Mark Pope, friend of the refs? Why the UK basketball coach rarely argues with officials.
Close observers of the Kentucky sideline in Rupp Arena have been watching something out of the ordinary this season.
When a borderline call goes against the Cats — and the home crowd roars its disapproval — there’s no hollering or histrionics from the man patrolling the UK bench. Rarely is there even a word of protest.
Sometimes, Mark Pope simply stands there, arms folded, looking out at the court. More often than not, he’s already moved on, his eyes following the action, his voice yelling out instructions or encouragement to one of his players.
For a man in his position, this is odd behavior, as any Kentucky basketball fan will tell you. To the guy who’s spent the most time with Pope on the sidelines, however, it’s completely normal.
“That’s a huge part of being a leader in these times, right?” says UK assistant coach Cody Fueger, a brief pause before adding to that thought. “He hasn’t always been that way.”
Really? Fueger replies to the question with a wide smile.
“Yeah, he hasn’t always (had the) calm, cool demeanor during these games with refs and things like that,” he said. “He’s really grown into somebody that just thinks about what to do, which is absolutely amazing. Because, at the end of the day, you can’t control the ref. By me saying this and that to the ref — that’s not going to change any call. It’s never changed a call ever.
“And these refs make mistakes, like I make mistakes, like the players make mistakes.”
Pope’s in-game approach to the officials has obviously trickled down — as evidenced by Fueger’s comments — and you’re not likely to see anyone from the UK bench erupt at a ref or spend most of a timeout in the face of one.
It doesn’t mean Pope and his assistants agree with every call. Their precious time during games is simply better allocated elsewhere.
“We bake it in the cake already. We already know it’s gonna happen,” Fueger said of perceived bad calls. “So we just focus on what to do and how to help our players get to where they need to go. We don’t want to give somebody else the power of controlling what we can control at the end of the day. So we give zero thought about it, and that’s changed all of our perspectives. That’s changed our players. All of our assistant coaches, that’s changed our perspective.
“Because if we’re yelling at the ref, we’re not doing our jobs, which is to help this team win — to help our players.”
Again, Kentucky’s first-year head coach hasn’t always thought this way. And anyone who’s spent any time at all in Pope’s presence knows the intense passion he brings to the basketball court. Like many college coaches, there’s ample energy flowing through him while the game is being played. He’s just decided, over time, to direct it in other ways than wailing at the refs.
Fueger, who has been an assistant for all 10 years of Pope’s career in charge of college programs — starting with Utah Valley, then the move to BYU in 2019, and, now, Kentucky — said his boss didn’t act like this when his head coaching career began.
“No, no, no. He’s grown a lot in that way,” he said. “It was over time and intentional, where he was just like, ‘What am I doing?’ He talks about our players developing and getting better every day. That’s something that that dude does at a high level, and that’s why he speaks about it in such great ways with our players, because that’s what he focuses on.
“He’s a way different head coach than he was 10 years ago. Way different. It’s not even close.”
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Early this season, this behavior was pointed out to Pope, who said that — not long after getting his first head coaching job — he started attending an annual symposium for West Coast referees. The two-day gathering involved refs sitting in a room and watching video of some of the most difficult calls they’re likely to face over the course of the season.
“You sit there and you watch a block-charge call, for example,” Pope said. “And they’ll watch it in slow motion. Watch it five times. Watch it 10 times. And then they’ll take a poll on whether it’s a block or a charge. And invariably, you know, 150 people would raise their hand and say it was a block, and 149 people — referees, these are the best referees in the world — would call and say it’s a charge, right?
“Sometimes I lose my mind — I got a couple T’s last year — but, for me, I want our players to feel the same way that I do. That the referees actually have no power over whether we win or lose the game. And the calls are really hard. But if I can be disciplined and keep my focus on the game, I think it helps our players be disciplined and helps (keep) their focus on the game — come what may from refs.”
This season, Pope hasn’t been called for a technical foul. There really haven’t even been any occasions where it’s seemed he’s been particularly close to getting T’d up. But there have been some testy moments.
What might cause Pope to boil over with a referee?
“A shoe being thrown,” Fueger said with another smile.
That actually happened. In one early-season game, a Jackson State player lost his shoe and — seemingly in an act of frustration — threw it in the direction of Brandon Garrison as the UK big man was headed down the court for a fast-break dunk. Pope reacted with bewilderment on the Kentucky sideline when nothing was called.
A week later, Pope felt a Georgia State player was going beyond the bounds of basketball physicality, and the refs were letting him get away with roughing up his players. After Andrew Carr was on the receiving end just before halftime, Pope lit into the officials before going to the UK locker room. In the second half, Amari Williams was knocked to the floor — resulting in a Georgia State technical and some pushing and shoving between the two teams — with Pope bounding out onto the court to help break things up.
The UK coach also ventured into the Louisville bench area when Garrison was surrounded by Cardinals during a particularly tense moment in that rivalry game last month.
“Protecting our players,” Fueger said of what will spark Pope’s ire. “If someone’s hurting our guys, that’s when all gloves are coming off. And like, ‘Let’s go. You gotta control this thing. Because if one of my guys gets hurt …’ And that’s what it should be.”
But the run-of-the-mill missed calls that happen in every game? That’s unlikely to get much of a reaction. For example, if a UK player gets whistled for a travel, and Pope doesn’t think it was a travel?
“All right,” Fueger said of his typical response. “Hey, let’s make sure our left foot’s down. Let’s do the things that we can control so they won’t call a travel, for sure, next time.”
In Kentucky’s 82-69 loss at Georgia on Tuesday night, the Cats were called for a season-high 25 fouls to just 20 on the Bulldogs, who shot 19 more free throws and outscored UK 29-15 at the line. The 14-point difference at the charity stripe was a key difference in the 13-point loss, and some of Kentucky’s key players were in foul trouble early on and for much of the night.
Afterward, Pope was asked about the discrepancy.
“Listen, that doesn’t have anything to do with this game, man,” Pope said, quickly shutting down any talk of using that as an excuse for the loss. “Like, you know, we leave all that stuff (behind). We’re working on the next play. We’re going to go control the stuff we can control, and we can control enough factors in this game to win the game. That will always be true. And so we refuse to be distracted by that.”
The next night, on his weekly radio show, Pope said he and his coaches are studying the way calls have been made over UK’s first two SEC games. “We want to learn the whistle,” he explained, noting that his staff has been “engaged in some real correspondence with the league” to get a better understanding of how calls are being made.
“The whistle is a dynamic thing. It’s constantly changing,” Pope said. “But we would like to be on the advantageous end of playing this game the best we can, to have the whistle function for us the best it can. ... The whistle is not going to win us or lose us games, but we can use it to our advantage.”
The UK coach then joked that he was “fine” if the fans voiced their displeasure at the refs during games. “So you guys have at it,” he said with a smile, before adding another sincerely stated defense of the officials. “One of the things I remind myself about all the time is that refereeing is a really, really hard job. ...
“When we’re good, the whistle won’t determine wins or losses. We’ll determine wins or losses. And I always want my players to know that. At the end of the day, this game will never be taken out of our hands. We can find a way to win this game, regardless of how the whistle sounds. And sometimes that’s by using the whistle.”
Fueger, who said Pope has never been ejected from a game in his coaching career, did acknowledge that his boss might occasionally draw a technical foul on purpose.
“Now, if he feels like a technical is going to get our guys going, he’s done that in the past,” he said. “But he’s, ‘How can I help my team win? How can I help these guys put the control on their shoulders rather than rely on anyone else?’”
And, on rare occasions, Pope does lose control.
One rather comical example of that happened last season, with BYU playing on the road at No. 14 Baylor, a shot to win the game up until the very end. With the Bears leading 75-70 and 54 seconds left, the Cougars appeared to have forced a jump ball — which would have given them possession — but the officials called a BYU foul instead.
Pope yelled out toward the refs and then turned around, where a water bottle was sitting on the scorer’s table right behind him. He picked up the bottle and slammed it down on the table, liquid shooting so far into the air it left the frame of the TV broadcast. Pope turned back toward the court and didn’t say a word. He did get called for a technical.
“And then we changed water bottles after that,” Fueger said. “The managers got him different water bottles that were a little bit stronger.”
He was nearby but managed to stay dry. Others in the vicinity weren’t so lucky.
Those occasions have been few in Pope’s coaching career, and Kentucky fans haven’t seen anything like it yet.
Even after that Georgia State game — the one where he argued on the court at halftime and actually ran out onto it after the break — Pope took the high ground when it came to officiating.
“I’ll leave with a little comment on the referees,” he said, unprompted, at the end of his postgame press conference. The setup sounded as if he was about to criticize the stripes for letting things get out of hand.
“Really disturbing. My cufflink broke,” Pope said, holding up his sleeve for all to see. “I love wearing cufflinks. Makes me feel, like, nostalgic. Like, New York in the ’60s, I don’t know.”
The UK coach then noted the confused faces looking back at him. Where, exactly, was this going?
“So my cufflink broke,” Pope continued. “Didn’t know it. And the referee’s running down the court, and he’s like, ‘Hey, Coach, your cufflink broke. It’s on the floor.’ These guys see everything. So kudos to the referees for seeing everything. They got a really, really hard job. They have a really hard job. But they do it well.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
