Kentucky basketball players are behind in summer practice. That’s a good thing
Last week, in the immediate aftermath of his team’s scrimmage against a bunch of former Kentucky basketball stars, Mark Pope made a curious comment.
Speaking on the first edition of his offseason practice report for UK Sports Network, the Wildcats’ head coach said this Kentucky team wasn’t as “game ready” to face La Familia — a squad of ex-Cats competing in the TBT — as last year’s UK team had been at this same stage in the summer calendar.
Pope’s first team, of course, featured several seniors. So, on some level, it makes a little sense that they would’ve been further along by the time they met La Familia on the court.
But the current Cats count four UK returnees among their ranks, including Pope’s leading scorer from a season ago (Otega Oweh) and three players who contributed off the bench in big spots (Collin Chandler, Brandon Garrison and Trent Noah).
Last year’s team had no UK holdovers and only one player (Jaxson Robinson) who had ever played for Pope.
The UK coaching staff boasts continuity, too, with all five assistants — and other key pieces behind the scenes — back for season two of the Pope era.
This time last year, Cody Fueger was the only Kentucky assistant who had ever worked for Pope.
So, all that put together would lead one to believe that these Cats should be ahead of last season’s bunch. Under other circumstances, they probably would be.
But Pope has decided to shake things up going into year two.
“I’ve taught this summer a little bit differently,” he said. “I’m still a little twisted up about how we’ve done the first five weeks. I’m making an educated bet on the fact that the way we’ve done this is going to pay off.”
Asked early in his press conference Monday to expound on his new approach to this season, Pope offered more than 500 words of explanation. As the day’s interview session progressed, he returned to the theme time and again.
“Last year, from day one, we were incredibly devoted to teaching — from the ground up — the way we play,” Pope said. “And we were really intentional about it. And so it got us to a point where I feel like when we went to this TBT game (last year), we were a little more game ready. We knew we had a better feeling of what to get to — A, B, C and D — and how to make those decisions.
“We hadn’t even really got to a second lift when we jumped into this TBT game. So, conceptually, we were behind in that way. But we were much closer on our hundred percents. And that’s a trade-off. It’s a calculated decision on our part. I think it’s going to pay off in the long run.”
Judging from his comments over the past week or so, expect those “hundred percents” to be a common Pope talking point in the lead-up to the 2025-26 season.
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Mark Pope’s new approach
So, what exactly are those “hundred percents” that Pope speaks of?
From what he’s revealed so far, they’re largely focused on the failings of last season.
While the new UK coach spent most of his first year heaping praise and positivity on his Wildcats, there were some clear areas of consternation.
The most glaring was Kentucky’s defense, which ranked outside the top 100 nationally at a late stage in the regular season. Pope spent much of the winter irked by his team’s struggles there. Another was offensive rebounding, a major focus for the coaching staff and a key aspect of Pope’s high-octane scoring approach.
Getting those things right will be a priority for year two, and that work has already begun.
“I’ll start by giving a massive shout-out to our guys for kind of jumping on some of the things that we’ve said are non-negotiables — that’s going to happen every single time,” Pope said. “So we have some guys — led by Kam (Williams), who has been the best guy. So the last three practices, including the TBT scrimmage, he was 100% on wedges and 100% on legal contest. He’s the only guy on our team that was — in the scrimmage, and over the last three days — consistent in the process.
“I’m really proud of Kam. Like, that’s a big deal, especially to be a new guy in the program. … It’s unbelievable when you get to coach a guy, you tell him, ‘We need you to do this every single time.’ And he comes out on the floor and does it every single time. That is actually a chance for us to be differentiated from every other team in college basketball, and he’s embraced that.”
Williams, a 6-foot-8 sophomore wing who transferred from Tulane, projects to be a key perimeter player for the Cats, on both sides of the ball. It sounds like he’s already ahead. So are some others.
“Our wedge numbers through five weeks of practice — we’re dancing around 85-88%, which is up about 17% on average from what we were last year,” Pope said. “And that’s impressive. And we need to get to 100. Like, we’re striving to get to 100. And same thing on legal contests.
“Our legal contest has been a little bit slower to develop. But that’s massively important. One of the things we have to do is our defensive field goal percentage has got to be better next year, and so we’re dedicated to having a legal contest on every single field goal attempt. Every single one. ... That’s a major point of emphasis for us.”
Pope has always used wedging as a rebounding term — a key ingredient in gaining better positioning when the ball goes up — and his players this offseason have already described it as such.
“It’s just basically hitting your man and go get the rebound — boxing out and stuff,” said Mouhamed Dioubate, projected to be a rebounding machine for Pope this season. “That’s what wedging is. Don’t be late on the checkouts. Try to go get every rebound you can.”
Kentucky was 13th in the SEC in offensive rebounding last season. Obviously, offensive rebounds lead to more possessions, which lead to more shots, which lead to more points.
“He’s trying to get us to worry about that more and let the offense take care of itself,” Dioubate said.
Legal contests, of course, will be key to good defense. Kentucky didn’t show a whole lot of that for long stretches of last season. By the end, the Cats were 11th in the SEC in defensive field-goal percentage (43.7%), 11th in defensive efficiency (per the KenPom numbers) and dead last in the league in forced turnovers.
UK had an abysmal defensive showing in a not-as-close-as-it-sounds 98-84 loss at Ole Miss on Feb. 4, before righting the ship (relative to previous results) the rest of the way, going from outside the top 100 nationally in defensive efficiency to No. 51 in the country in the final KenPom ratings.
The current group of Wildcats has boasted about their potential to be an elite defensive team.
“That’s an adjustment we’re trying to make,” Pope said. “Last year, if you remember, we finally found our footing defensively after the game at Ole Miss, and we made incredible strides in the last six weeks, eight weeks of the season.”
The coach paused slightly, smiled a little, and adopted a well-duh tone to finish that thought.
“We’re hoping to not wait until quite that deep into the season before we improve,” he said.
Early UK basketball practices
This early focus on the fundamentals of what it means to play for Pope has led to more whistles in the Joe Craft Center than were heard at this time last summer. That’s not a bad thing.
Each of those whistles represents a learning opportunity for a team with seemingly legitimate hopes to compete for a national title next spring.
But the learning process can be a frustrating thing.
“As an organization and as a group, when you throw down some hundred percents, that means that you’re willing to mortgage other things,” Pope said. “You’re willing to blow up practice and not get to all the things you have on the practice plan, because as a team — not me, not the head coach — but as a team, we’re going to blow up practice, because we’re going to demand that we get to 100% here.”
Describing this bunch as one with a chance to be “beautifully coachable,” Pope offered an example from that morning’s workout, the first of week six on this eight-week summer practice calendar.
There were two practice groups that day. The first one struggled.
“And so it derailed the whole practice, because we are committed,” Pope said. “You know, one of our key ideas this year — one of our 100 percents — is living to a standard every single possession. And so we are gonna blow up practice more often than we did last year. We’ll get stuck, because we’re not gonna move on until we actually do exactly (what we need to do) — till we live up to the standard we have.”
On this day, two positives came from that first group getting stuck.
“One, our guys didn’t quit,” Pope explained. “The gym was full of frustration. It was not a happy place this morning for the first group. But the guys didn’t quit. They kept trying to work through it until they got there. Kept trying to listen and understand and kind of grasp onto what we were trying to accomplish. The second nice thing that happened, referring to the coachability, was the second group witnessed the last 15 minutes of misery of the first group, and so they came onto the court with a whole different, renewed determination to do it right on the first rep.”
There’s plenty of misery to go around these days. From the sound of it, the Craft Center was a cheerier place last summer, when prolonged scrimmages could be found in greater numbers and the whistles that brought those sessions to a halt weren’t as common.
Pope spoke for about 30 minutes Monday afternoon, and there was still plenty of positivity to be found in his comments heading into season two. Kentucky’s coach envisions great things ahead for this group of Wildcats. He just knows that it might take a little longer to get there this time.
The hope, of course, is that taking a little longer to get game ready in June and July will lead to a deeper run in March. And, possibly, April. But that means pretty basketball in the summertime will be harder to come by.
“The bet we’re making is that if we spend an extraordinary amount of time on a foundation — in a really new, but like, a 100% way — that the framing of the house and the finish of the house is actually gonna go way faster. And it’s gonna be way more palatial. And the resale value is gonna be incredible, right? If we really, really dig in hard on this foundation.
“But when you walk up to a house and all you see is the foundation, it’s not very inspiring, right? So we’re spending a massive amount of time and energy and focus on the foundation — making the best, deepest, most sure foundation that we possibly can. And we’re trusting that the next steps are going to go faster, and then we’re going to get a better product.”
