College basketball experts love Mark Pope’s team. ‘I’m not surprised. I’m impressed.’
Asked if he was surprised by how quickly this brand-new Kentucky basketball team has come together, Jay Bilas didn’t need to hesitate to gather his thoughts.
“I’m not surprised. I’m impressed,” Bilas said. “The game that they played against Duke in Atlanta — I think they showed a tremendous amount of maturity and togetherness. And their experience, I think, was a big factor in their winning that game.”
From there, Bilas launched into an unequivocal endorsement of the way Mark Pope is running his program. The longtime ESPN analyst was courtside for UK’s 77-72 victory over Duke — his alma mater — in the Champions Classic last week, and Bilas was able to spend some time around Pope and his team as part of the event.
“You can tell that the environment is sort of — it’s a positive-growth environment, just being around it a little bit,” he said. “And Mark Pope is not only — in my judgment — a brilliant offensive mind. He infuses positivity into everything. And there’s a high standard, which they embrace — winning championships at Kentucky, and what it means to be a Kentucky basketball player, and not taking it for granted and enjoying it.
“But at the same time — with expectations high — he’s positive about the players reaching those or exceeding those.”
Bilas noted that Pope’s team is “very detail-oriented” and that his players — all of them new to Kentucky, with only Jaxson Robinson having ever been coached by Pope before this season — seem to have fully embraced the vision set forth by UK’s staff.
“They were first to the floor. They rebounded. They did the hard things that really show the attention to detail,” he said of the Duke game. “So I was impressed. Not surprised.”
Bilas was joined on a Zoom call Wednesday by Seth Greenberg, and the Herald-Leader asked both of the ESPN analysts for their early takeaways on this Kentucky team. Greenberg was just as impressed as Bilas by how the Cats have looked so far.
“Older teams that are put together and do — Jay just (said), ‘do the tough things consistently’ — not all older teams do it,” Greenberg said. “But really good older teams do the tough things consistently.”
He said Pope’s players checked that box, adding that he recently broke down Kentucky’s roster into categories. Greenberg started by mentioning Lamont Butler and Otega Oweh — two tenacious perimeter defenders — and Kerr Kriisa, a relentless competitor.
“Those are the dogs,” Greenberg said of the trio. “Then they got shot-makers like Jaxson Robinson and Koby Brea. Kriisa’s in that category. (Ansley) Almonor. And then their bigs are really skilled.”
Here, Greenberg returned to his initial point on Pope’s group. “I think they’re a terrific passing team. … One thing everyone can do is they can really pass the ball. I mean, they can really pass the ball. He’s got them believing and trusting each other, and he’s not relying on any one (player), but guys that have played a lot of basketball and now have come together to do one thing — to win — and to embrace what they do well.
“So I think he’s done a great job. They’re a fun team to watch.”
Bilas placed Kentucky at No. 15 in his initial 2024-25 rankings, which were posted on ESPN’s website during the first week of the season. The Cats were No. 23 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll, jumped to No. 19 after blowout wins over Wright State and Bucknell in week one, then skyrocketed to No. 9 — the biggest rankings jump in program history — after beating Duke.
“I think Mark is one of the best offensive minds in the game,” Bilas said. “Their offense is difficult to deal with, because there’s so much player movement, ball movement and making the right read at the right time. They’re going to put points on the board, and it’s going to be a lot of fun to play in that system. And they’ve got pieces that fit.
“I mean, Amari Williams — like, how many teams are running their offense through a 7-footer that really doesn’t shoot it? But he does everything else. And they seem to be a very selfless group that is invested in the team rather than the individual.”
The night before Bilas and Greenberg praised the unselfishness of Pope’s players, Lipscomb head coach Lonnie Acuff made similar remarks.
UK had just defeated Acuff’s Bisons 97-68 in a game that wasn’t even that close. The Cats were up 40 with three minutes left, and Lipscomb went on a late 13-2 run to narrow the gap. Kentucky had just 10 assists on 34 made baskets against the Bisons, and Pope lamented the low number afterward, though he did note that the way Lipscomb defended the Cats led to good, open looks that didn’t necessitate an assist to get there.
Coming into the night, UK was averaging 23.3 assists per game — fifth in the country — with a 68.6% assist rate on made baskets, which (and, yes, it’s early) would be a school record. That’s the Kentucky team that Acuff saw when watching film to prepare for Tuesday night’s game.
“I told my assistant, I said, ‘We’ve not played a power (conference) team that moves the ball like that,’” Acuff said. “... The thing I admire the most about Coach and his staff is they’ve got big time buy-in.”
Later on, Acuff noted that the “new college basketball” was adding guys out of the transfer portal every offseason. It’s a luxury for teams with clear needs, but it’s not as easy as it seems.
“You can go get a new team. You just need to get the right guys,” he said. “We play a lot of these teams. The thing that I’m surprised with — what’s so impressive — is their DNA. Like, they’re really unselfish. I mean, it doesn’t seem like to me they care who shoots. They make one more pass. We were showing our guys film last night, and they go ‘one more’ three different times. And 90% of those teams we play, they don’t do that. They’ll take a bad shot or a tough shot.
“And so that really tells me something about his relational ability. And they also must have really high-character kids who care about winning. And it’s real pleasing to the eye if you don’t have to guard it.”
Greenberg was speaking Wednesday about this new era of building teams through the transfer portal, juggling that approach with recruiting high schoolers and trying to achieve some roster continuity from year to year. UK hadn’t yet been mentioned in the conversation at that point, but the ESPN analyst brought up the Wildcats on his own.
“Roster construction, to me, is the most important thing in college basketball,” Greenberg said. “I’d say that Mark Pope won the roster-construction award for last year. ...
“Guys that have a little dog in them. ... Guys that make shots. Guys that are skilled and fit his system.”
He added later that he had just been trading text messages with Pope a few days earlier and that the UK coach was well aware of the challenges ahead, especially when the Cats enter SEC play. “There are no rocking chair games in that league,” Greenberg remarked.
“... They’ve got a really good team, and they’ve just got to continue to grow.”
Next game
Jackson State at No. 9 Kentucky
What: BBN Invitational Unity Series game
When: 7 p.m. Friday
TV: SEC Network+
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Jackson State 0-5, Kentucky 4-0
Series: First meeting
This story was originally published November 21, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
