about the
impact of that, not just in terms of style. You
think about, like we talked about earlier, you think about

(30:20):
dealing with pressure. So you think about everybody remembers Georgia,
We remember Texas, A and M. We remember Iowa State
where the game became really really difficult because we didn't
have a guy to kind of race around the floor
get wherever he wanted that was going to demand more
than a double team to control him. Those are all

(30:42):
the places where it was the adaptation was really tough.
If you look at the top thirty teams in college basketball,
there's two that have lost their point guard in any
notable way. One is Duke, who just lost their point
guard a few games go, and you've seen like how
complicated the SBA Tournament has been for them right now.

(31:04):
And the other is Louisville, who had their point guard
for two thirds of the season, but you've saw the
impact it had on them not having their point guard.
That's just one way that injuries affect you. Now, in
the context of all of that, we end the twice
as difficult to schedule as the previous four years. These

(31:26):
guys are guys still had a higher winning percentage, although
barely a higher winning percentage than the previous four years,
and so it's not an excuse. It's just one of
the facts. That's a part of the puzzle.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
Let's get to a break and then we'll come back
continue taking your questions. All the Clark's Pumping Shop text
line eight five nine, two oh three one two three
four are on x It's at UK Sports Network. The
Kentucky women are up in the third quarter now sixty
one to forty eight. That's called the four seed West
Virginia on West Virginia's home court. That game is going

(32:00):
on right now in the round of thirty two of
the Women's in CAAA Tournament. Kentucky trying to get to
the sweet sixteen for the first time in ten years.
Good luck to coach Brooks and company and closing that out.
We'll be right back on the UK Sports Network.

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Hi.

Speaker 5 (33:02):
This is otaga away from Kentucky Basketball. I like to
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success on the court starts with their support of you
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Speaker 7 (33:56):
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(34:18):
the official healthcare partner of UK Athletics.

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It's all in one place.

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Find it on the.

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UK Athletics app or uksnallaccess dot com.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Subscribe to the Kentucky Basketball Podcast, presented by UK Federal
Credit Union. It's available for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio,
in the official UK Athletics App. Before we get back
to questions, you were just chat about something off the
air that you wanted to expound on a little bit.
The story that came out last week the young man
from Michigan excellent and mooreg one of the top players
the country, said that he was offered seven to nine

(35:42):
million dollars to come to Kentucky. You were asked about
it last week, and you would like to well answer
that maybe a little more depth. Yep. I so I hate.

Speaker 7 (35:53):
Hate, Like, I don't want to spend all my time
chasing out, chasing all the false stories and correct him.
She don't want to be a fact check. But like
stories like that, for example, that story is one categorically
false with no truth to it whatsoever. I'm hesitant to
like begin the process of grabbing every single thing that's

(36:14):
false because there's so much false narrative out there and
just chasing everyone. So I'm hesitant to jump in there.
But like stories like that just aren't true. There's no
truth whatsoever to things like that. Yeah, and think about that.
That kills it off quicker, maybe, well hopefully.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Yeah. Let me get back to a question here here.
Please ask Coach Pope when there will be an announcement
regarding the front front office positions he has discussed.

Speaker 7 (36:42):
So we're going through uh, you know, of course, we're
going through a little bit of a hiring process that'll
be ongoing probably for the next six weeks. We could
have some closure on some things quickly, but I can't.
You know, I can't really talk in detail about anything
until it gets through the whole HR process.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Uh. From Sean at UK Sports Network on x I,
Aloway State pressured us to a halt. It didn't really
hang our hat on anything this year. What have you
learned stylistically and in terms of roster building and how
do you want this to look different moving forward? Well
maybe that expands what you were talking about with point guards.

Speaker 7 (37:18):
Yeah, I mean listen, first of all, I'm learning so much,
which is one of the reasons why I love this job,
you know, and this this point guard is a is
a position where we've had so much hope and we've
had so much frustration in terms of health. In fact,
you know, you think about it. Uh, you know, we

(37:41):
had a Kaden Lewis here as a as a signed
commit actually actually his family on their own engaged in
helping to recruit Jalen Lowe. And then once that was
we felt like, man, we have the greatest one two
punch at the point guard. Felt like those guys would
have played on the court beautifully together and then late

(38:02):
after all that process has gone, for his own personal reasons,
family reasons, they decided to go. You know, we had
Travis Perry who had actually started the point for us
the year before and and with what guys felt like
was congestion or whatever reason, personal reasons. I don't want
to get into persons guys had, but Travis's I leave
and so then late at the at the last minute,

(38:24):
we're kind of in this point where we thought we
were abundantly prepared at that position and it turned out
that and still with that, we you know, Jalen has
such a great history of you know, playing every game
or finding way competing most games, and we just had
some misfortune there. So you know, health is at a
premium for us. Of course, like we are, that has

(38:46):
been an issue. It's not unique to us, but it's
there's nobody that has been challenged quite like us. And
with all that said, like I said, we're still growing,
we're still making improving strides and in our win centers
with the complicated schedule. So point guard position is really
important for us. It's really important for me. It's something

(39:07):
that steadies you, it's you know, right now where we
ended up on our team. There's a metric out there
that judges players to be a creator, a dual threat,
or essentially a user. What I mean is a finisher
of possessions. And on our roster this year, the best

(39:30):
creator we had was a two point three by the metric.
At some point we go into great detail on this.
Last year, Lamont Butler was a one point six and
Amari Williams was a one point eight. We are desperate
to bring creators here to Kentucky. Creators are people that
earn shots for teammates and can go earn shots for themselves.

(39:53):
There's a bunch of other metrics that go into it.
The best teams are creator rich and unforced. For us,
do a large part into the changes that we underwent
at the point guard spot. That was a place where
we were we struggled all year long. Creators deal with pressure,
creator earn guys better shots. Creators make shots for themselves,

(40:15):
and that's a space where we're gonna have a high,
high focus as we build this roster for next season.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Let me get one more question in and then we'll
get to the next break. This one is from Mad
looking back on the first two seasons to this point,
what are some of your biggest takeaways or lessons learned.

Speaker 7 (40:33):
Well, I think about great moments, you know, I think
about Uh, I'm glad that we've I'm glad that we've
you know, I'm glad. I'm glad we've increased the winning percentage.
I'm glad that we've found ways to win games in Nashville,
and I'm glad that we were consistently winning games in
the NCAA tournament. And now we just got to keep

(40:53):
growing on it. You know, this is like I said,
we're making progress. We're nowhere near hanging a banner right
now in terms of our of what we've accomplished in
the first two years, but we're working our way there,
and we got to go fast. I have so many
unbelievable moments. If you walked into my office at RUPP,
I love my walls. It's not a big office, but

(41:13):
on every single I have pictures everywhere and they are
all these incredible, unbelievable winning moments in games. And of
course you know, there's highlight dramatics this year.

Speaker 11 (41:27):
You know.

Speaker 7 (41:28):
Of course at LSU was so fun with Malachi. Of course,
the ns DOAA tournament game. You know, we're really proud
of in our Every every team in the SEC has
a POD, and so our pod. The two teams we
played twice every single year, Vanderbilt and Tennessee, and for
the second year we won that group of three pod competition.

(41:51):
We swept Tennessee and split with Vandy, so we came
out on top of that. You know, I love the
fact that on a personal level that we got to
play Cal and Coach p the two active coaches at
the University Kentucky, when we beat them both this year.
You know, there's so much good stuff. Like I said,

(42:13):
we have not met our goal by far, but like
there's so much good stuff happened and we're excited about
the future.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Watch MEBIA Game Day, presented by Elliott Services all season long.
The show airs Saturday mornings at nine on wl Ex
and Lexington. Check Ukathletics dot com, Slash, UK Sports Network,
or TV affiliates and times in your area. If you're
outside the state, you can watch at ukathletics dot com,
Slash Videos or on the Kentucky Wildcats Facebook page. Sixty
two fifty five in favor of the UK women up

(42:41):
at West Virginia. As we head to a break. This
is the Mark Pope Show, presented by UK Healthcare Are
the UK Sports Network.

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Speaker 2 (45:01):
Welcome back to our show and we are taking your
questions of the Clark's Pumping'shop text line at eight five
nine two oh three one two three four or on
X at UK Sports Network and we'll make this our
Alumni Hall Fan question of the Week that we have
here from a listener. You can visit at Alumni Hall
UK on X and chime in with your answer for
a chance to win a gift card courtesy of Alumni Hall.

(45:24):
And it would be what is your approach on roster
construction for next season?

Speaker 7 (45:29):
I'm gonna get to that, but let me let me
jump in on this because I think this is good,
Like it doesn't tell the whole story, but it's part
of the story that needs to be told. Okay, So
from our statisticians. In twenty five twenty six this season,
UK was one of only five teams in the country
with five or more top twenty wins Ken Pop Top

(45:51):
twenty wins and one or less losses to teams outside
the top forty. Those teams were Arizona, Arkansas, Duke, Michigan,
and Kentucky. And so you know, sometimes we just like
our emotions get so carried away, like, oh, you know,

(46:15):
you know Kentucky has more losses than normal. Yes, the
number of losses we had were not acceptable. There was
one against a team outside the top forty in the country.
There's only five teams in the country that can claim
that stat that have five or more wins against the
top twenty. The team we lost to Missouri, which was

(46:37):
the NCAA Tournament team. And so again like being in
this company, it's not where we want to be. We
want to be a one of one. We want to
be still playing right now. But there is so much
to be hopeful for and we're going in the right direction.
So you get the roster construction. One of the things,
you know, when you talk about wins for us, our

(47:00):
guys have grown so immensely. You know, if you look
at Otega away from his first two years of college
basketball to his junior year here at Kentucky, the astronomical
jumping made then to his senior year to be able
to make that jump in an even bigger way, to
be a guy that now is walking into the NSNABA tournament.

(47:23):
Is he the leading scorer in the NCAA Tournament so
far he's the leading score in the last two years
in the NSNABA tournament. And it said and and you
think he drops thirty five has thirty five eight and seven,
which tied only three other people.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
If I remember correctly, it was the great Larry Bird.
Oh thirty five point eight rebound seven six. Yes, that
stat line. Larry Bird was the last one to do.

Speaker 7 (47:53):
It, Larry Bird, Oscar Robertson and Bill Bradley and Bill Bradley.
So you think about the both of otega Oway, think
about the growth of Denzel Abrity, like, not only did
he switch positions and this is not gonna mean a
lot to BBN, but I know everyone's gonna go look
it up. He jumped almost seven hundred spots in his BVR, Like,

(48:16):
that's incredible from last year this year. You think about
a guy like Malachi Moreno, who came in as a freshman,
and what he accomplished this year as a freshman, you know,
thrown into the starting lineup, I don't know, give or
take ten games in and becoming a force in the
SEC where he ranks probably as you know, met by

(48:38):
most metrics, as in the top five centers in the SEC,
as a freshman, and we could go down the list
of guys Colin Chandler, the strides he made from year
one to year two with all the things that were
throwing on his shoulders. It's pretty exciting to see how
these guys are growing. So when we talk about building
this roster and going out and recruiting, we talk about

(48:59):
that all the time time, and then our guys can
see the numbers. They can see what our guys are
actually doing, how they're performing, which exciting. Of course, getting
to do it here at Kentucky is like nowhere else,
and so those are pieces that go into us putting
together this next roster, which is gonna be terrific.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Me here the last break a little early, and then
we'll have several minutes left for our final segment of
the Mark Pope Show, presented by UK Healthcare on the
UK Sports Network. Hey you've reached Jim. I'm not here
right now.

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Speaker 5 (51:00):
This is Otaga Away from Kentucky Basketball. I like to
thank our official cornerstone partners, Central Bank, the official bank
of New CA Athletics, Kentucky Farm, Duero Insurance, Big On Commitment,
and UK Healthcare, the official healthcare partner of Big Blue Nation.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Makes the catch in traffic, goes up furs and a found.

Speaker 5 (51:16):
One more time. A big thank you to our official
cornerstone partners. Our success on the court starts with their
support of New CA Athletics.

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Speaker 2 (52:35):
Welcome back into the Mark Pope Show presented by UK Healthcare.
For complete social media complete coverage of the Cats on
social media, you can follow at UK Underscore Sports Network,
on Instagram, at UK Sports Network on X and follow
on Facebook. Question off the X feed. With no high
school recruits signed yet, the Sean s can you give

(52:58):
an update to fans to help that ale? The fan
base is how recruiting going well, I'm.

Speaker 7 (53:04):
Limited in what I can say recruiting. Uh, And I
don't know if we're ever gonna we listen, we're really
excited about where we are, just hanging there, guys hanging
there with us.

Speaker 16 (53:18):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (53:18):
I think recruiting is going to work.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Out just great with all the strategy we're talking about
built around Jalen Low. Yes, why didn't you recruit a
true backup point guards great place?

Speaker 7 (53:28):
Yeah, and that's such a good question.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
And like I said, but will it affect your recruiting
going forward at that position? No, I think I think
right now. Uh.

Speaker 7 (53:36):
You know, as much as we're talking about how important
that spot is for us, I think it's going to
be really positive. But you know, I think that is
exactly it. Like when we were going through the process,
we had it all put together and then we had
some some some some guys leave the program because for
whatever reasons. And so, yes, that's obviously important us having

(54:01):
multiple like we talked about in roster construction, us having
more players that actually fill on the creative not the
dual role or the userle but on the creative side
of it is really important. Our first year Amari saved
us right when we when we lost our starting point
guard and our backup point guard and our third string
point guard. It was our starting te guard. When we

(54:21):
lost those guys, Amari was able to step in and
save us there. We didn't have that this year, and
hopefully we won't have that issue moving forward, that we
could do this in more traditional way. But all of
that was in place, and then there was just a
little bit of attrition that that you know, we we
we couldn't quite answer.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Feel good, You'll have the funds you need to do
what you want to do and build a roster.

Speaker 7 (54:42):
Yeah, listen, I mean you could not ask for a
more supportive administration. The president supportive, BBN is incredibly supportive,
and so you know, will we will. We will have
everything that we need to go put together the roster
that we want to have seventy sixty four for the

(55:04):
UK women right now.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yeah, back to another question here with the point guard position.
We talked about, what about just overall in terms of
style of play, we've be shooting I know what it
was somebody asked about you. We'd be shooting as many
threes as you plan to shoot when you came here.
We would like to.

Speaker 7 (55:24):
But so so what's interesting is threes come through ball
movement and they come through creative they come through creators, right,
and that's what we just, man, we just we lost that.
So not only do you lose j Lo as a
primary creator, but you lose Denzel as a two guard creator.
You lose Jasper Johnson. Jasper Johnson was actually one of

(55:44):
our most capable passers, but we lose him as a
two guard creator because he's under so much dress as
a primary ball handler and so those things were kind
of baked in the cake and it just it just
didn't work out that way. It's not like, listen, this
is not an excuse fest, like we know where we
need to go. This is just explaining the facts of

(56:07):
where we are, the facts of the positive things that
were accomplished, the positive trend lines that are just facts.
Go look at Go do the math yourself. And the
hope that there is for the people that really want
to hope out this program, because there's so much good stuff.
We couldn't be more excited.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
And that's a little bit. Jim Or had sent it
a question to when you use the phrase hateries said
he didn't want people to think you mean the whole
fan base.

Speaker 7 (56:29):
No, no, no, no, listen, here's the thing. We can
get confused sometimes. So there is a super super vocal
like one percent, one point one percent, but they're incredibly vocal,
and a lot of is wrapped around trying to get
hits and looks and bites and listeners. And then there's
the ninety nine percent of BBN that is in this

(56:52):
as true believers. They love this program. They're they're cheering
their guts out, they're living and dying for our guys.
They want nothing more for this progress to continue, for
us to get to another banner, and they do everything
they can to help the program not hurt the program.
So no ninety listen. Everybody I meet and we meet

(57:16):
a lot of people postgame lines around town, everybody that
I see BBN like the true BBN. They are so
in this, they are so praying for us to be successful.
That's different than when I talk about the people that
are just trying to capitalize off, you know, putting out
negative about twenty seconds.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
So we are done, pleasure working with you as always
and looking forward to year three.

Speaker 7 (57:39):
Come on, baby, let's go win.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
That is our final edition of the show for this season,
make sure you stay tuned for Clark's Pumping Shop. Yes
for BBN Radio coming up next on many of these
same stations. Nick Binge owned. After that of the UK
Sports Network.

Speaker 6 (57:54):
This has been the Mark Pope Show, presented by UK
Healthcare on the Hey Sports Network. The Mark Pope Show
was brought to you by Coca Cola, Appalachian Regional Healthcare,
Little Caesars and by UK Healthcare. We are here to
Win Benners Kentucky Basketball is a presentation of the UK

(58:17):
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