‘I want to see where they live.’ UK’s Pope took personal approach to recruiting Acaden Lewis.
The college basketball commitment of Acaden Lewis was a celebration of the place most special to him.
The 6-foot-3, 170-pound point guard from Washington, D.C., highlighted his hometown, and his home neighborhood, in a variety of ways when picking a school on Nov. 2.
Lewis’ commitment announcement — during which he picked Kentucky over other finalists Duke and UConn — took place at the Trinidad Recreation Center in the northeast part of the nation’s capital. That place — depicted in a tattoo on Lewis’ right arm — is where Lewis learned the game, long before he broke through this summer as a national, four-star recruit coveted by blue-blood programs.
“Everything, for real,” Lewis said of what the Trinidad Recreation Center and Washington, D.C.’s Trinidad neighborhood means to him. “I’ve been here my whole life, never moved out of this area. It’s where I started.”
“I’m from Trinidad, you can call it the ‘hood. You can call it whatever you want. But these people look out for me. That’s really my community,” Lewis later said in his commitment video. “I’m passionate about that. I really represent Trinidad, because they represent me.”
During Lewis’ live-streamed commitment ceremony, he explained how Kentucky coach Mark Pope endeared himself and ultimately secured his college commitment. There were basketball reasons, sure, but Lewis talked the most, and the most meaningfully, about how Pope immersed himself in Trinidad.
“Pope, he was in the ‘hood with me,” Lewis said. “He came to my barbershop and everything.”
Kentucky confirmed receipt of Lewis’ national letter of intent on Thursday morning, allowing Pope to speak publicly for the first time about his only class of 2025 commit without any ties to the commonwealth.
Pope did just that in a one-on-one interview with the Herald-Leader.
“You can understand (someone) better when you can understand the context of their life a little bit. I think that’s really true,” Pope told the Herald-Leader. “Acaden’s mom is going to know him better than everyone, his dad is going to know him better, the guys in his community, at the rec center and the barbershop and everywhere else. They know him. They know him in a way that I don’t.”
“Getting to watch him interact in those environments and trying to build relationships with all the people around him helps me understand him better.”
Lewis — who is joined, so far, by guard Jasper Johnson and center Malachi Moreno as signees in Kentucky’s 2025 recruiting class — is known as an elite ball distributor. On the Nike grassroots circuit this year, Lewis averaged 16.7 points, 6.1 assists and 1.5 steals per game.
He was also an all-star performer at the NBPA Top 100 Camp in Florida, which was attended by Kentucky coaches. In that top evaluation setting, Lewis averaged more than 15 points and nearly four assists per game.
“I think he’s a leader in the locker room. I think he’s a guy who has his own, unique charisma that (allows) guys to trust him. Guys want to be around him,” Pope said about Lewis, who is the No. 30-ranked recruit in the nation according to the 247Sports Composite. “Guys feel like he makes them better. He’s a winner. I think the ways that’s demonstrated is not just him building relationships with guys, but just his acumen on the floor.”
The court vision. The even-keeled demeanor. The scoring punch. Lewis has all these qualities.
“He’s a guy that is always thinking about tricking the tag with his eyes, and always thinking about putting a big in gray space, in terms of ‘What is the right decision to make?’ on the offensive end,” Pope said. “His IQ is something that will translate to the defensive end also, where he can be really, really disruptive because he sees the game and thinks the game and is kind of obsessed with the game.”
This is why Kentucky found itself in a recruiting battle against the likes of Duke, UConn and North Carolina for Lewis. And it’s why Pope took such a personal approach when he visited Lewis in Washington, D.C.
“With all my players, I work as hard as I can to try and get to their home,” Pope said. “I want to see their room. I want to see where they live. I want to see them with their people and their circle, just so I can understand them a little bit better.”
Mark Pope’s personal recruiting approach paid off with Acaden Lewis
When Lewis — who was UK’s top visitor for Big Blue Madness in October — committed to Kentucky, the magnitude of the moment wasn’t lost on anyone.
Pope went outside the state to land a commitment from a player identified by he and his new Kentucky coaching staff during the offseason. Prior to ever coaching an official game at UK, Pope fought off Duke and UConn for Lewis, answering questions about his recruiting ability in the process.
It also sent a message to other prospects — like, for example, five-star power forward Caleb Wilson, UK’s top remaining target in the 2025 class and someone who has the Cats among his top-five schools — about how diligently Pope works the recruiting process.
“We’re really selective about the guys that we recruit to play here, and we’re determined that we’re going to coach a player, not coach players,” Pope said. “We want to get really, really specific about ‘I’m not coaching a point guard, I’m coaching Acaden Lewis.’ And that’s two very different things.”
In addition to the human aspect of Lewis’ recruitment, there’s also a certainty with which Pope speaks of Lewis’ basketball knowledge.
Pope spoke fondly to the Herald-Leader about Lewis’ first visit to Kentucky, which came in June right as the Wildcats were starting summer practice. Lewis — who picked up a UK scholarship offer on that visit — sat down with Pope for an extensive film session reviewing some of his game tape.
To say that Pope came away impressed would be an understatement.
“I probably had more interesting conversations with him about what he was seeing in the game and what I was seeing in the game than maybe any player I’ve ever had before,” Pope said. “That was really exciting. He loves studying this game and thinking about the game and trying to understand the game. He’s a fit for all those reasons.”
This story was originally published November 14, 2024 at 2:58 PM.
