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Kentucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart has been pleased with the way Mark Pope has hit the ground running while assembling his first squad as coach of the Wildcats.
“I don’t want to make him sound like ‘Superman’ here, because he still has things he has to do, but I’ll tell you that he’s off to a terrific, terrific start,” Barnhart said during an appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show on the SEC Network Wednesday.
In addition to assembling a roster and a schedule for next season, Barnhart said Pope’s philosophy aligns with Big Blue Nation, who have had their sights set on a ninth national title. It’s been more than a decade — 12 years — since the Wildcats have won an NCAA championship.
“Our fans are anxious to win No. 9,” he said. “That’s important to them. No one understood that assignment better than Mark. He was the right fit for us at the right time. It was a variety of things that happened along the way that were really, really special and Mark touched the right buttons in understanding exactly what Kentucky was all about.”
Since Pope’s hiring, Barnhart has been impressed with his ability to bring enthusiasm to the position, one that Barnhart has grown to appreciate during the past two months.
“At Kentucky, we’ve got to be unique a little bit,” Barnhart said. “We’re not sometimes gonna be able to out-talent everybody. In basketball, we might be able to do that, but in some of the sports we’ve got to figure out our own personality. Mark does a really good job of bringing the talent with the personality and now we’ve got to go produce something with a Kentucky schedule next fall and win some games.
“He’s a guy that has an ability to bring people in and make them believe in themselves at a high level. You walk into his office and you feel like you’ve been talking to him for an awfully long time. He and his wife Lee Anne, their four girls, we’re super excited to have ’em in our program. … We’ve got a long way to go, but I’m thankful for the start we were given. Now we need to build on that.”
In addition to Pope, Barnhart praised his other coaches, including baseball skipper Nick Mingione, who has taken the Wildcats to national prominence this season. Kentucky is a No. 2 seed behind Tennessee in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
“We’ve got some really good coaches that have done some really good things for Kentucky,” he said. “They’ve each got their own personality. Mark Stoops is a guy who has generated toughness for our (football) program, Mark (Pope) has got an ability to relate to the big picture of Kentucky basketball. And I just watched an interview someone did with Nick Mingione; Nick has created his own style for Kentucky baseball that has allowed us to win a share of the conference championship and be a national seed and host.”
3 Responses
It was very encouraging to see UK’s transfer class rated #4 in the country. It was not as encouraging to see that St. John’s, Louisville, and Vanderbilt finished above us. How can any of the 3 have any more attractiveness or tradition for that? I must be missing something.
Pre-season ratings mean nothing. By January, we will be the talk of college basketball…again!
That would be awesome.