UK basketball ‘combat week’ will be a tough one. Here’s why it’s bigger than two games.
Following his team’s seventh win in seven games to begin his tenure as the Kentucky Wildcats’ men’s basketball coach, Mark Pope sat in Rupp Arena on Friday night and looked ahead to the next two matchups on the schedule.
A man of many words, two in particular summed up this stretch of the calendar for Pope’s Cats.
“Big week,” he said.
Big? No doubt about it. Busy? That, too.
A UK basketball season that has primarily taken place in the friendly confines of Rupp up until now, the Cats will be in action from coast to coast over the first week of December, and all that travel — with two difficult games thrown in — will leave little time to rest for Pope’s players.
Just how busy will the Wildcats be? Here’s what we’ve learned about the team’s travel itinerary for the week:
Monday — UK planned to practice in Lexington during the day before departing from the airport around 5 p.m. for their trip to Clemson.
Tuesday — A shootaround at Clemson, the 9:30 p.m. tipoff against the Tigers — a projected NCAA Tournament team — and a post-midnight flight back to Kentucky after the game. The Cats didn’t land in Lexington until around 3 a.m. following their victory over Duke in Atlanta last month, and team officials were expecting a similar arrival time for this trip.
Wednesday — This is likely to be a day away from organized basketball activities for the Wildcats. Per NCAA rules, college players must have one day per week during the season where they aren’t permitted to participate in any team activities (including travel, team meetings and media obligations). Players also have classes, remember, and final exam week begins Dec. 16.
Thursday — Pope will meet with reporters for his weekly press conference at noon, the Cats will practice in Lexington, and they’ll then board a plane in the evening for a cross-country flight to Seattle, the site of Saturday night’s game against No. 7 Gonzaga.
Friday — Practice in Seattle, where Kentucky will spend the entire day, preparing for the Zags and getting acclimated to the three-hour time difference.
Saturday — The UK-Gonzaga game will be at 7 p.m. local time but 10 p.m. Lexington time, making it a late start indeed for the Wildcats, who will be walking into what is expected to be yet another hostile environment against a team projected to be a legitimate Final Four contender.
The Cats are planning to fly back to Lexington immediately after the game, which would have them landing not too long before sunrise Sunday. After the cooling off period in the postgame locker room in Seattle, media interviews and the drive to the airport, it will probably be around 2 a.m. Eastern time before the team even gets on the plane for the 2,000-mile flight back home.
And after all of that, another two-game week awaits, with Colgate on Wednesday and then Louisville coming to Rupp Arena next Saturday for Pope’s first taste of that rivalry game as the team’s head coach.
His Wildcats have started the season 7-0 — six lopsided home wins over mid-major foes and that victory over the Blue Devils in Atlanta, where there were more UK fans than Duke backers — and Pope is looking forward to everything this week will bring.
“Really, it’s going to be essentially our first two true road games. Against elite-level talent. Both insanely physical teams,” he said. “... So we’re going into like a combat week, where it’s just going to be a massively physical game Tuesday and (Saturday). We’re excited about it, because we’re going to learn more about our team. And our job is to go win.”
Pope said after Friday night’s 105-76 win over Georgia State that he and his coaching staff would be diving into prep for the Clemson game starting that night.
“And it’s awesome,” he said. “I mean, this is what you love about college basketball.”
His players are also excited for what this week brings, and the veterans on the roster — which is pretty much everyone — know how much stretches like this can strengthen bonds within a team.
“It’s easy to win at home. It’s hard to win on the road. And when you go out there on the road and win — that’s where tough teams are made,” said senior forward Ansley Almonor. “Because in March, you’re not playing at home. You’re playing neutral-site games … and you can face a lot of adversity. It just builds tough teams. I feel like it makes your teams come together. So I feel like this road trip’s gonna be really good for us. You know, see what we’re really about. And it’s gonna be fun.”
Other than the Atlanta trip for the Champions Classic, these Wildcats haven’t experienced life on the road together. They spent all summer and fall practicing at the Joe Craft Center, played all of their exhibition schedule in Lexington and then had those six blowout wins in Rupp.
Almonor agreed that good teams tend to come together even more when they get away from home.
“Definitely,” he said. “Because all we got is each other. We wish we’d have a Big Blue Nation everywhere we went, but we don’t, unfortunately. So all we have is each other sometimes. So especially in those hostile environments — everybody screaming at you, trying to take you down and stuff — we just have each other. We look to each other, like we’re brothers, and just have each other’s back and take care of business.”
The first of 11 road games — and, yes, the Gonzaga game should be that type of experience, even though it’ll be played at a neutral site — was set for Tuesday night in Littlejohn Coliseum.
After this week, the Cats will have just one more game away from Rupp — Ohio State on Dec. 21 in Madison Square Garden — before their first SEC road trip (Georgia on Jan. 7). With the SEC looking like the clear best league in the country — and places like Knoxville and Tuscaloosa on the conference travel log — UK will need to win some tough battles to claim a high seed on Selection Sunday three months from now.
This week gives the Cats two résumé-building possibilities. And more team-building potential.
“It’s good times and hard times — it’s all the times — that bring teams together,” Pope said Friday night. “... Like, tonight was brilliant, because our guys kept leaning into each other. And as long as we do that, wins are going to bring us closer together. Tough times are going to bring us closer together. Fights are going to bring us closer together. And huge massive scoring runs are going to bring us closer together.”
The UK coach said that his players have done a great job of “leaning into each other” so far, making for a great locker room and a “fun” vibe around his team. Pope has talked since the spring about this brand-new roster not having enough time to go through a typical bonding experience, on or off the court. He mentioned that again Friday night. And he knows this week is the next step in the process.
“The guys are still fighting to lean into each other and bring joy for each other. … I’ve talked about it, ‘We just don’t have enough time.’ We want to squeeze as many moments in as we can where we can lean on each other through all the stuff, because that’s actually where we get close.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
