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It’s hard to imagine that even the always optimistic Mark Pope could have envisioned a better scenario for his first game as Kentucky’s coach than what he got Wednesday when UK blasted Kentucky Wesleyan 123-52.
Kentucky hit 21 3-pointers and shot 50 percent from 3 and 60 percent over. Eight players scored in double figures and the game was over within the first eight minutes to prevent any fan anxiety about Pope’s UK debut.
“We are deadly serious about winning. Winning matters. I don’t spend a lot of time – I don’t spend as much time – I know this sounds very contradictory. I don’t know exactly how to explain it. We are here to win,” Pope said after Wednesday’s win. “This is Kentucky. The first time we don’t win a game you guys are all going to go burn my house down. Okay?
He didn’t deny there were “nerves” with the team playing for the first time in Rupp Arena.
“This is Kentucky and there are massive expectations and all of those things. You know,
I’m really consumed with seeing how fast we can get better. The way we get better by just being dialed in on exactly what we are doing,” Pope said. “I wasn’t anticipating seeing anything on the stat sheet. I was just curious about how well do we coach our guys being great decision-makers and all the ways we do it and how well we can get our guys … I was really concerned about our energy.”
Pope explained the emotional energy and focus he wants his team to keep during games and he admitted he tried to gauge his team’s energy before the game.
“The guys were probably better than I was in terms of the energy that they came out with to be able to have great intensive energy but still be a decision-maker and executing,” Pope said. “We are spending a lot more time thinking about those things. Then this just happens because of what we are focusing on.”
4 Responses
Ride Captain Ride!
I guarantee he gets a banner in his first 3 years here. He actually motivates the players to play.
I like hearing the players say he gives them confidence. That’s a lot different than saying "coach has confidence in me."
He reminds me of a Rupp legendary quote at half-time when UK was producing National Champs! UK was up by some amazing amount at the half (40-10 ?) – some gigantic runaway and he went into the locker room asking “whose many was that which scored” ? I don’t recall the details but one of the old timers here surely remembers. Was it the 1st shot the opponent made? I don’t know but it’s a classic