When Kentucky basketball prepares for a game, it must first pass the Mark Pope test
Obviously, No. 4-ranked Kentucky basketball has a couple of big road games this week, traveling to Clemson on Tuesday for the ACC/SEC Challenge, then to Seattle on Saturday to face No. 3-ranked Gonzaga.
When it comes to preparing for an opposing team, most college basketball coaches favor one of two approaches.
Some coaches believe that focusing too much on the opponent takes away from emphasizing what his or her team has to do to win. It was UCLA’s legendary John Wooden who told his players what they were doing mattered more than what the opponent was doing.
Former Kentucky coach John Calipari favored that approach.
Other coaches want their players to know everything there is to know about the opponent and its players. Rick Pitino belongs to that school, prepping his team with detailed scouting reports on what the upcoming foe does and when it does it.
Having played for Pitino, current Kentucky coach Mark Pope favors that approach.
In fact, there have been reports that Pope requires his players to memorize the scouting report.
True?
True, said Amari Williams on Monday.
“Yeah, he tests us before every shootaround,” said the 7-foot center who transferred to UK from Drexel. “To know that we’ve read the scouting report and what our guy is going to do and we’re ready for the game. That’s what he always does.”
On a team largely made up of transfers, does Pope’s approach to scouting the opponent differ from previous approaches players have experienced?
“It’s not different, but he will actually come and test you on it, which is a little different,” said Otega Oweh, who transferred to UK from Oklahoma. “In my last program, if you’re not memorizing the scout, then you’re not really doing what you’re supposed to.”
So what does the Pope test at Kentucky involve?
“In shootaround, we’ll all just line up,” Oweh said, “and whoever your matchup is, and it doesn’t even have to be your matchup, he’ll just ask you something like, ‘Give us three words to describe this guy’ and we have to do that.”
Three words?
“And you can’t say ‘um’ because that counts as a word,” Williams said.
“It’s kind of like school, a little bit,” Oweh said.
These pop quizzes don’t just happen at shootarounds, either.
“He kind of calls people out in film (sessions),” Williams said.
“We take film pretty serious, I would say,” Oweh said. “We have to, to be successful.”
So is every Wildcat passing these Pope tests?
“Everyone has passed so far,” Williams said.
After all, who wants to be embarrassed in front of their teammates, right?
“I don’t know if it’s that,” Williams said. “I just feel like everyone is locked in and ready to win. Especially when we’re that close to the game. It’s just something everyone knows and does.”
“It just (makes sure) everyone to remember the scout, because if you’re not going to play you might actually play,” Oweh said. “Say we have foul trouble. It’s just key for everyone to remember their own scout.”
So far, so good. Kentucky’s scouting report made a difference in UK’s 77-72 win over Duke in the Champions Classic when, late in the game, Pope told his team that Blue Devils star Cooper Flagg liked to spin to the center of the floor. That info allowed Oweh to help off the man he was guarding and make a key steal in the victory.
During his five years at BYU, Pope was 24-26 in “true” road games. That included a 2-7 road record in 2022-23 and a 3-7 road record last season, the Cougars’ first in the Big 12. But that also included BYU’s 76-68 win over then No. 7-ranked Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence on Feb. 27, 2024. It was Kansas’ only home loss of the season and ended the Jayhawks’ 19-game win streak at “The Phog.”
“He approaches every game the same,” Williams said. “Knowing what their players do, the actions and how we can stop it. And knowing what we can do and how we can exploit their defenses the way we play. Those are things that we focus on.”
