For Mark Pope, this Kentucky basketball road trip will feature plenty of friendly faces
Kentucky is expected to walk into another difficult environment Saturday night in Seattle, the location of the No. 4-ranked Wildcats’ battle with No. 7 Gonzaga.
Technically, this will be a neutral-site game, but the proximity to Spokane likely means that Climate Pledge Arena — with its capacity of more than 18,000 fans — will be rocking heavily in favor of the Zags.
At least Mark Pope will see a few friendly faces in the building.
Not only will it be a big matchup from a professional standpoint — a rare game between two teams ranked in the top 10 — this trip has a deeper personal meaning for Pope, who was once a celebrated high school star in the Seattle area, beginning his college career there before transferring to Kentucky more than 30 years ago, setting in motion the series of events that would ultimately lead him to become the head coach of the Wildcats.
Asked Thursday how many friends and family members he expects in the stands Saturday night, Pope grinned.
“I don’t have an estimate on numbers — that I’m gonna give you,” he said. “And I’m not gonna tell you how much it’s going to cost me.”
The short answer: he had a lot more requests for this game than usual.
“Yeah, but just fun, just super fun, right? It’s a blessing,” the coach acknowledged.
Years before Pope was a Kentucky Wildcat, he was a star post player for Newport High in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue. His school was located about 12 miles from Climate Pledge Arena — which has gone through massive renovations from the days it was known as Key Arena, home of the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics — and Pope helped Newport achieve statewide prominence as he emerged as a nationally sought-after recruit.
During his junior season, Pope led the school to its first state tournament appearance in 23 years. As a senior, he averaged 24 points, 17 rebounds and five blocked shots per game, and Newport returned to the state tournament once again.
His high school coach, Richard Belcher, who arrived at Newport a few years earlier, said after Pope’s final season: “He’s done everything for me except pay my Mastercard.”
Belcher went on to win more than 400 games as a high school coach.
Pope, of course, turned into an NBA player and, ultimately, the head coach of one of college basketball’s blue bloods.
Before all of that, he had to pick a college.
Rick Pitino, then early in his tenure as coach at Kentucky, actually pursued Pope straight out of high school — as did other NCAA powers at the time — but the teenager chose to stay home instead. Pope said at the time that he wanted to help lift Washington to national prominence.
The Huskies had won just two NCAA Tournament games since 1953 and were coming off three losing seasons when Pope committed before his senior year. He wanted to be part of the group that turned things around for his hometown school.
The turnaround didn’t happen, though Pope did his part. He was named the Pac-10 freshman of the year after the 1991-92 season and played just as well as a sophomore, but the Huskies suffered losing records both years, and head coach Lynn Nance was fired.
Pope transferred to Kentucky, helped Pitino win a national title in 1996, and he’s now in charge of his beloved alma mater. He still has a place in his heart for his old hometown, however.
“I don’t get to go back to Seattle that much, so I’m excited to go back,” he said. “A bunch of high school teammates, I think, are coming to the game. And I’ll get a chance to sit with Coach Belcher, who I love so much. I’m excited to see him. And my parents don’t live in Seattle anymore, but a bunch of my siblings do. They’ll be at the game. Seattle is a great city, and I have a ton of love for it.”
Belcher, who retired in 2007, clearly had an impact on Pope’s approach.
A few years ago, Belcher told the Deseret News that he once attended a clinic featuring legendary Indiana coach Bob Knight, who was asked if he’d rather be liked or respected by his players. Knight responded that he didn’t even care if his players liked him. He wanted to be respected.
“I disagree with that,” Belcher said. “There’s enough enemies out there with the opposing fans and the referees. I don’t want the kids to look at me and think I’m their enemy, too. I want them to think, ‘That’s my buddy.’”
He went on to say that he was “extremely proud” of Pope for finding a way to be both a friend and a coach to his college players. “It’s been a pleasure for me to know that I had a little bit of an influence on that,” Belcher said.
That demeanor — usually calm and always encouraging — has already been evident to Kentucky fans just a month into Pope’s on-court tenure with the Wildcats. He agreed this week that part of his coaching philosophy comes from growing up around Belcher back in Seattle.
“Well, I wish I could be as good as him,” Pope said. “… He’s a hall of fame basketball coach, but at his heart, he was a teacher. I’d say that’s probably not even right. He was a mentor. He was a father figure. He was a guru. Like a Yoda, right? He’s really special that way. He was an unbelievable listener in terms of, like, getting to know individual players. He didn’t coach players. He coached a player. He coached this player, and he coached that player, and he coached every single guy individually in a really special way.
“I love him. He’s a really special person. He’s been great to me, great to my family, great to my parents. He’s really special.”
For his return home, Pope will also get a familiar opponent.
He’s coached against Mark Few and the Gonzaga Bulldogs a total of 10 times and won only once, an upset victory in his first season at BYU — when the Zags were ranked No. 2 in the country. Since that game, it’s been seven straight losses to Gonzaga.
Pope also faced Few in the first game of his second season as Utah Valley’s head coach. The Zags won that one 92-69, and Pope recalled his underdog team keeping things somewhat close — down 14 midway through the second half — until Few’s bunch overpowered them in the end.
The second-year head coach remembered trying to “collect himself” in the locker room, long after his postgame obligations were finished and his team had left, figuring everyone else had, too.
“And Coach Few is just waiting out there to talk,” Pope said. “That’s just who he is, man. … And what he’s done in basketball has just been almost unfathomable. And I love him. He puts together incredible teams — an incredible product. Every single year, he’s so good. He’s got a really distinctive style. They know exactly who they are. You know, you could almost take the names off the jerseys, and you would know if you’re watching a Gonzaga team, by the way they play, schematically, in (their) approach to the game.
“And, you know, they win. So it’s going to be an epic adventure.”
Coming off his first loss as Kentucky’s coach — a 70-66 defeat at Clemson on Tuesday night — Pope will be hoping for a better result Saturday, but his Wildcats won’t be favored, and he knows as well as anyone how difficult it is to beat Few and the Bulldogs.
After facing Few a total of 10 times in the past, might that make it easier to prepare for him?
“Maybe. Or maybe I just got a lot of PTSD,” Pope said. “We’ll see. We’ll see how that works. It’s probably both, right? I’m really familiar with them. Coach is really familiar with me and the way that we try and approach the game. And we’ve had some epic battles, and he’s come out on the winning side of too many of those. So hopefully we’ll start to even that out a little bit.”
Saturday
No. 4 Kentucky vs. No. 7 Gonzaga
Where: Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle
When: 10 p.m.
TV: ESPN2
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Kentucky 7-1, Gonzaga 7-1
Series: Gonzaga leads 2-1
Last meeting: Gonzaga won 89-85 on Feb. 10, 2024, in Lexington
